Millennials – Challenge and Opportunity for Credit Unions

by Chris Steffes, Remote Services Consultant

This fall, the UK-based mobile payments company, Monitise, published research on mobile trends and statistics impacting digital banking. With over 300 perspectives on global mobile use, it provides valuable insight to credit unions when considering how to attract new members.

The jury has returned a verdict when it comes to millennials and their attitudes towards financial institutions. 53% of millennials don’t believe their bank/credit union is any different from other financial institutions. 73% would be more excited about a new financial services offering from Google/Amazon/Apple/Square/Paypal than their own bank.

And most alarming – 33% believe that soon, they won’t need a bank/credit union at all.

Despite the challenges most credit unions face in attracting millennials, there are significant growth opportunities available to credit unions who leverage millennial values within their member acquisition strategy. Here are a few ideas to set your credit union apart from the competition:

• Enlist millennials’ help in designing new product offerings. 
  If there are two things we know about millennials, it’s that they love to be engaged in trending topics and they love to use social media. Why not start a social media contest that enables millennials to design the credit union of the future? Add an incentive, such as a small financial award or donation to their favorite charity, and suddenly, you’ve changed your brand image to one that invites progressive member input via digital channels. The reality is, credit unions are uniquely poised to encourage member involvement by the nature of the credit union charter. Why not move the forum to social media in order to engage current members and attract new ones?
  
  
• Engage millennials’ sense of purpose.
  According to the most recent data from The Millennial Impact Project, millennials are civic-minded and prefer to support issues rather than organizations. They also prefer to take smaller actions when championing a cause. Credit unions can provide millennials with opportunities to support their preferred social issue through matching contributions or by sponsoring community reinvestment programs, such as park clean-ups or local food drives. By engaging this demographic at the local level, you gain trust and loyalty.
  
  
• Amp up the interaction. Want to understand what millennials really think of your credit union? Try inviting them to a focus group – either by attending an evening session at the branch, or through video-conferencing, such as Skype or GoToMeeting. Either way, you'll be able to collect valuable information about what matters most to the millennial member.
  
  
• Amp up your website.
  Millennials need to experience a credit union from both the website and in person – and in that order.  Make sure you provide this generation with plenty of easy to access information on clean, organized Web pages within your site. Their experience with navigating your site will determine if they want to take the next step and become a member. Be sure to include community-minded pages and events, tips on how to manage finances and links to blogs and other articles.

As you develop your technology plan to meet the needs of millennial members, consider including these activities to complement your strategy and increase loyalty with this generation.

If you need a hand reaching millennials, CU Solutions Group can help with mobile banking, website development (including responsive design), social media strategy and much more.