--- title: "Bank Brand Sentiment: 40.6% of Online Mentions Are Negative" url: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/bank-brand-mentions-sentiment description: "Bank brand sentiment is the most negative of eight industries: 40.6% of recent online mentions are negative and 25.2% positive. See the data." lang: en --- Share Share on X: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fbank-brand-mentions-sentiment&text=Banks%20Get%20the%20Most%20Negative%20Online%20Coverage%20of%20Eight%20Industries%3A%2040.6%25%20of%20Mentions Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fbank-brand-mentions-sentiment Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fbank-brand-mentions-sentiment Share on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Fbank-brand-mentions-sentiment&title=Banks%20Get%20the%20Most%20Negative%20Online%20Coverage%20of%20Eight%20Industries%3A%2040.6%25%20of%20Mentions **40.6%** of recent online mentions of bank brands are negative, the highest share of eight industries, and just 25.2% are positive. Capital One gets the most coverage and has the mildest tone of any bank. Analysis of 30,000 online mentions of 30 bank brands · news sites, blogs, stores and other web pages, September 2026 ## Key Findings 1. 1. **40.6%** of recent online mentions of bank brands are negative, the highest share of eight industries, ahead of airlines at 38.1%. Copy stat 2. 2. Only **25.2%** of recent online mentions of bank brands are positive, so negative mentions of banks outnumber positive ones by more than three to two. Copy stat 3. 3. **48.5%** of news mentions of bank brands are negative, against 34.9% of bank mentions on other websites. Copy stat 4. 4. Capital One is the most-mentioned bank brand online, with **75.4 million** web mentions, 31% of the total for 29 banks. Copy stat 5. 5. Capital One has the least negative coverage of 30 bank brands, with **14.6%** of recent mentions negative, followed by Discover Bank at 15.4%, against 40.6% for banks overall. Copy stat ## Summary A bank shows up online in a hundred ways a day: a rate table on a comparison site, a news story about fees, a forum thread about a frozen account, a local article about a branch sponsoring a school event. Most customers never read a bank's own press releases. They read these pages. That makes the tone of the wider web part of a bank's brand. Coverage feeds what people see when they search a bank before opening an account, what reporters find when they research a story, and what AI answers repeat when asked which bank to trust. For banks, that coverage leans negative. **40.6%** of recent mentions of 30 bank brands are negative, the highest of eight industries, and only 25.2% are positive. On news pages, 48.5% of bank mentions are negative. Capital One shows another path: it has the most coverage of any bank and the mildest tone, at 14.6% negative. ## What we measured On September 23, 2026 we collected the 1,000 most recent online mentions of each of 30 well-known bank brands, 30,000 mentions in all, from news sites, blogs, online stores and other pages. Each mention is scored automatically by a sentiment model for positive, negative and neutral tone, based on the text around the brand name, and web mentions count every page that contains the exact brand name. We also counted every web page that mentions each bank to measure its total coverage. A mention is negative when its negative score is the highest of the three, and strongly negative when its negative score is above 0.5 on a scale of 0 to 1. Share of coverage is a bank's web mentions divided by the combined mentions of the 29 banks ranked; Chime is not ranked by coverage because its name is an everyday word. The eight industries compared are banks, airlines, telecom, insurance, retail, streaming, fast food and hotels. ## Banks draw the most negative coverage of eight industries 40.6% of recent online mentions of bank brands are negative. Banks top the eight industries on negative coverage, ahead of airlines (38.1%), telecom (35.1%) and insurance (33%), and far ahead of hotels at 17.9%. 23.3% of bank mentions are strongly negative, and only 25.2% are mainly positive, so critical mentions of banks outnumber favorable ones by more than three to two. Recent mentions scored negative by industry Banks 40.6% Airlines 38.1% Telecom 35.1% Insurance 33% Retail 29.4% Streaming 27.5% Fast food 26.2% Hotels 17.9% Source: Suff Digital analysis of 30,000 online mentions of 30 bank brands · news sites, blogs, stores and other web pages, September 2026 Money explains much of it. People write about their bank when something goes wrong: a fee, a declined card, a fraud hold, a mortgage delay. Banks also appear constantly in news about interest rates, regulation and the economy, where the language is often about risk and loss even when the bank itself has done nothing wrong. ## News coverage of banks is harsher still News pages carry 42.6% of all bank mentions, a larger share than in most industries, and 48.5% of those news mentions are negative, against 34.9% on blogs, stores and other page types. Share negative by where the mention appears All pages 40.6% News pages 48.5% Other pages 34.9% Almost half of what the news says about banks is negative. Because news is where journalists, investors and AI answers look first, a bank's news tone matters more than its raw share. ## Capital One gets the most coverage Capital One is mentioned on 75.4 million web pages, 31% of the total for the 29 banks ranked. American Express (46.6 million) and Discover Bank (30.4 million) follow. Share of coverage by bank Capital One 31% American Express 19% Discover Bank 13% U.S. Bank 6.8% Bank of America 6.5% HSBC 3.5% Goldman Sachs 3.3% Regions Bank 2.2% Citizens Bank 2.1% Wells Fargo 2.1% | Bank | Web mentions | Share of coverage | | --- | --- | --- | | Capital One | 75.4M | 31% | | American Express | 46.6M | 19% | | Discover Bank | 30.4M | 13% | | U.S. Bank | 16.4M | 6.8% | | Bank of America | 15.8M | 6.5% | | HSBC | 8.4M | 3.5% | | Goldman Sachs | 8.1M | 3.3% | | Regions Bank | 5.3M | 2.2% | | Citizens Bank | 5.2M | 2.1% | | Wells Fargo | 5M | 2.1% | The leaders are card-heavy brands. Credit cards are compared, reviewed and promoted on countless websites, which drives coverage for the banks that issue them far beyond their branch networks. ## Capital One and Discover draw the mildest coverage Capital One has the least negative coverage of the 30 banks, at 