Consumer perception of deposit insurance: little awareness, limited effectiveness?

The empirical findings on bank runs and market discipline are at odds with the theoretical predictions from the literature, at least in emerging markets. Using unique survey data from the Netherlands, we explore two possible explanations: deposit holders may have limited knowledge of deposit insurance (DI)-schemes or they may not fully trust these schemes to be executed faithfully. We find that knowledge on the eligibility for DI is limited, particularly when it concerns minor banks. Nevertheless, households with more deposits have better knowledge of the DI-scheme and show higher levels of trust. In addition, deposit holders generally expect an associated payback time that well exceeds the time it has taken to pay back depositors in the past. Moreover, consumers believe repayment is more likely and faster for large, systemic banks. These results confirm that both households' awareness of the coverage and trust in the operations of the DI-scheme are suboptimal.