Opinion Surveys

Customer survey scores reported on our tables are from our surveys of Consumer Reports and CHECKBOOK subscribers, conducted via email and regular mail.

We have included on our Ratings Tables all of the banks for which we received at least 10 ratings on our customer surveys. If a bank is not listed on our Ratings Tables, it simply means we did not receive at least 10 ratings for it.

Since many banks were rated by rather small numbers of raters, small differences between two banks in the percentage of raters who gave a particular rating (say, "superior") should be ignored. The table below gives a rough guide to minimum differences you should look for in deciding on one bank over another.

When using these survey data, remember that the questions are to some degree subjective and that the differences among banks might be explained by differences in the personalities, backgrounds, critical standards, and other characteristics of the raters or by biases these raters might have.

Timeliness of the Data

All of the data must be interpreted in view of timeliness. Our customer survey data are from surveys conducted from January 2008 to August 2011. Survey respondents were asked to report on experiences in the preceding year.

For the most part, our tables include banks for which we collected 10 or more ratings on our customer survey during the customer survey period mentioned above, but we do not report data for periods prior to banks' changes of name and ownership. As a result, some large banks are not listed at all. If only name or ownership changed, we do report the data. Changes subsequent to the dates listed above may not be taken into account.

Top Ratings

We give checkmarks to banks that score highest on a scoring system that we devise for each service field. Our scoring systems weight the various data in our tables and text based on our subjective judgment of their importance. Since the scores are based entirely on information presented, you can apply your own subjective judgments, and decide whether you prefer banks we have not given checkmarks. Where we do not have important data on a bank, we cannot give our checkmark.