The latest trust survey by public relations firm Edelman shows Singaporeans place a fair bit of trust in key institutions here - government, business, media and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). At 68 per cent, this is much higher than the global average of 56 per cent, which falls in the neutral zone of 50 to 59 per cent. Of the 27 countries surveyed, only the populations of a third of them trust their institutions, while those of eight countries are neutral, and those of 10 distrust them. Of the four institutions measured, only business is trusted globally at 61 per cent. The others fall in the neutral zone, with NGOs at 57 per cent, government at 53 per cent and media at 51 per cent. This trust deficit in traditional institutions has to do with the advent of the digital age that has changed how trust and confidence are applied, whether to institutions, groups, individuals - even to technology, digital tokens, apps and to information, banking and transactions online.

Instead of trust being inherent or flowing up to institutions, it now flows horizontally to peers sharing opinions on social networks and platforms such as Facebook or Tripadvisor. People rely more on friends, family and "a person like me". Individuals as social influencers often have more sway than institutions. Such distributed trust can be good. It can, for example, open possibilities for people left out by banks to tap credit. A Kenyan small loans provider, for instance, looks at data of a person's interaction with contacts on his phone to assess creditworthiness.