Millennial Minute: Sharing Data Digitally Not a Hangup for 80% of Millennials Opening New Accounts

The pandemic has pushed the digital shift forward by three to five years minimum, and that’s made it easier — and more attractive — for high-earning millennials and bridge millennials to open financial accounts. It’s also intensified the focus on the data consumers share to create these accounts remotely, as fraudsters exploit any and every opportunity to intercept and misuse this information.

In the study Account Opening and Loan Servicing In The Digital Environment, a report produced by PYMNTS in collaboration with Finicity, a Mastercard company, and gleaned from the responses of more than 2,300 U.S. consumers, we find millennials — the demographic most comfortable sharing personal data online — leading the digital advance.

Digital Accounts Run On Data

In all, 59% of U.S. adults (an estimated 151 million people) opened new financial accounts in the preceding year, with Gen Z consumers leading at 82%, and their millennial siblings right at 80%, and bridge millennials coming in at 76%. These take many forms.

For example, 71% of bridge millennials and 70% of millennials have a loan account open with an outstanding balance, far ahead of older demos like baby boomers, seniors and even Gen Z.

Somewhat ironically, the account type most frequently opened via digital channels by millennials’ closely related Gen Z cohort are traditional bank accounts, at 46%.

Data sharing is both fuel and facilitator for remote account setup and onboarding experiences, making it an ideal way to appeal to the digital native and digital-first generations.

“Younger consumers — 42% of millennials and 40% of Generation Z consumers — were the most likely to consider sharing their financial data through a mobile app as more secure than providing paper copies of information. Proof of employment and income are the most common types of data consumers are willing to share when setting up an account,” per the study.

The Trust Factor

For the growing number of companies that are either digital natives or making investments to bring more digital functionality to current and potential account holders, trust in the technology is a key underpinning of effective digital account creation.

This is especially true as more consumers use these accounts to manage outstanding loans — mortgages and auto loans are standouts for younger demos — and want security assured.

PYMNTS’ research found that roughly half of the consumers who don’t use a digital channel to manage and pay balances fear data theft and are drawn to systems emphasizing security.

Convenience is another major draw. We found that 64% of millennials and 60% of bridge millennials are “more” or “much more” likely to open a new account if they can log in to their existing bank and automatically have financial data ported to the new account.

This suggests that “generations more comfortable with the security implications of data sharing are willing to take advantage of it occasionally for convenience.”

Get the study: Account Opening And Loan Servicing In The Digital Environment