Florence, around the year 1450, the smell of morning mist, freshly baked bread and tanned leather lingers over the awakening city. Merchants open their shops, metal clanks, voices echo between the palazzi. In Via Larga, the Medici family opens the doors to their bank. It is not a vault that attracts customers, but an attitude: discretion, reliability, education - and the promise to keep money in motion without losing trust. The Medici realised early on that money is only as strong as the faith in those who manage it.
Trust has always been the foundation of the financial world - invisible, but indispensable. Money can be created, trust must be earned. Today, trust is not under threat, but on trial: in an age that is becoming ever more digital, faster and more disconnected.
Trust used to be personal. You knew your banker, your branch, his or her voice on the phone. Today, we invest via apps, follow algorithms and trust data that we don't understand. We let Google Maps guide us around the next traffic jam and barely realise how much we have learned to believe machines. The Medici would probably have thought this was magic - and perhaps asked who we were actually trusting.
When "maisons" show character
Financial services are becoming more digital, more efficient and cheaper. Robo-advisors manage portfolios, AI generates market analyses, blockchain systems manage billions of assets - anonymously, transparently, incorruptibly. That's a good thing. However, trust is not created in the code, but in the character of a company. It grows where attitude, history and behaviour form a whole.
The RIBI (Responsible Investment Brand Index), which analyses over 600 asset managers worldwide every year, shows how big the gap is between promises and reality. Only around half of the financial institutions can even explain what they stand for. And less than half manage to communicate their values credibly. This sounds abstract - but it can be measured in concrete terms: companies with a clear identity gain significantly more trust and customer loyalty. They grow more stably in the long term, even when markets are shaky. In other words: in a world in which products are becoming interchangeable, it is increasingly who offers them, not what is on offer, that counts.
Technology is no substitute for attitude
Investors act far less rationally than they think - this applies to both private investors and institutional professionals. The scientific consensus today is that there can be no decision without emotion. Facts serve to justify them - they are triggered by feelings, trust and instinct.
A blockchain may make transactions forgery-proof, but it is no substitute for a culture based on trust. An algorithm can read data, but it cannot embody values. Trust arises where responsibility begins. Where institutions not only manage it, but live it - in their attitude, their history, their daily actions.
One example: when UBS took over Credit Suisse in 2023, more than just a market shift occurred. A psychological vacuum was created. Many clients did not ask themselves first about returns, but rather: Who can I trust now?
The fact that smaller institutions such as ZKB, Vontobel or Pictet subsequently recorded inflows was not due to higher interest rates, but to their attitude. These banks have built up an identity over decades that has remained credible, consistent and human - even in times of crisis.
The same applies to new players: FinTechs win over time not through advertising, but through a clear brand promise - transparency, simplicity, fairness. Their identity is their product. Blockchain banks and digital asset managers with offices on Paradeplatz will emerge - places where closeness is lived and the human element merges seamlessly with increasingly digital data streams.
Trust as an economic constant
Psychologist Dan Ariely puts it in a nutshell: "We constantly overestimate how rational we are." Investors follow moods, moods follow stories - and stories need storytellers. But identity is not a marketing matter, not a re-branding, not a new coat of paint - but an economic necessity. It is the framework within which behaviour is interpreted.
This can be proven empirically: The Edelman Trust Index has shown for years that financial institutions that are perceived as approachable achieve up to 40 % higher customer loyalty. Trust works like compound interest - it grows slowly but exponentially.
Anyone who invests money today or has it managed should not only pay attention to returns and fees, but also to attitude. What values characterise the company to which I entrust my assets? How consistently does it act when markets fluctuate or the wind changes?
A credible identity is not reflected in advertising slogans, but in behaviour - in the way a bank or asset manager communicates, takes responsibility and deals with mistakes. It lies in the little things: whether an advisor is available and listens, whether decisions are comprehensible, whether promises are kept even when things get uncomfortable.
Because trust is built over time, through actions, not words. As an investor, it is worth taking a close look: not only at what someone promises, but also at who says it - and how he or she behaves when it matters.
Trust is not a relic of bygone times, but the foundation of any functioning economy - back then in Florence, today in the digital financial system. The Medici knew that money is just a tool and that its value depends on those who manage it. This has not changed to this day.
Those who create trust create stability. And those who create stability enable progress. Money may move faster than ever before - but it still follows the same gravitational force: the hard currency of trust.
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Markus Kramer is Managing Partner at Brand Affairs, Senior Visiting Fellow at Bayes Business School in London, co-author of the Swiss Private Banking Identity Index (SPBIx) and the global Responsible Investment Brand Index (RIBI).
