Exclusive: Younger users shun banks over weak sustainability performance
Young people are shunning banks with weak environmental credentials as demand for sustainability in financial services swells, new data has revealed.
Bank customers aged between 18 and 34 are demanding financial products that allow them to manage their environmental impact, while 62 per cent of customers said they wanted to be able to track their carbon footprint, according to data from Swedish open banking firm Tink.
Bosses at Tink said transaction and payment data was now offering customers a window into the wider impact of their spending habits.
“Payments information can be of huge value to getting an overview of your carbon footprint,” Jan van Vonno, Tink research director told City A.M.
“From that information you can retrieve information about your lifestyle, how that fits with your own sustainability goals and how you can address certain issues.”
Tink warned that banks that failed to keep up with sustainable demand risked losing out on business as consumer demand grows.
Around 42 per cent of younger users said they would not use a financial provider that they did not regard as environmentally conscious, and 40 per cent say they only invest their money into companies or funds considered sustainable — twice the national average of 21 per cent.
van Vonno said the incumbent banks were increasingly turning to specialist fintech firms to provide transparency, and open banking had the potential to free up data sharing between firms.
It comes as a wave of new financial products are launched to allow shoppers to track their carbon footprint, with a new debit card, Ekko, rolled out to users in London this month to allow users to track the environmental impact of every purchase they make.
Major tech giants are also turning to open banking firms to deliver a greater level of visibiity in their customer spending habits.
Visa last month snapped up Tink for $1.8bn while Apple acquired UK open banking startup Credit Kudos last week.