Original text here from Patrice Bernard (LinkedIn)
While digital usage seems to be on a constant rise among our citizens, Guillaume Almeras, in an article for BFM Business, points out a surprising decrease in French people's use of banking apps, based on studies by the reputable FBF. How can this be explained?
Apart from the doubling of payment validations due to the implementation of PSD2, which has made this feature more common from 2018, the last survey year, to today, the actual execution of transactions remains stable. However, account checks and budget tracking have respectively declined by 6% and 8%. Surprising, isn't it, especially during a crisis in purchasing power?
Guillaume believes the main reason for this counterintuitive trend lies in an unexpected shift in consumer behavior: users are no longer satisfied with tools that merely provide information access at any time; they now expect proactive notifications about important events. This is precisely what the increasing capabilities of app alerts are addressing!
Supporting this premise, I'd like to delve deeper into an analysis, particularly focusing on a factor that, from my perspective, should concern financial institutions: your clients' digital maturity is advancing much faster than you might think, and it could challenge your strategies and your vision of your business in the short term.
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One superficial yet telling sign is a growing awareness of the intrinsic limitations of banks' software. After all, what's the point of checking accounts seven or eight times a day once you realize that data is only updated overnight in most systems? If necessary, other solutions fill these gaps, as demonstrated by a recent experiment by Apple in the UK.
The changes Guillaume mentions reflect, beyond the "laziness" he notes, a trivial reality that the industry stubbornly refuses to face: banking products and services are merely means to facilitate "projects" (in a broad sense). Thus, the reasons justifying their place in daily life are entirely artificial.
The most valuable quality of a tool is its ability to be forgotten. The exact opposite is true for money and banking, which, generally speaking, remain too central to our concerns due to stress, prompting frequent interactions with platforms whose content is inherently uninteresting, solely to provide reassurance. However, with the advent of embedded finance, these habits are fading: there's no longer a need to query one's institution, as the necessary actions are integrated into an overall experience.
Through emerging models such as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), consumers are getting accustomed to a new approach to personal finance, in a logic of regaining control through digital services that adapt to their expectations, rather than demanding they adhere to the dictates of their bank, crafted in its own image without considering their needs.
