Americans' confidence in banks still low: poll

Americans' confidence in banks remains low, at 27 percent, eight years after the U.S. economy took a nosedive, found a Gallup poll released Thursday.

The current percentage of adults who say they have confidence in banks is just half of what it was in 2004, when 53 percent expressed confidence in the institution. The record high was 60 percent in 1979.

About half of Americans expressed confidence in banks in most polls in the 1980s, but confidence suffered in the early 1990s after the Savings and Loan crisis, a major financial crisis, with confidence ranging from 30 percent to 37 percent.

But by the late '90s, confidence improved, ranging from 40 percent to 44 percent. Confidence in banks gained in the early 2000s, reaching a majority level by 2004.

It then fell to 32 percent in June 2008 after the recession began but before the October 2008 financial crisis. By June 2009, just 22 percent of Americans had confidence in banks, Gallup found.

The June 1-5 poll comes at a time when the fallout of the 2008 economic calamity, in which Americans lost trillions of dollars in household wealth, still dogs the economy, and millions of Americans continue to struggle to make ends meet.

The fallout from the 2008 financial crisis continues to affect Americans' views of the banking industry. Despite some signs of economic recovery, views of the economy's overall health remain negative, and most Americans are not willing to express confidence in banks, Gallup found.

Regaining Americans' trust in recent years appears to be difficult for the banking industry, and it is unclear when, or if, Americans' confidence in banks will be restored to what it was a decade ago, Gallup said. Endi