Most Arizonans Happy With A "Large" Bank

By most people’s perceptions at least, large banks dominate the Arizona scene—and for the most part, Arizonans are just fine with that situation. These findings are courtesy of the latest, special banking edition of the O’Neil Associates Valley Monitor Poll, which asked 511 adults statewide the following pair of questions:

In your opinion, is the bank where you presently do business a relatively large bank or a relatively small bank?

If for any reason you were to change banks, would you switch to a larger bank, a smaller bank, or would you choose a bank that was about the same size as your current one?

In response to the first question, nearly three fourths (72%) of the state’s residents believe that their current bank is a "relatively large" bank, while less than one fifth (19%) think theirs is a relatively small bank. These numbers are consistent across all areas of the state, with no significant differences between respondents from Maricopa, Pima, and the state’s other counties.

Perhaps more surprisingly, most Arizonans appear to be pleased, or at least comfortable, with the size of their current banks. In fact, fully 64 percent said they likely would switch to similarly sized bank if they decided to transfer their accounts. Only 15 percent said they would move to a smaller bank, and only five percent would prefer a larger bank.

Arizonans’ responses to the second question, regarding the preferred size of their next bank, become more interesting when we crosstabulate them against the perceived sizes of their current banks. That is, are people who currently are with relatively large banks either more or less satisfied than those with smaller banks with their current bank’s size?

The answer to this question would appear to be, "No." Whether one perceives s/he currently is with a large or small bank makes little difference in how satisfied s/he is with the size of that bank; in fact, more than two thirds of both groups—68 percent of those currently with large banks and 73% of those currently with small banks—said they probably would switch to a bank of roughly the same size as their current one if they decided to move their accounts. Not surprisingly, among those respondents who said they would change to a different size, the general preference is to move to the other camp—small-bank customers to larger banks, large-bank customers to smaller banks—rather than to desire even more of the same. Thus, customers currently with small banks are more likely to prefer a larger bank (11%) than a smaller bank (5%), while those currently with large banks are more likely to prefer a smaller bank (18%) than a larger bank (4%).  

These results are based on 459 interviews conducted with randomly selected heads of household in metropolitan Phoenix. The "sampling error" associated with a survey of this size is approximately ±4.6 percent. This means that the chances are approximately 95 in 100 that we would have obtained the same results, within a margin of ±4.6%, had we interviewed every adult resident of Maricopa County.