UK consumer interest in account aggregation is blighted by a fundamental mistrust of high street banks, according to a survey conducted by ICM on behalf of IT services provider CMG.
Results of the survey find 46 per cent of respondents are interested in aggregated banking, but the majority do not trust their bank to manage their money for maximum return.
Sixty-five per cent of respondents say they are on top of their finances, suggesting that they already engage in some form of manual aggregation. Seventy-eight per cent say the service should be provided free of charge.
Steve Lloyd, business development director, finance at CMG, says the results reveal a disparity between banks' intentions and customer expectations when it comes to new services.
He comments: "In a crowded marketplace, the ability to offer value-added services is a vital differentiator, not to mention revenue generator. However...only banks which can promote or make competitors products available will succeed and this may mean compromising profit to deliver what the customer really wants and needs."
The findings contradict a recent Datamonitor report, which forecast that 35 million European customers would be using account aggregation by 2005.
Datamonitor says it based its claim on the expectation that a number of Europe's largest banking providers will launch account aggregation services in the next year and extrapolations on the proportion of e-banking customers that are likely to use such a service.
Datamonitor analyst Alexis Boorman says: "I stand by our prediction of 35 million European consumers using account aggregation services by 2005."