Millennials. While the term conjures up the image of a finicky bunch of 20 or 30-somethings latched onto their smartphones, socialism, slangs and social media among older generations, it predictably prompts some weary eye rolls among hordes of real, diverse, individual millennials.

Yes, Generation Y or the Net Generation, with their short attention spans and desire for instant gratification, may be the most demanding and annoying customers ever, but here is the irony: just about every industry is trying to figure out this segment. Everyone wants a piece of the prized Millennial pie. It’s not surprising why this demographic has become a growing economic powerhouse around the world and will comprise half the global workforce by 2020.

And it’s certainly no exaggeration to say that the protective walls of the banking industry—once perceived to be the staidest and conventional among all—have been breached by this demographic juggernaut. The difference today is that millennials are ready to do their banking elsewhere. They have no qualms in banking with new startups and experimenting with their innovations since the latter speak the consumer language and provide enhanced simplicity, speed, and convenience to them while the traditional banks do not.

In countries like China, Gen Y doesn’t even want to carry credit cards, preferring to go mobile for their banking needs instead. This has led to the growth of entire ecosystems, comprising tech giants like Alibaba and WeChat, to support such preferences. It’s interesting to note that these platforms aren’t coming up from the traditional banking space, but rather technology firms to help Chinese millennials go through their entire day, completing all their transactions with minimum hassle- be it grocery shopping, eating out or hailing a cab to commute.

In order to put to rest a number of Millennial myths and provide some key insights that banks can use to engage and serve tomorrow’s trillion-dollar demographic, we caught up with Brian Fanzo on Episode 4 of our MB (Millennial Banking) Flix series. Brian is a keynote Millennial speaker, the founder of a social strategy consulting agency, iSocialFanz LLC and also the author of the book “A Millennial Mindset.”

You can watch the full video “Digital Connected Customer |The Millennial Mindset in Digital/Mobile Banking” here.

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