For the second year in a row since the global financial downturn, The Marketing Audit conducted a global survey of over 200 financial service executives on behalf of Deloitte in order to shed some light on the future of the global financial services industry. The results were presented in the report "Positioning for a New Financial Landscape." Some key findings include:

• Over half of survey respondents were optimistic about the prospects for their industry over the coming year, but the remaining 49 percent underline the remaining uncertainty within the industry and the broader economy.
• The survey asked respondents to identify any positive aspects that resulted from the financial crisis and economic downturn. Interestingly, respondents based in the European, Middle East, and Africa region (EMEA) indicated that a focus on cost reduction was the most positive outcome, while the majority of North American respondents voted for the opportunity to strengthen their institution’s brand.
• When asked about changes to customer behavior, survey respondents indicated that they expected customers to be better educated about both buying choices and the risk involved. Almost 23 percent of executives expect customers to be more price sensitive, and over 23 percent expect their competition to try to undercut them with lower priced offerings.
• The financial crisis also revealed the dependence many institutions had on easily available liquidity. When credit markets froze, it dealt a catastrophic blow to some of these institutions’ solvency and operations. Fittingly, the majority of respondents indicated that their top priority regarding liquidity would be to secure more stable sources.
• Institutions indicated that the two priority focus areas for rebuilding trust and reputation were to make employees more aware of reputational issues and to re-align the values of their corporate culture.

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