The Key Step on the Bridge to Investing Maturity Path: Helping Customers Think Beyond Today

When it comes to cultivating the next generation of investors, most banks today land squarely in Stage 2 of Javelin Strategy & Research’s six-stage Bridge to Investing Maturity Path, which involves grounding customers in the fundamentals of personal finance. Taking the next step—shifting customers’ thinking to the long term and coaching them to set goals and act on them—will require financial institutions to adjust their own mindsets away from a fixation on today’s revenue and toward fulfilling, fruitful, lifelong banking relationships. Young customers tend to keep their thoughts in the shorter term, with events like retirement far off in a future they cannot see. But they get there by establishing financial behaviors now. 

Banks can help them along this path by rethinking and revitalizing educational content and incorporating it into daily digital interactions. Further, banks can guide customers toward setting goals that are grounded in the principles of behavioral finance and developing consistent habits that reinforce these financial aspirations.

Key questions discussed in this report: 

• How can digital banking help the next generation of customers to think about far-off events like retirement and begin saving and investing for the future?
• How can digital banking shift the customer mindset to long-term thinking, and why this is a key to developing long-term banking relationships?
• How can banks help their customers establish goals and consistent habits that make those aspirations achievable?