There are benefits to satisfying the mobile experience expectations of millennials for financial institutions, and especially credit unions. However, the business opportunity to please older millennials might be even more rewarding.
Not all millennials think alike according to a report, “The Millennial Influence: How Their Love of Mobile Shapes Commerce,” conducted by Black Diamond, Wash,-based Osterman Research on behalf of San Diego-based Mitek.
The survey of more than 3,000 smartphone-equipped millennials in the U.S. studied a variety of topics related to mobile device use, purchase habits, desire to use mobile devices more extensively, and their financial goals. The report also separated millennials into three age groups: younger millennials (18 to 22), mid-range millennials (23 to 28) and older millennials (29 to 34).
“All millennials are addicted to their smartphone cameras,” Kalle Marsal, chief marketing officer of Mitek, said. “It is the oldest millennials that are the most active users of their mobile device and especially with their mobile camera.”
Eighty-five percent of millennials take selfies (many more than five times per day). However, millennials want to use their camera’s functionality much more extensively for activities like verifying their identity, taking photos of their credit cards or driver’s license instead of keying in payment information, transferring funds, or enrolling for new accounts.
Only about 4% of millennials said they currently use selfies to authorize purchases but almost half (46%) said they would like to do so; only 6% of millennials use selfies to verify identify but 39% said they would like to do so; only 5% use selfies to enroll for new accounts or services, but 31% would like to do so.
“It’s a big opportunity for credit unions as they look to acquire more millennials into their memberships,” Marsal added. “They have an opportunity to stand out from their competition by embracing the camera in the acquisition and service process more.”
The mobile experience is also a key decision factor for millennials in where they do business. “Especially if it is service entities like credit unions that are smaller in scale relative to some of their big competitors,” Marsal suggested. “This is clearly a huge opportunity to leverage these kinds of insights and be more appealing to these millennials.”
The mobile user experience becomes more important as millennials age. The survey discovered older millennials are especially important because they earn about $10,000 more per year than their younger counterparts do.
Here are four key takeaways from the millennial survey:
1. Mobile banking on top. When asked which industries provide the best mobile user experience, banking ranked number one by a majority (57%), outranking car services such as Uber and Lyft. Millennials view the mobile experience from financial institutions in general as being fairly advance compared to other industries.
2. Mobile signups. Forty-three percent attempted to sign up for a financial services account from their mobile device; 38% rated the process “pretty good” while nearly 20% said it was slow and cumbersome. Of those millennials that gave up on the mobile enrollment process or were not able to finish, 28% went to a different institution.
3. Millennials’ top concern is housing. More than 50% said saving for rent or to buy a home was their top financial priority. More than a quarter of all millennials in the survey were interested in applying for a mortgage using the camera on their mobile device. The number jumps from 15% for the youngest millennials, to almost 40% for the oldest millennials who are “extremely interested” in applying for a mortgage via mobile capture.
4. A good mobile experience is essential to connecting with millennials. The desire by millennials to engage with a variety of service providers, retailers and others drives millennial demand to work primarily with providers that offer a robust mobile experience. In fact, 45% simply will not do business with providers that do not offer a satisfactory mobile experience.
