How to Win Millennial and Gen Z Customers
To win over millennials and Gen Z, a bank or credit union has to win their primary checking account.
J.D. Power finds these generations open 67% of all new primary checking accounts, and community institutions are winning less than their existing share. Millennials and Gen Z are the customers who will replace the baby boomers most banks and credit unions rely on today. Yet J.D. Power’s 2026 U.S. Millennial & Gen Z Checking Satisfaction Study shows midsize banks, community banks and credit unions hold 26% of these relationships while winning only 21% of new ones. Fintech customers rate their accounts higher on fee fairness, real-time balances and help making progress, and J.D. Power found many of the gaps come down to design and policy choices.
Jim Marous uses his own son’s banking to show where these relationships go: $200 a paycheck left at a top-5 bank to cover automatic payments, direct deposit at Chase after a rewards card he found through AI and search, daily spending on Venmo, and a credit union checking account that only makes the mortgage payment. As Jason Dorsey, who led new research for Alkami, puts it, a primary banking relationship is no longer a promise of exclusivity.
Jim then lays out six moves for product, marketing and contact center teams: being named when customers ask AI or search where to bank, a 3-minute mobile account opening, no fees on small overdrafts, available balances that update the moment a purchase is approved, goal-based onboarding with a progress tracker and short money lessons, and helping customers discover the right feature at the moment it fits. The customers who will sustain a bank or credit union’s growth may already have an account there.
About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, a top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in under ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at digitalbankingreport.com.
Download Alkami’s 2026 Generational Trends in Digital Banking research.
