Millennials in the house: Leveraging data about your young members to attract more

“Where are the millennials?”. This question has been echoing throughout the credit union industry since this age group (18-36 year olds) was first seen on the horizon in the post-9/11 landscape.

After the Great Recession of 2008, millennials were expected to flock to credit unions due to their well-documented distrust of banks. Yet, it hasn’t happened.  There are estimated to be 71 million millennials but too few are becoming credit unions members. About a third of older age groups (Baby Boomers, Gen-X, etc.) are credit union members but only about 25% of millennials are.

This is a problem since the conventional wisdom is that once a young person becomes a member, he or she is liable to stay as a credit union member for a long time.

 

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