Why you should design your banking app for Generation Z today, not tomorrow
Born in 2000, I’m from what you call Generation Z. I don’t remember a 2008 crisis. Since I was a small kid, I’ve been using phones and computers. The world around me has always been digital.
I’m managing my finances from age 14 and running my own company since 18. Yet, the banking apps that I’ve been using (with a few exceptions) are still far from ideal in UI and UX. And that’s in a country with a pretty young baking system.
Today almost 25% of the US population is under the age of 19. In Europe, this number is slightly lower — only 20%, but it’s still a considerable chunk of the population. They might not be the most spending generation yet, but in 10 years, their income will surpass that of Millennials.
Fintech trends change, but one thing remains clear — you should focus on your audience more than anything else. According to Roostermoney 56% of parents give their children regular allowances. Teens and children in the US alone receive more than 1.6 billion dollars every month. While most banks don’t focus on Gen Z yet, they provide programs for teens under 18. Using it, parents can send pocket money directly to their child’s account within one ecosystem. But the most important thing is that teenagers are learning how to manage their finances in the digital era. And eventually, they might choose their parents’ bank when they grow up.
While zoomers might not be the focus of your business today, but the products (primarily digital ones) should. It will ultimately make the user experience better for everyone else.
Millennials were growing up in the digital age; Gen Zers were born in it. The attention span of a Gen Zer is at low 8 seconds compared to 12 seconds for a Millennial. They prefer different brands and products, but their expectation from the user experience is comparable. Gen Zers are more demanding and have higher expectations from products. We don’t remember the dark age of web 2.0 and phones without apps. So you might think about Generation Z and their requirements as a benchmark for your app. If the app is great enough for them, it will be perfect in the eyes of a Millenial.
And it applies to banking apps more than to everything else. As we understand them today, banks are unwieldy institutions that are too slow to integrate innovations. They missed Millennials and might lose another generation to new upcoming products on the market. Zoomers wouldn’t wait until their bank launches an app with the features they need. They would choose a bank that already has one.
You don’t need branches if you’re always online.
Banks love when their clients stop by. While some surveys suggest that Gen Zs are not against going to a bank branch now and then, they still want to have the ability to do everything online, starting from creating a bank account to ordering a new design for a credit card. An ideal experience for a Gen Zer would be never to visit a bank at all. There are already a plethora of digital-only banks, and more are opening every year.
Managing finances online makes it easier for everyone. As a business — you can reduce operational costs and optimize workflows. Since most people will deal with their accounts online, your employees can spend their time assisting other customers with more complex issues than “please check my account balance.”
More than that, you can add more services to your mobile banking app. So it’ll become an all-in-one super app. Just take a look at WeChat, which is used pretty much for everything.
Even the environment could benefit from online banking — you won’t be spending that much paper on printing and other stuff.
Transparency and sustainability
What defines Gen Z is that we are open to each other and expect the same transparency from the products and brands we like and use. We are curious and want to know everything about the product:
- Where the resources are coming from.
- How and where it was built or assembled.
- Who was working on it?
We care about the environment and usually value sustainability and quality over the price.
The same applies to banks. You might look great on a surface, but don’t expect that it will be enough for a Gen Z. Be open about what and why you do. We respect that.
We also are very curious about our finances and want to learn how to manage them. The 2008 Crisis might not have impacted us directly, unlike our parents who felt it like no one else. That’s why our parents teach us that every transaction and commission counts. The access to information should be quick and without going to hundreds of menus. The great UX is not about having more functions — it’s about how you present them.
Building relationships through emotions
When you think about a banking app, what are the words that come to your mind? It might be security, money, payments, balance. The thing is that you don’t think about fun or something emotional.
Generation Z wants to have an emotional connection with the product they use. So you want your app to build those emotional connections. You might use gamification, mascots, personalization options, even secret features which the users need to discover by themselves first. They will make your app more engaging and help you win over a Gen Zer.
One of the best examples that comes to mind is the “A Year in Review” feature, allowing users to share what stores they visited the most or what type of fruit they bought but the most with a couple of stories. It’s somewhat similar to the year in review by Spotify. But allows users to control what to share because we are still talking about finances here.
Focusing on the future
While Generation Z might not be the focus of your bank today, designing your digital products with them in mind will be beneficial for everyone right now. There is nothing bad in making your products more open, sustainable, easier, and fun to use.
