The 'Generation Y'ers are unhappy, so what are you going to do about it? The problem is that Generation Y – those aged between 18 and 34 – expect their bank to be on top of all the latest tech developments. In particular, they want to access their account via social media, a service that banks have been slow to provide and which presents them with a number of challenges. But failure to really grasp social media is going leave banks vulnerable to losing a generation of customers to non-banks and alternative providers.
The evidence that banks are not hitting the target with Generation Y comes in the latest World Retail Banking Report released by consultantcy Capgemini and financial services body Efma. A survey contained in the report recorded a decrease in the percentage of customers with a positive banking experience. This has been attributed to unhappy younger customers – which make up between a quarter and a third of the total population in many markets – who want to do mobile banking, flit seamlessly from one to channel to another and access their bank via social media.
