News

Mobile-only survey measures millennials' banking preferences

October 24, 2016

If you're one of those Americans who still clings to the notion that facts matter, we have for you the results of yet another study investigating the banking habits of millennials.

According to new research from MFour, creators of what the company describes as the marketing industry's first all-mobile consumer survey application, here's how Generation Y views financial services today:

Banking on the go

• 61.2 percent of millennials most prefer to do their banking with mobile apps;
• 69.1 percent said they’d done just that during the previous week; and
• 82.7 percent had used a mobile banking app in the past month.

Going to the bank

• only 18.1 percent of millennials prefer to do their banking in person, however ...
• nearly two-thirds (63.9 percent) said they’d been to the bank during the past month.

Banking via computer

• only 12.5 percent of respondents cited desktop or laptop computers as their preferred interface for banking; still ...
• 71.6 percent used a PC for banking during the past month ; and
• younger millennials were less likely to use a PC to make a payment — 51.1 percent in the past month, compared with 61.2 percent of all millennials.

Checks

• just 17 percent of respondents had written a check during the previous week;
• 26.6 percent said it had been six months or more since they’d written a check;
• 24 percent said they never had used a check, despite the fact that ...
• 87 percent of millennials have a checking account — more than any other banking product.

Cash

• mobile apps such as PayPal and Venmo were the most popular means  for transferring money to family and friends; and
• only 10 percent of respondents said they prefer checks for transactions with family and friends.

What hackers? 

• only 9.7 percent of millennials voiced concern over the security of banking and finance apps;
• 62.9 percent were confident or very confident; and
• 27.4 percent were neutral.

The survey was conducted on Sept. 10 by MFourDIY, an all-mobile, do-it-yourself platform for designing and carrying out studies. MFour fielded a 30-question survey to millennials who use Surveys on the Go, an app for smartphones and tablets. Fielding time was less than two hours for 1,000 validated responses representative of the U.S. millennial population by sex, age, race or ethnicity, income and employment status.