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# How in-house teams run financial services market research
- URL: https://pulsecorp.co/blog/market-research-financial-services/
- Published: 2026-10-22T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T12:00:02.000Z
- Description: How in-house teams run market research in financial services: methods, consent and PII review, recruiting and sample questions.
- Author: Khyati Ojha

Market research in financial services is primary and secondary research on how people and businesses choose, use, trust and leave financial products. In-house teams at banks, insurers and payments companies use it to decide product, pricing and messaging. This playbook covers which method answers which question, how to clear compliance review, how to recruit hard-to-reach customers, and what to ask.

## What does market research in financial services have to answer?

Most financial services research comes back to four decisions: the institution a customer treats as primary, why applicants abandon onboarding, what makes a fee feel fair, and the trust needed to move money. Each is a choice about a product a customer can leave, so each needs evidence on why customers stay or go.

The first of those decisions is shifting. [TruStage's What Matters Now 2026 study](https://www.trustage.com/newsroom/2026-press-releases/what-matters-now-consumer-research) surveyed 8,813 US consumers with Ipsos and was published in June 2026\. It reports that money and payment services have surged from 2 percent to 12 percent of all primary financial institution (PFI) relationships, while fintech as PFI has grown from 13 percent to 17 percent.

A share-of-wallet tracker shows a shift like that. Interviews with recent switchers show what triggered it, and that is the part a product or pricing team can act on.

## Trust is the research question under most financial product decisions

Trust decides whether someone deposits a paycheck, links an account or finishes a loan application, so most financial studies end up measuring it or explaining it. Measure trust with a tracker and explain it with interviews. Write no trust claim into a product or campaign that research has not heard customers make in their own words.

The same TruStage study found that credit unions still lead on satisfaction and trust, at 77 percent, while fintech and money movement platforms are gaining ground, especially with younger and more diverse consumers. A survey can track that gap year to year. It cannot tell a product team what would make a 30-year-old move a paycheck to a new account, or which protections a customer assumes a payments app gives them.

The TruStage study itself added 27 one-on-one qualitative interviews to its survey. Use the same split in house: the survey sizes a shift, and the interviews explain it.

## Which research method fits which financial services question?

Match the method to the decision. Surveys size share of wallet and switching intent. Interviews with recent abandoners explain failed applications. Fee perception needs interviews first and a survey second. Concept interviews test messages before a launch, and secondary or syndicated sources cover competitive positioning.

| Decision                             | Method                                   | What it tells you                                        | What it leaves open                             |
| ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| Share of wallet and switching intent | Survey                                   | How many customers hold or plan to move each product     | Why they would move                             |
| Abandoned applications               | Interviews with recent abandoners        | The step, the moment and the reason they stopped         | How common each reason is across all applicants |
| Fee and pricing perception           | Interviews, then a survey                | What a fee is compared against, and when it feels unfair | Price response, which needs a pricing study     |
| Message testing before a launch      | Concept interviews                       | Which claims customers believe and which they misread    | Which message wins across the market            |
| Competitive positioning              | Secondary sources and syndicated reports | Market structure, competitor offers and published trends | How your own customers see the choice           |

Three kinds of research service sit behind these rows. Primary research is work you run or commission for your own question. Secondary research draws on published sources, and syndicated reports are studies a research firm sells to many buyers. If your research plan is mostly surveys, the reasons behind drop-off and switching are probably missing from it.

## How do you get a study through consent, privacy and compliance review?

Treat compliance review as part of study design. Write plain-language recording consent, keep regulated data out of the screener and guide, brief legal and compliance once with the full study pack, and keep every finding traceable to its transcript. These steps are research practice your team owns; your legal team sets the rules for your markets.

### Ask for recording consent in plain language

Open every session by saying that it is recorded, who will see the recording and transcript, and how long they are kept. Ask for a clear yes before the first question.

### Keep regulated data out of the study

Screen on behavior, such as whether someone switched their main account in the past year, and never ask for account numbers, balances or identity documents. Ask participants not to read out card or account details, and redact any that come up before transcripts are shared.

### Brief legal and compliance once, before fieldwork

Send the discussion guide, the screener, the consent wording and the data retention plan together. Review then happens once, on the whole study, and fieldwork does not stall on a late question about one item.

### Make findings auditable

Every theme should point back to the exact quote and transcript. A risk or legal stakeholder can then check what a customer said, word for word, before a finding changes a disclosure or a product flow.

![Diagram: the discussion guide, a behavior-based screener with no account data, plain-language consent wording and the data retention plan go together to legal and compliance for one review before the first interview.](https://pulsecorp.co/blog/content/images/2026/10/market-research-financial-services-g93oe1.webp)

## How do you recruit hard-to-reach financial customers?

Small business owners, high-net-worth investors, people with thin credit files, recent switchers and recent application abandoners are hard to find on general panels. Recruit them on behavior and recency, use your own customer lists where you can, and remove scheduling as a barrier to taking part.

