A New Year's Resolution for your Financial Institution: Prioritize Wellness and Financial Literacy
Wellness is a common theme for New Year's resolutions when many look to eat healthier and exercise more, but health also includes our finances, making January’s theme of Financial Wellness a natural fit. Account holders often turn to their trusted institution for advice, especially in today’s uncertain market.
As 2023 projects kick off, it’s time to prioritize wellness and financial literacy. Although these programs may be in the spotlight at the start of the year, their benefits extend year-round and continuously help to grow institutional loyalty. Is your bank or credit union prepared with educational and planning tools that boost engagement and support financial wellness? Check out the list below - we’ve compiled 4 areas to get you started.
Embedded Financial Education
Financial education should exist along every step of a user’s journey, yet never feel intrusive. Every point of engagement is an opportunity to build financial literacy and trust - simply making a deposit or looking for guidance on budgeting, the user experience should feel personalized with tips or offerings based on their own actions and needs. It’s here where data-backed recommendations come into play, and where your bank or credit union can easily extend educational tools, offer seminars, or complementary products for a more well-rounded and educated financial decision. Building financial health with all account holders is important for building trust, especially with younger generations given their potential for a long-term relationship.
Transactional Insights and Alerts
It’s easy to miss a payment in the age of subscription-based offerings given the number of services someone typically maintains. As a result, account holders often find themselves overwhelmed with tracking due dates if not automated. Capitalize on the opportunity to bridge the gap between account holders and third-party providers by offering transactional awareness tools, including insights into repeated charges with automated alerts. Outside of subscriptions, users benefit from the overall ability to forecast, and budget based on real-time insights and notifications, ultimately extending their relationship with your institution, and keeping them coming back with ‘sticky’ capabilities.
Personal Financial Management Capabilities
Personal Financial Management (PFM) tools and features that offer personalized financial assistance are becoming a necessity for potential customers and members before they open an account. It’s always important to offer ways to plan ahead, but when the future is unknown, it’s not as easy. PFM capabilities with financial insights and real-time data analytics help to build financial education and enable account holders to manage their opportunities and risks with confidence. These tools, often paired with transactional insights and alerts, give account holders the ability to maintain control over their financial journeys and grow their financial health.
Gamification
Gamification isn’t just for the younger generations, although it is a successful approach to encourage new account holders to think more critically about saving and financial management. While older generations seek accessibility to new digital offerings and gamification can help drive adoption, younger generations like Millennials and Gen Zs already have devices in-hand. Leveraging these interactive features and competitive approaches can help encourage them to think more strategically about their financial wellness, as well as to reinforce positive banking habits like ways to save, invest, or pay bills on-time.
Financial wellness takes many shapes and sizes depending on what each individual account holder needs, but a successful financial literacy and educational program is backed by user-behavior data for a more personalized approach, regardless of whether it’s in-person or through digital channels. Financial literacy can be improved at any age, so there’s no time like today and the new year to help your account holders achieve their goals.
Learn more about the tools needed to support your institution’s financial wellness offerings.
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