Future of Banking
Money in the Air: Access To Messengers as a Commodity — the New Must For Banks
We’ve all been there during a flight: waiting for an urgent message, needing to rearrange a pickup due to a delay, or simply having a case of FOMO. But without cell phone signal you’re offline, and airline Wi-Fi comes with a steep price tag.
Recently, flying from New York to Paris with Air France, I was happy to discover onboard Wi-Fi with free access to messengers. Thanks to the intensifying competition and the ubiquitousness and indispensability of messengers, the list of airlines offering free Wi-Fi for messengers is expanding every year.
This trend is on the rise globally: following the airlines, mobile operators come out with free plans for messengers. European Tele2 allows free access to social networks and messengers for various service plans, which is a major selling point in less affluent regions.
Developed countries are in the game too, with paid all-in-one plans for youngsters. VOXI by Vodafone launched in the UK in 2019, presented a £20 plan targeting Gen Z, who spend most of their screen time on socials and messengers. The plan includes an all-in-one carefree package covering the EU — unlimited messengers, unlimited social networks, unlimited roaming. Both millennials and Gen Z love this simplified one payment approach with no hidden fees.
Giants like Facebook, Google, and SpaceX are literally launching free global Internet access, which could bring the web to the most distant and struggling regions, and connect “the next billion users” to the global digital economy. Regardless of who wins the race, millions of new people will get access to digital services. Guess which apps will they download first? Right, the messengers.
What does it mean for banking?
Banking is no different from telecom. Everyone wants to reach unbanked first. But the demand from the “banked” customers is also dramatically changing. They seek technical solutions for novel problems, like how to receive payments while working remotely, have a 24/7 available bank in their pocket, cut fees, or increase the speed of transactions in a constantly accelerating world.
Stepping aside from banking itself, the new wave of customers — Gen Z — has a lower tolerance for sluggishness and ineffectiveness than millennials. Only those who meet their needs will catch their attention and get a chance to build a loyal relationship later on.
Messengers are “super apps” with an all-in-one solution.
While being an established trend in the Asian markets of China, Japan, South Korea, and others, their dominance is not yet established in the West. However, in the attention economy, 84% of screen time is spread between 5 apps, mostly messengers and social networks. So you’d better be represented in one of them.
Messenger apps always support or have dedicated light versions for simple, cheaper phones and slow internet speeds, in contrast with heavy and demanding banking apps. In a matter of several years, they will be used by almost everyone, everywhere, and because of social giants’ wide “moats”, attract more and more users.
Our platform ZELF might be interesting for financial organizations trying to attract attention of Gen Zs and millennials through the messaging apps. We are open for partnerships with banks globally. The platform opens up a window of opportunities for banks to integrate banking services into messengers before the latter do it first. ZELF has opened cards pre-orders for customers in France and Spain. Drop me an e-mail if you want to bring ZELF in your region.
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We have community chats where we discuss the future of money and work and how banks should ride this wave of change.