### Screen on behavior and recency

Screen on what people did and when, never on self-labels. "Moved investments between providers in the last six months" recruits a different person from "I am an investor". Add knock-out questions that catch professional survey takers, such as an implausible mix of products.

### Use your own lists and external recruitment together

Use your own lists for abandoners and churned accounts, and external recruitment for non-customers and competitor customers. Route both groups through the same screener so the samples are comparable.

### Take scheduling out of the interview

Busy segments drop out when an interview needs a calendar slot. Let them take it by link on a phone or laptop, at a time that suits them. Pulse is built for this: it [recruits participants to your screener with fraud checks](https://pulsecorp.co/product/recruitment/) or invites your own customers by link, and its AI moderator runs each interview without a scheduled call.

## Which questions work for onboarding, trust and pricing studies?

Questions about money work when they ask about a specific past event instead of an opinion. Ask people to walk through the last time they did something, then follow each vague answer with a question about what happened and what they did instead. The table rewrites three leading questions.

| Leading question                      | Behavioral rewrite                                                                                                           |
| ------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| How easy was our application?         | Walk me through the last time you stopped partway through a financial application. What were you doing just before you left? |
| Do you trust our app with your money? | Tell me about the last time you decided against moving money into an account. What made you hold back?                       |
| Is our fee fair?                      | When did you last notice a fee on a financial product? What did you compare it with?                                         |

A few more examples by study type:

- Onboarding: which step took longest, and what did you need to find before you could finish it?
- Trust: what would you need to see before you moved your salary to a new account?
- Fees: which fees do you expect on an account like this, and which would surprise you?

When a participant says "it felt risky", the next question asks what specifically felt risky and what they did instead. Pulse runs [AI-moderated interviews with adaptive follow-up](https://pulsecorp.co/product/ai-moderation/) that ask that second question when a reply is vague. For more on wording, see [how leading questions bias answers](https://pulsecorp.co/blog/how-to-avoid-bias-in-user-research-common-types-of-bias-examples/).

## A worked example from a large lender

This case is illustrative. A lender's insights team serves three business units: cards, personal loans and deposits. The personal loans team sees applicants abandon the application at income verification, and it needs to know why before it redesigns the step.

1. One brief, agreed with product, risk and compliance, with the guide, screener and consent wording attached.
2. A screener for applicants who abandoned in the last 30 days, recruited from the lender's own list.
3. Interviews taken by link, so applicants answer from a phone at a time that suits them.
4. Themes with quotes, shared with each business unit as its own cut.

Each reader gets a different finding. The product team gets the reasons applicants stopped. Compliance gets the exact wording customers misread on the income step. The study goes into the team's [research repository](https://pulsecorp.co/glossary/research-repository/), so the cards team starts from it when it reviews its own application next quarter.

![Flow of a hypothetical lender study: a brief agreed by product, risk and compliance, a screener for applicants who abandoned in the last 30 days, interviews taken by link, and themes with quotes cut for the product team, compliance and the repository.](https://pulsecorp.co/blog/content/images/2026/10/market-research-financial-services-ia3vwy.webp)

## Questions readers ask

### What is market research in finance?

Market research in finance studies how customers and businesses choose, use, trust and leave financial products. It combines primary research, such as interviews and surveys with customers, with secondary sources such as published studies and regulator data. Banks, insurers and payments companies use it for product, pricing and messaging decisions.

### What are the three types of market research services?

The three are primary research, which you run or commission for your own question; secondary research, which draws on published sources; and syndicated research, which a research firm runs once and sells to many buyers. A financial services team usually needs primary research on its own customers and secondary or syndicated data on the wider market.

### Should a financial services firm hire an agency or run research in-house?

Decide by decision type and timeline. Run fast, repeated questions in house, such as monthly drop-off interviews or a fee check before a launch, where speed and continuity matter. Commission an agency when a study needs an independent read, specialist moderators or markets your team does not cover. A large firm can run both.

### How do you handle recorded consent and personal data in customer interviews?

Ask for recording consent in plain language at the start, and say who will see the recording and how long it is kept. Screen on behavior instead of account data, ask participants not to read out account details, and redact anything sensitive before transcripts are shared. Agree the plan with legal and compliance before fieldwork.

### How do you recruit small business owners or high-net-worth customers for research?

Screen on recent behavior, such as who signed the last business banking agreement or who moved investments in the past six months. Offer an [incentive that fits the participant's seniority](https://pulsecorp.co/calculators/incentive/), and let them take the interview at a time that suits them. For existing customers, your own list is often the fastest route.