By Victoria Kerr, digital copywriter and content strategist with a long career writing B2B content for for technology giants, big banks, leading financial services firms, and SaaS startups.

Risky financial advice, dodgy home loans, fees for no service, charging dead people. These were just some of the eyebrow-raising fails exposed in excruciating detail at last year’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services industry.

Now, post Royal Commission, it’s a time when trust in banking, superannuation, insurance, and financial advice is at a new low. With venerable reputations shot to bits, there is much work to be done by incumbents to restore consumer confidence.

Not surprisingly, the Australian Banking Association lost no time in getting on the front foot. Hot on the heels of the release of the final report of the Royal Commission, ABA CEO Anna Bligh said that banks are determined to learn the lessons, fix the problems and make it right, taking this opportunity to reset their relationship with customers and the public.

Competitive marketplace
Meanwhile, with the advent of open banking and the New Payments Platform (NPP), surely, there’s never been a better time for any newly fledged fintech, unencumbered by historical misconduct woes, to enter the market? In this post-commission era of higher standards and greater scrutiny, squeaky-clean fintechs will be in a prime position to pick up dissatisfied customers.

Recent research backs this up. When Capgemini surveyed more than 10,000 retail banking customers in 20 countries last year for its World Retail Banking Report , it found close to one third of customers are open to considering financial products and services from established tech companies. Among Millennial respondents, they found an even stronger compulsion, with 43% of them interested in banking with big techs.

Closer to home, insights from Nielsen from January report more than 2.1 million Australians are looking to switch banks within the next six months. Many of these are looking to consider digital banks.

Earning trust
Whether it’s the incumbents resetting their relationships, or new players springing into action, trust is everything. And it’s a big challenge. In long-form marketing content, this calls for finding the right balance between creativity, integrity, and transparency.

And there’s no margin for error. Sub-optimal user experience and poorly expressed web copy could lead to further alienating customers and extinguishing trust. Content that’s too cute may be seen as misleading.

Commitment to quality
To meet customer expectations requires creating content that your customers truly care about, written in plain English, and optimised for their preferred channel.