Years have passed since the Millennial generation brought the ticket for the financial industry, and now that they are well blended and no longer considered a new entry in the overall scenario, the rise of Gen Z cannot be pictured as the distant future of wealth.

An Accenture research reports that 68% of those belonging to Generation Z actually save money more responsibly than their predecessors, with an estimated inheritance ranging from $15 trillion to $68 trillion. With these premises in mind, some are expected to become wealth creators at a younger age and most likely represent the next upcoming challenge.

Tech-based & Eco-conscious: the new faces of financial services

First things first, in times of exceptional disruption – environmental issues, Covid-19 pandemic, just to name a few – the line between social expectation and the products or services clients choose to approach to is definitely blurring.

If this is true for older generations of clients, the coming of age of the most socially committed, technology-oriented generation – also known as Generation Z – won’t certainly make things easier for companies willing to remain competitive and attract new customers for the rest of 2021 and beyond.

This term, Generation Z, is commonly used to broadly identify those people born between 1995 and 2010; in other words, it groups together those who have very little memory of a world without technology deeply intertwined with it or easy access to the internet and worldwide communication.

As digital native they tend to prefer tech-based, innovative companies and services offering advanced digital capabilities; as eco-conscious they don’t step away from taking a stand against companies whose practices collide with their own beliefs and require proper alignment between their values and the values of the products or services they are investing in. Indeed, Gen Z specifically accurately searches for companies that give priority to environmentally friendly products, services and polices and always raising the bar on innovation.

Experience-based interactions as the golden ticket to engage

Solutions are still the core of your business, but to break through the purchasing preferences and decisions of younger potential clients thinking in terms of features is no longer enough, while thinking in terms of experiences can be the missing key your business may need. And when experiences are mentioned, we mean easy, intuitive, frictionless interactions across the entire journey, with greatest value on personalisation. But also, entertaining, educational financial experiences on digital channels.

Younger clients are daughters and sons of the Do-it-yourself era, which means they are more than used to educate themselves, both on contents and trends and on a specific company. One reason for this is they own a place where to look for information: it’s the dot-com. Websites hosting valuable insights about you, blog hosting interesting contents about your business and industry, all this financial literacy can indeed create more opportunities for keeping Gen Z interested. And if matched with a modern, avant-garde visual appeal, even engaged, attracted. Diagnosing how they consume content digitally could really make the difference.

Their choices are therefore much more influenced by a recently updated set of fundamentals: digital presence on social channels, brand reputation, transparency, hyper-personalised relationships and advice, brand values, social responsibility.

As a result, Gen Z’s journey seems to be parallel to other client generations’ but traveling along a different path. Which means traditional models and communications must be adjusted; companies need to meet Gen Z where they live, ask new questions in a new way, to ensure that their needs are well understood and design the best means to achieve them.

And if we all agree that client relationship is key, this must happen now! Otherwise, companies may risk to miss out the opportunity of shaping Gen Z’s financial perspective and building brand preferences accordingly.