How does Europe feel about fintech?
In one of the largest fintech studies ever conducted, over 4,500 people told us what they really think about digital banks and their services.
Across Europe, digital banks are taking on the established players, offering whizzy new services and connected offerings that appear to appeal more to the online generation.
But we wanted to know — what do people really think? Will savers really pay their salary into a digital account every month? And what do people think about more complex options, like mortgages?
So, in conjunction with our friends at AltFi, we decided to find out — by launching a huge study of what people in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain really think and feel digital banks, as well as their thoughts towards more traditional providers.
It’s the AltFi/Streetbees Digital Banking Benchmark 2019. AltFi has sifted through the findings in a superb series of articles, and their top four follow below — while leading fintech blogger Iona Bain gives her take on the results here.
But if you want to look into the results yourself, you can access a dashboard with the full results through this link– have fun discovering what our users, or bees, really think about fintech!
1: Fintech is leaving women behind
Digital banks (for example, like Monzo and Starling Bank) aren’t connecting with women in the UK or Europe.
While over half of adults in the UK (53%) are open to depositing their salary into a digital bank, women are less aware of the brands than men:
Women are also less willing to trust digital banks with their salaries. Across Europe, 53% said they wouldn’t pay their pay cheques in, compared to 42% of men.
2: Digital mortgages? No way
We also found that Brits aren’t set on using digital banking when it comes to the truly important decisions — like buying a house.
Just over 1 in 4 (27%) in the UK would consider taking out a mortgage with a digital bank.
Of those who said they wouldn’t consider taking out a mortgage from a digital bank, 36% said they’d prefer to take out a mortgage with an established bank, while 11% said they don’t believe digital banks will be around for the lifetime of their mortgage.
3. Apple Pay is taking over the UK
Mobile payments like Apple Pay and Android Pay are used by 38% of Brits, the highest adoption rate in Europe, while 1 in 4 say they don’t use cash to make payments any more.
“Most of the time I use contactless for ease and convenience, it’s best for me on my busy lifestyle,” said a 27-year-old British man.
“Contactless is convenient for me as I rarely carry cash, but on the occasion of stumbling across a place that doesn’t accept card or a delivery takeaway, I’ll still withdraw cash to use,” said a 20-year-old woman.
Elsewhere? Not so much. In France, 31% of adults told us they still use cheques, while German respondents were most likely to use cash (87%).
4. People don’t really hate their banks
And maybe the biggest surprise of the study? Most people actually like their banks… although there’s still a fair bit of apathy for the challenger brands to target:
These are just the top lines of the study — there’s plenty more to investigate, so do feel free to dig into the data and see what you can find — and feel free to share your thoughts with us!
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A quick word on our methodology: The figures in the article are taken from Streetbees community members in the UK, carried out in April 2019. All of the data was collected by mobile and web surveys, and is accurate to within 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
