July 5, 2017
By Alba Perez
Hispanic consumers are significantly more likely to be mobile banking users – and significantly more likely to stay members because of it.
Walk down any street in your community, and it isn’t hard to find evidence that Americans are using their smartphones to manage more aspects of their lives. Their financial lives are certainly no exception, and community banking leaders are taking notice.
According to a 2016 survey of financial institution leaders, their number one priority for 2017 was enhancing the digital and mobile experience. That’s what consumers are looking for as well. An earlier study from Bain & Company showed consumers are one-third more likely to enjoy a mobile transaction than a branch visit. What’s more, those surveyed anticipated a branch visit was 2.3 times more likely to end with annoyance.
Mobile banking is clearly the way consumers are headed when it comes to meeting their financial needs. Yet the adoption of mobile financial services isn’t the same across all the demographic groups that make up your member base. Notably, Hispanic consumers are significantly more likely than other groups to use mobile banking technology.
The Federal Reserve found in a 2015 study 82 percent of Hispanic consumers own a smartphone (compared to 74 percent of non-Hispanic white consumers). In addition, the study revealed Hispanic consumers with smartphones are more likely to be “high-intensity” mobile banking users – consumers who conduct mobile banking tasks more than 10 times a month.
According to the Federal Reserve’s report, “High-intensity users include greater shares of younger and Hispanic mobile banking users, relative to all mobile banking users.” These users are transferring money between their own accounts, making bill payments through an app, receiving alerts about their accounts, locating ATMs – all the things that highly-engaged and connected credit union members do. That could easily translate to high levels of loyalty to their cooperative.
If credit unions aren’t ready to appear in app stores now, there are plenty of other players on the financial services sector that are already there. Uulala, a fintech mobile app developed by Hispanic entrepreneurs specifically to serve unbanked Hispanic adults in the United States, is positioning itself as a way for Hispanic consumers to send money, build credit and make purchases – all without a traditional banking relationship. Uulala is launching later this year, and joins an increasingly crowded field of fintech developers looking to connect with a growing market hungry for digital banking options.
When it comes to maintaining strong connections with your members, you know you can’t ignore their increasingly digital preferences. By creating and enhancing an app that connects with Hispanic consumers, you may find your credit union enjoying longer relationships with this increasingly influential segment.
Source: Coopera
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