Millennials face $1 trillion of debt, and want money management tools to help them manage their way out of it. But mobile-banking apps are lagging.
- A study of over 1,000 mobile banking customers conducted by Business Insider Intelligence found that millennials are more interested in money-management tools in their banking apps than any other generation. The study defined money-management tools as any features that help to cut spending and grow savings.
- The most popular money-management tools among millennials surveyed were those that fostered greater understanding of a consumer's financial health and spending.
- Navy Federal Credit Union had the most money-management features of any of the banks.
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Millennials are in debt. By the end of 2018, they were in over $1 trillion of it, a vast majority of which came from student loans. According to a Deloitte study, the net worth of Americans under 35 has dropped by more than a third since 1996.
As millennials age into homeownership and other mature financial decisions, they're looking for all of the help they can get. A study of over 1,000 mobile banking customers conducted by Business Insider Intelligence found that millennials are more interested in money-management tools in their banking apps than any other generation. The study defined these tools as any feature that help to cut spending and grow savings. These tools could help banks attract economically anxious millennials who are looking to navigate their financial futures.
The most popular feature from those surveyed was the ability to view a credit score in the app, which was rated as extremely valuable by 48% of millennials, but was only offered by slightly more than half of the banks studied.
Read more: 'Who is Finn?': JPMorgan's banking app for millennials seemed destined to fail from the start
Other tools that focused on better understanding money, like the ability to view recurring charges and the option to filter spending by date ranges, were also highly-rated by millennials.
Six banks offered all three of these features (Bank of America, Citibank, NFCU, SunTrust, USAA, and Wells Fargo) but only one of these banks, Navy Federal Credit Union, also offered the ability to set spending limits on a card. This feature was doubly as important to millennials as it was to Gen X, with 32% of millennials rating it very valuable. NFCU was one of only four banks in the study to offer the ability to set spending limits.
Another highly popular feature, the ability to cancel digital media subscription services, was not offered by any of the banks in the study. This service was rated as extremely valuable by 39% of millennials and was also quite popular among Gen X and Baby Boomers. The closest to offering this service is Wells Fargo, which will identify subscription services and teach the user how to end those subscriptions.
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