14.6% of recent mentions, followed by Discover Bank at 15.4%. Both are among the three most-covered banks, which shows that a bank can be everywhere online without being criticized everywhere. Scores are automated and cover each brand's 1,000 most recent mentions. Recent mentions scored negative by bank Capital One 14.6% Discover Bank 15.4% Bank of America 27% BMO 27.7% KeyBank 28.3% At the other end, the five most negatively covered banks each have 57.6% or more of their recent mentions negative, led by one at 75.8%. The gap between 14.6% and 75.8% shows that tone is set bank by bank, not by the industry alone. ## What this means for banks and credit unions Start from the benchmark. A bank with 40.6% negative mentions is at the industry norm; the goal is to move below it and stay there. Track your share of negative mentions monthly, split between news and everything else, and compare it with the 48.5% news level for banks. Give the web something other than complaints to write about. Useful consumer content, such as rate guides, budgeting tools and fraud warnings, research on local economies and visible community programs gives reporters and bloggers positive reasons to name your bank. Card issuers show how much coverage product comparison pages can generate. Answer complaints where they appear, and fix the ones that repeat. Our reputation management services (https://www.suffdigital.com/services/digital-pr/reputation-management-services) team monitors bank mentions and builds the positive coverage that moves the balance. ## Embed this research Paste this on your site to embed the charts. It links back to the source automatically.

Source: Banks Get the Most Negative Online Coverage of Eight Industries: 40.6% of Mentions - Suff Digital

## Cite this study APA Suff Digital. (2026). Banks Get the Most Negative Online Coverage of Eight Industries: 40.6% of Mentions. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/bank-brand-mentions-sentiment Plain link Banks Get the Most Negative Online Coverage of Eight Industries: 40.6% of Mentions - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/bank-brand-mentions-sentiment ## Frequently asked questions ### What share of online mentions of bank brands are negative? ### Are news mentions of banks more negative? ### Which bank brand gets the most online coverage? ### Which banks have the least negative online coverage? ## Related studies - Digital PR 54% of News Mentions of Airline Brands Are Negative vs 32% Elsewhere Online: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/airline-brand-mentions-sentiment - Digital PR Just 23% of Online Mentions of Telecom Brands Are Positive vs 43.6% for Hotels: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/telecom-brand-mentions-sentiment - Digital PR 38.5% of Brand Mentions on News Pages Are Negative vs 26.2% on Other Websites: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/negative-brand-mentions-online - Digital PR Only 17.9% of Online Mentions of Hotel and Lodging Brands Are Negative vs 40.6% for Banks: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/hotel-brand-mentions-sentiment ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization", "name": "Suff Digital", "alternateName": "Suff Digital Marketing", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "contentUrl": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "caption": "Suff Digital" }, "image": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo" }, "description": "Suff Digital is a full-stack digital marketing agency that turns websites into predictable revenue engines, SEO, paid media, content, CRO, and web design built around revenue, not vanity metrics.", "slogan": "Digital marketing built for what's next.", "email": "hello@suffdigital.com", "telephone": "+1-629-236-0099", "foundingDate": "2022", "founder": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Matt Suffoletto", "jobTitle": "Founder & CEO" }, "contactPoint": [ { "@type": "ContactPoint", "telephone": "+1-629-236-0099", "email": "hello@suffdigital.com", "contactType": "sales", "areaServed": "US", "availableLanguage": [ "en" ] } ], "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Nashville", "addressRegion": "TN", "postalCode": "37219", "addressCountry": "US" }, "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "United States" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/suff-digital/", "https://www.instagram.com/suffdigital/", "https://www.youtube.com/@suffdigitalmarketing", "https://www.tiktok.com/@suffdigital" ], "knowsAbout": [ "Search Engine Optimization", "Pay-Per-Click Advertising", "Paid Social Advertising", "Conversion Rate Optimization", "Web Design", "Digital PR", "Link Building", "Website Migration", "Website Maintenance and Support", "Technical SEO", "Local SEO", "AI Search Optimization" ], "hasOfferCatalog": { "@type": "OfferCatalog", "name": "Suff Digital Services", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/ppc" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Paid Social Advertising", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/paid-social" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/cro" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Web Design", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/web-design" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Digital PR & Link Building", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/digital-pr" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Website Migration", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/website-migration" } }, { "@type": "Offer", "itemOffered": { "@type": "Service", "name": "Website Maintenance & Support", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/services/website-maintenance" } } ] } }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#website", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/", "name": "Suff Digital", "inLanguage": "en-US", "publisher": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization" } } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Article", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/bank-brand-mentions-sentiment#article", "headline": "Banks Get the Most Negative Online Coverage of Eight Industries: 40.6% of Mentions", "description": "40.6% of recent online mentions of bank brands are negative, the highest share of eight industries, and just 25.2% are positive. 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