Millennial Banking & Loyalty

The Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto Dominion (TD) have launched flashy corporate "group pages" on Facebook.com, in the hopes of snagging the first accounts and major loans of the student demographic. If you have an account, check out their efforts here and here. RBC's facebook page includes flash video, contests, student bloggers and podcasts. And TD's offers a similar range of attention grabbing ammo.

My own experiences with banks has been that they just do not care unless your balance is in the thousands. And as someone who was just starting high school 10 years ago (and went through the expensive process of getting a university education), my balance hasn't been where the banks have wanted it for years. Customer service, needless to say, has been absent.

So, I threw a fit and I switched away from my family bank and now I do my deposits at the grocery store because its free and I get points towards my weekly groceries. My whole family did the same.

When I read in the Globe and Star how major banks are targeting university students in hopes of snagging them when they are young and establishing brand loyalty, I was doubtful. For one, I have had a bank account since I was 10 -- so they missed the boat by about 10 years. For another, I like to think of my generation as fickle enough to throw loyalty out the window if service isn't up to par or a better offer comes along.

Like any resourceful Millennial, I polled everyone on my facebook that started with an A or a B in their first or last name and asked them at what age they opened their first account, and if they still did business with their original bank. My 10 respondents opened their first account at the tender average age of 10.9 -- which confirmed my thought that we were still playing jump rope when we were first introduced to banking. Only 40% of the respondents have dropped their original bank, while 60% continue to do business with the bank where they opened their first account.

So there you have it. Very informal, but it seems like Millennials aren't so fussy that nothing is sacred. Or perhaps we are too busy answering Facebook polls to worry about which national bank we get our monthly statements from.