A lot of what we had seen previously toward customer acquisition — especially younger consumers — was based on where their parents bank,” Stephen Greer, a senior analyst at Celent, tells The Financial Brand. The bells and whistles ten years ago weren’t extravagant. They were simple incentives like free account openings for your kid.
But, the game has since changed. And it isn’t because teenagers have more needs or even different needs. It’s because they now have a phone in their pocket with a deluge of intriguing apps.
“A teenager doesn’t need a lot of those extra, additional products,” Greer explains. “But they might find it really compelling to be able to integrate social media into some of these to be able to have something that looks cool and they can use to pay their friends.” That explains why Venmo, with its social media component, is so popular among young people.