Young age group need to be educated about open banking if it is to take-off

If competition in the banking sector is ever to take-off there needs to be some serious campaigns to raise awareness among consumers.

I am always surprised how low take-up of the seven day current account switching service is whenever it publishes its latest figures. But then I realise I still have the same bank since university some 20 odd years ago. I have added an account from a challenger bank, but I still rely on my traditional high street supplier.

So when I wrote an article last week about research from YouGov revealing that only 28% of people have heard of open banking, which promises to inject competition into the retail banking sector, it wasn’t really a surprise.

What was a surprise though was that YouGov found that only 14% of 18- to 24-year olds had heard of open banking, compared with 39% of over-55s. That is worrying. Open banking lends itself to the generation that use mobile apps in different aspects off their lives,  so if these people aren’t getting the message where is the take up of new services going to come from and for that matter where will the ideas for new services come from?

So why is government not doing more to make people aware of what could be a revolution in banking that could have huge positive effects on society?  I haven’t seen any adverts about open banking.

At this rate it will be decades before the benefits of open banking are felt.

Would like to hear the thoughts of the fintech industry on how to increase awareness of open banking and what it can offer. Here is a challenge: describe the benefits of open banking for consumers in under 100 words. Put you efforts in the comments section for this post.