The financial crisis in Europe appears to have spilled over into Americans' perceptions of U.S. banks. Whether and how the problems in Europe will be fixed seems to change daily. Still, some on Wall Street have voiced fears that the European banking crisis might be similar to what the U.S. experienced in 2008 and 2009 -- and that's reason enough to be concerned about the global financial system.
In the U.S., the Occupy Wall Street movement's goals and future remain uncertain. But the heightened anti-Wall Street and anti-bank feelings that inspired the movement haven't gone away.
For example, when the Federal Reserve announced a reduction in the fees that banks could charge retailers for processing debit card payments, several major banks -- including Bank of America -- notified customers that they would begin charging a monthly fee for using debit cards, in part to recoup the lost revenue. The resulting consumer backlash caused the banks to abandon their plans as consumers threatened to move their accounts to smaller institutions and credit unions and as Washington threatened an investigation into the debit card fees.
In this interview, Gallup Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe, Ph.D., reflects on Americans' declining confidence in U.S. banks. He suggests that today's bankers need to "think behavioral economics" -- the study of the role emotions play in the marketplace -- if they want to avoid making an extremely challenging situation even worse.
Read the interview here.