ThetaRay has published its UK Banking & FinTech Trust Report 2026, revealing that the vast majority of UK consumers are prepared to leave their primary bank if it fails to prevent financial crime.
The report found that 88% of UK customers would abandon their financial institution following failures related to money laundering or terrorist financing, while 87% would actively warn others away from a bank implicated in such breaches. A further 81% now cite anti-money laundering (AML) effectiveness as a leading factor when choosing a new financial provider. The research was conducted by Centiment on behalf of ThetaRay, surveying 1,023 UK-based respondents representative of the broader population.
The findings were released ahead of The Global RegTech Summit and paint a picture of a consumer base increasingly unwilling to tolerate both financial crime failures and the friction caused by outdated compliance systems. Some 96% of respondents said they expect real-time transparency when transactions are frozen, and 80% indicated they would move to a different provider if repeatedly inconvenienced by security checks.
Despite the growth of digital banking, 68% of consumers still rely on high-street banks as their primary provider, although 28% have now incorporated FinTech services into their core banking arrangements. The report also highlights that while 88% of UK customers currently trust their banks — with the sector consistently ranked as the most trusted in finance since 2023 — that confidence is conditional. Some 70% of respondents said the speed and clarity of digital onboarding directly determines whether they complete or abandon an application, while 96% said they expect clear explanations of onboarding requirements, a standard that legacy, rule-based systems are said to be ill-equipped to meet at scale.
ThetaRay is a global provider of AI-powered financial crime compliance solutions, focused on helping financial institutions detect and prevent money laundering and related financial crime activity.
ThetaRay CEO Brad Levy said, “Compliance has moved from back office to front-line engine for customer retention. Switching banks is no longer a major barrier for consumers, and they expect trust, convenience and strong AML practices from their financial institutions.”
ThetaRay VP financial crime & compliance AI Garima Chaudhary said, “The data proves that legacy, rule-based systems are creating a double-edged risk: they are both too wide a net for modern criminals and too rigid for the modern consumer. For leaders, AI native infrastructure is now the only way to protect brand equity and prevent mass deposit flight.”
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