Co-op Bank brand damaged but recovering, says YouGov

The collapse of its deal to buy branches from Lloyds, a downgrade from Moody’s, and the controversy surrounding its bail-in have taken their toll on the Co-operative Bank brand, according to YouGov. But despite issues around public perception, the Bank retains a top ten position among UK banks, and is recovering.

Of the 27 banks that YouGov tracks, the Co-operative Bank's 'Index' score, a composite of six key image measures that look at how consumers perceive the brand, places it seventh. Three months ago it was in third place.

YouGov said the Bank’s 'Buzz' score, a net score of whether consumers have heard something positive or negative about the brand, had fallen from +12.6 on 27 April to -4 on 30 April, after the Lloyds deal collapsed. It then dropped from -5.3 on 10 May to -27.1 on 13 May after the downgrade.

It was starting to decline again from -16 on 16 June after the bail-in announcement, and finally bottomed out at -31 on 19 June. It has been recovering since.

By 8 July the ground lost in that final decline had been recovered, and the brand has plateaued since, sitting at -15 on July 22.

CEO of YouGov Stephan Shakespeare, who has been tracking the Bank's fortunes since its problems began a few months ago, said: "The Index score showed a similar but interestingly different pattern [to the Buzz scrore].

"The Co-op’s Index score was not really affected by the deal collapse, but fell badly from +12 to +4 after the downgrade, and then again to -2 off the back of the bail-in announcement. It has now recovered somewhat, and currently sits at +1.

"The Co-operative [Bank] is well on the way to recovering the buzz and overall perception ground it lost in the third dip, but it still has much work to do to get back to its position of just a few months ago," he added. "Perhaps the best perspective is to look at its position relative to other banks."