Why the banking sector needs to get serious about putting the fun into finance
It’s no laughing matter: my generation – millennials – has fallen out of love with banks. It’s a familiar narrative: banks don’t understand us, the relationship’s not going anywhere, we’d rather be on social media.
In fact, we’d rather bank via social media which is why smart banks are cosying up to platforms like Facebook.
Easy as it may be to dismiss us as ‘Generation Rent’ with a spendthrift YOLO (you only live once) outlook, many millennials will happily embrace smart finance apps which make our lives easier. An Experian survey found that 49 per cent of millennials consider themselves to be ‘savers’, with 45 per cent using tech to manage money.
What’s more, we’re digitally native and much happier to share our data and talk openly about finances than our parents. Oh, and there are a lot of us: we make up around a quarter of the UK’s population.
So how can banks mend their relationship with millennials?
1. Learn to speak our language
Letters? Bank statements? Wait, phone calls??
We’re digital natives: we use a hyper-concise and humour-filled form of English. If banks want to communicate effectively with us, they should keep the language cute and concise without being patronising. For us it’s emojis, memes and GIFs not Dear Sir/Madam. Yes, even the important stuff. Especially the important stuff.
2. Build chatbots with personality
Think Siri with a more sophisticated sense of humour…
Two out of five millennials believe chatbots provide a better service than humans and 34 per cent are open to using a chatbot for banking.
Bots streamline the customer experience and deliver real-time information with zero friction and no stress. And these interfaces aren’t just functional – they’re funny. Google is apparently hiring writers from satirical magazine The Onion to make its personal assistant more personable. You heard it here first: finance is the next funny frontier.
3. Make it into a game
Banks want to keep customers motivated and engaged, right?
Gamification – turning a task into a game – is taking the app world by storm. Smartphone bank Monzo is fast approaching cult status among its millennial audience, the self-dubbed ‘Monzonauts’. Monzo gamifies the usually-tedious process of budgeting by encouraging users to create spending targets and stick to them.
There is huge untapped potential for banks to develop innovative, entertaining financial tools to help my tech-savvy but increasingly disenfranchised generation, re-engage. And if you think we’re a tough crowd, wait until you’ve met Gen Z…