Tech has a youth obsession
Tech is obsessed with the young, and fintech target market is no exception. Ask any fintech startup who their target audience is and you’ll likely hit some or all of the following buzzwords: “young, urban, cosmopolitan, trendy, ambitious.” In tech, it is usual to ignore other parts of society in favour of young urbanites. Families are one such segment who have been sidelined by the tech sector. For our purposes, families are defined as households with dependent children. According to ONS data, there are 8 million such households in the UK. For the business that can capture this audience, this is a considerable prize.
Families present a unique set of opportunities for the fintechs strategy
For fintechs, families present an interesting opportunity. Adults are typically older, with higher income than their young, single counterparts. As well as having to manage their own money, family adults are more likely to combine bank accounts with a partner. They will also manage the money of a child (or children) through pocket money or similar. There are rewards for the fintech that involve themselves in family life. Rather than an individual customer, they become part of a network of interlinked finances. There is also the benefit of acquiring customers while they’re young, and the potential loyalty that entails: a fifth of people with bank accounts are still with the first bank they joined as a child.