Open Banking Series II | Faced With Open Banking, Four Client Groups Are Formed in China
Open banking is a new model of financial data sharing created in the era of sharing economy, and under this model, the traditional banks and financial technology companies will experience deeper cooperation and competition, resulting in a new round of dramatic changes to the financial services industry. Such dramatic changes are penetrating into all aspects of the industry.
The development of open banking has changed the services of institutions such as banks and financial technology companies, and is going to change the personal economic life of clients. For open banking, clients are requested to open up and share their personal data, and the security of the clients’ private data and the change in financial management methods will be involved. In the survey of open banking conducted by Ipsos, Chinese clients show different attitudes towards the dramatic change in the financial industry. Based on the clients’ personal status of financial management and the attitudes towards the new technologies, Chinese client groups can be roughly divided into four categories, namely, the active adopters, cautious evaluators, conservatives and financially inactive persons, and the four categories of client group have their distinct features.
Active adopters are a more open client group; most clients are young people over the age of 25 who have medium income, live in large cities and pay attention to and frequently use the new media. They are more active in new technologies, are comfortable when using new technologies and are glad to apply new technologies in financial management. These clients are inclined to select consumption rather than the conservative methods such as saving in financial management, and they hope to enjoy more new experiences and rich life experiences.
Most cautious evaluators are middle-aged persons with high income; they keep watching and evaluating before applying new technologies. Although they are cautious about new technologies, they expect to gain supports from new technologies and are full of confidence in such technologies, with more expectations than the active adopters. As for financial management, they are good at managing assets and have begun to use the new digital payment methods.
Conservatives are less willing to apply the new technologies as they think that such technologies have risks, and they prefer the conservative and traditional methods in financial management. They have lower incomes and are less interested in the new media.
Financially inactive persons have weak financial management ability and less focus on new technologies. They are mainly middle-aged and aged people and young people under the age of 25, and they think that they are too old to accept new things or there is no need to focus on or use financial technologies as they are too young.
In global market survey, there is a group of technology laggards except the above four client groups. Most of them are middle-aged and aged people above the age of 55, and they are suspicious of the new technologies and think that they have the ability of financial management, so they insist on their own financial management methods and are negative about new technologies. But this client group is very small and is a key feature in Chinese market.