Apple, Google Are Trusted Less Than Banks With Payments Data: Study

Consumers trust Google with their emails and Apple with encrypting their cell phones. But neither is trusted by consumers to protect their payment information, says a new study.

Though more Americans turn to the web to shop for gifts and other items, three out of four online buyers aren’t confident in retailer security of their payment information, according to a survey of 6,200 online buyers by Bizrate Insights. Of companies that handle payment and personal information, 72 percent of survey takers trusted their bank the most. PayPal and Amazon, trailed behind with less than half of online shoppers indicating confidence in the companies.

Despite pushes from Apple in recent months to promote privacy as a benefit of using products such as their iPhones, only 21 percent of shoppers trusted the company with their payment information. Google fared even worse, earning only 12.9 percent of shoppers’ trust.

While all generations of shoppers placed most of their trust in banks, millennials were more willing to put their trust in other companies such as PayPal and Amazon, according to the survey. And though Apple and Google were on the lower end of the trusted companies, the study found that younger generations were more likely to trust the companies.

“Among these tech transactional titans, it is those that have low barriers for usage and that have put consumer protection in the forefront, that have earned the greatest amount of trust,” Hayley Silver, VP of Bizrate Insights, said in a press release. “Paypal ranking number two, and with greater than 50 percent trust from the younger generations, could be a ‘Major Opportunity’ that deserves more investigation among its customer base.”

Data from the study was collected from over 6,200 surveys of shoppers from 5,000 e-commerce retailers between Oct. 23 and Oct. 28, according to the company.

Online retail in the U.S. accounted for $263 billion in sales in 2013 and is expected to grow to $414 billion in 2018, according to research from Forrester.