Young people need „nudges“
A decisive factor in engaging young customers in financial services and investing is low-threshold offerings. This is one of the conclusions drawn from a panel debate on young customers and financial education at the 22nd Börsen-Zeitung Retail Banking Day. „It must be simple communication, it must be continuous communication“, emphasised Maren Heiß, Co-Head of Retail Banking at DKB. The direct bank has had postive experiences using short video clips on the social network TikTok.
Nudges help the youth
Philipp Hacker, Product Manager Trading at Consorsbank, has a similar view. The subsidiary of the French BNP Paribas Group regularly creates so called „nudges", because continuous engagement is important. Many young people sense that they should really be dealing with financial topics, but have little desire to follow up. Consorsbank responds to this by, for example, collaborating with "reputable finfluencers“ and seeking long-term partnerships. Additionally, the bank also produces videos for social platforms. "You can't ignore Instagram or TikTok“, said Hacker.
Simple language
He talked about a video that had been clicked on more than a million times. It had demonstrably triggered a surge in demand for products from Consorsbank. So what was so special about this video? Above all, it was particularly easy to understand.
The importance of simple language was also stressed by Heiß from DK. „We have 14-year-olds proofread the essays on our financial portal," she said. They can point out what is hard to understand.
There were different opinions in the panel debate on the topic of teaching economic subjects in school. Heiß was sceptical about mandatory inclusion in the curriculum, noting that at the age of 15 or 16 young people learn for example about bank cards by using them – because they need to.
However Steffen Krotsch, Managing Director of educational services provider Ubimaster, presented himself as a supporter of introducing finance as an exam subject, as is already the case in four federal states. At the same time, it is also the task of the finance industry to contribute to financial education. For example, in the "Stock Market Game“, young people can discover via playing that it can lead to losses if you only invest in Tesla.
Krotsch supports banks in attracting young customers by offering online lessons on finance, as well as subjects such as German, maths, or chemistry. Participating banks can include their logos, to win recognition from children (and their parents).
