Our open data program is a natural extension of the FDIC’s efforts around transparency, to maintain and encourage trust in the safety and soundness of the US banking system.
We aim to make as much data as possible available to as many people as possible, in support of research, education, and policy creation. We believe that increased access to bank data increases knowledge, curiosity, and innovation, inspiring uses that transform the way we discover and understand the world of banking.
We are taking an incremental look at how people use our data and will continue to update this as more information comes in.
We started with one of our most popular applications on FDIC.gov, our BankFind Suite.
Background to the BankFind Study
Significant updates were made to the BankFind Suite in Fall 2022. After the updates were made, users of the BankFind Suite had feedback and provided it in a variety of ways. After the bank failures in the Spring of 2023 and the stress placed on the infrastructure backing the BankFind Suite via the APIs, divisions within the FDIC had conversations about the BankFind Suite and agreed a usability study would provide insight around the satisfaction of tool suite.
Summary
- 60% of participants were satisfied (somewhat or very) and indicate BankFind Suite is “fairly easy” to use.
- Consumers have the lowest satisfaction with individual tools of the suite overall.
- The Find Institutions tool is the most used tool in the suite.
- ∼20% of users are somewhat or very dissatisfied.
- API users are largely satisfied (∼70%) with the API component, but with 23% of total users are dissatisfied – there’s opportunity for improvement.
Survey sample
The sample population (n=1,122) included:
- Bankers (n=275)
- Analysts (n=171)
- Researchers/Academics (n=145)
- Policymakers (n=63)
- API users (n=88)
- FDIC Employees (n=137)
- Consumers (n=491)
- Total n=1,370 *
* The total number of responses is greater than the sample population, because participants could categorize themselves with more than one role.
