Information gleaned by Cornerstone Advisors in its recent study reveals “Much of consumers’ day-to-day financial lives take place “off the radar” of the traditional financial institutions that they work with.” Whilst the study carried out in October 2020 is American, it seems likely that the results are echoed in other countries and regions.
To start with, 76% of smartphone owners use fintech-created mobile apps to manage their finances, from companies such as Robinhood, PayPal, and Credit Karma.
The generational differences in use are predictable: “93% of Gen Zers and Millennials (21 to 40 years old) use mobile financial apps, 81% of Gen Xers (41 to 55 years old) are fintech users, and even 56% of Baby Boomers use at least one mobile app to help them manage their financial lives,” the study states.
Banks unaware of new customer behaviour
However, the research does throw up some surprises. It points out that although traditional banks are aware of the growth of consumer use of fintech products, they are much less aware of the ways in which this impacts them. Banks have lost some business to fintechs, but they also share customers with fintechs, and this appears to be something they are blissfully unaware of. Ron Shevlin in Forbes says, “ They think that because customers have an account with them that they’re the only bank their customers do business with.”
That is certainly not true. Consumers “don’t close out and switch accounts—they simply add another account,” the study says, and “Challenger banks – Chime, most prominently – are gaining market share among consumers and are rated extremely highly by consumers on the value they provide.” As a result, a quarter of a trillion dollars annually is flowing through payment mechanisms outside of those provided by traditional financial institutions.
Shevlin also cites the story of HNWI behaviour. One bank CEO urged a client to diversify his $5 million investment account. The client’s response was “you have my funny money—my play money. The majority of my holdings are with a different investment management firm.” This is called a ‘shadow financial life’ that is defined as “Financial behaviors and activities that evade observation from the other financial institutions they do business with.” Mobile apps play a major role in helping to create clients’ shadow financial lives.
For example, , 30% of Americans with an investment account (25 million) also have an account at a digital brokerage or robo-advisor, e.g. Robinhood, Acorns, or Stash. Furthermore, one-third of JPMorgan clients and 27% of Merrill Lynch clients have an account at a digital brokerage or robo-advisor – and the big guys don’t know anything about it.
Another factor in shadow financial lives is the adoption of digital bank accounts as a second string. About 1 in 6 Americans have second bank accounts with digital-only challenger banks, and amongst consumers with three checking accounts, 30% of the third account are at digital banks.
How does this impact on the traditional banks? First, Americans with more than one checking account keep a lot of their money in their additional accounts, as much as 35% of their total deposits. And those with three accounts, keep an even larger amount of money in their secondary accounts. The second and third accounts are also preferred for making payments by 1 in 4 consumers.
Digital banks are not completely immune from shadow banking. Among consumers who consider a digital bank their primary bank, 42% have more than one account—and half of them have that second account with a traditional bank.
Shadow finances change banking scene
One consequence of the emergence of consumers’ shadow financial lives, largely enabled by financial mobile apps, is that the function of a current/checking account has dramatically changed. It also means that the banks with ‘primary’ account status no longer have the same opportunity to deepen customer relationships, as the customer is now more interested in “best-of-breed features, not accounts,” Shevlin says. Consumers now want the new savings apps, because they don’t want a savings account – the want to save more money, a service the apps supply. Laslty, banks still believe that marketing accounts, savings and other types of accounts are the most important focus, whereas the truth is that for everything they offer, the consumer replies, “There’s an app for that.”