There is an interesting false equivalence here between pension funds and banks. But it's a personal annecdote, so really it's up to you what made you lose faith in "the system".
The dissimilarity of pension funds & banks is present, and so there's no opposition to that objection.
> But it's a personal annecdote, so really it's up to you what made you lose faith in "the system".
I'll admit my pro-crypto stances upfront, but the anti-crypto stance of "Oh it's just your opinion that 'the system' messed up" is highly non-conducive when it comes to getting people out of crypto & trusting the current financial system once again.
To those people, their rightfully legitimate concerns of corruption, non-transparency, & failure to even partially repay the funds lost are dismissed as 'anecdotal', much like the concerns of every privacy-concerned individual before Snowden's leaks were made public.
To that end, verall, your dismissal of the parent's experiences as anecdotal will sour the opinions of the concerned & cause them to dig in their heels even further. It does not help alleviate their concerns, nor does it help in re-establishing trust.
With regards to the actual improvements that I would like to see implemented in the current financial system, the creation of a triple-ledger accounting system [1] where transactions are anonymized-but-traceable would help a long way in re-establishing trust in the current financial system. The 3rd party in this picture wouldn't even need to be a blockchain: It would just need to be a neutral 3rd party that would make transactions on the aforementioned ledger transparent to the general public.