How BFSI brands are winning over Gen Z

New Delhi: According to an EY report, by 2025, Gen Z is expected to represent 27% of the global population and possess up to $33 trillion in assets. Additionally, they are known for their brand loyalty, with 63% preferring to stick with brands they trust.

As Gen Z enters the workforce and begins to manage their finances, BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) brands are seizing the opportunity to engage this tech-savvy, socially conscious generation. 

Understanding that traditional methods won't resonate, these brands are leveraging digital platforms, interactive content, and personalised experiences to capture Gen Z's attention.

Brands like Tata Mutual Funds, Ageas Federal Insurance, Angel Broking, ACKO, and Piramal Finance are setting the pace to ensure they’re present where their audience is. 

From innovative mobile banking apps and investment platforms with gamified features to educational content on social media, BFSI brands are redefining financial literacy and accessibility. 

By focusing on transparency, ethical practices, and seamless digital experiences, these brands are not only meeting Gen Z where they are but also fostering long-term loyalty and trust.

For example, Angel One’s content platform, Fin One, integrates engagement and entertainment to empower young Indians to make informed financial decisions and develop resilient investing habits. 

Young Indians, especially Gen-Z and Millennials, are diving into the market now, and it’s important for them to know about the virtues of early investing, staying in the market for the long term, the risks involved, and how to make the most of their investments. 

Paarth Dhar, Vice President, Angel One, said, "Imagine if your finance class was as engaging as your favourite meme page. That’s Fin One. We’re here to spice up the way young India interacts with money—making it less about numbers and more about fun!"

The Three E's Strategy—Engage, Entertain, and Empower—forms the core of Fin One's mission to forge a financially astute generation where financial awareness is not limited to certain geographical or socioeconomic demographics.

Fin One’s Instagram page: 

https://www.instagram.com/finonebyangelone

Blending content with pop culture has become a compelling approach to integrating Gen Z's interests into the social media landscape. Recognising that bombarding young audiences with financial jargon is ineffective, Arvind Iyer, Head of Marketing at Piramal Finance, emphasised the need for a fresh approach. 

He explained, “We've injected pop culture and entertainment into our content, making financial education more engaging and accessible.”

He further elaborated, “By seamlessly weaving in references from popular culture, our content resonates with our audience, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities where movies, music, and pop culture hold significant sway.”

Finfluencers have seized the spotlight among youngsters as they address topics that truly resonate. From the intricacies of home loans to unravelling amnesty schemes, choosing the right credit card, or debating the merits of a term plan over a ULIP, finfluencers delve into what the audience is eager to understand.

According to Yash Chandiramani, Founder and Strategist, Admatazz, BFSI brands can learn a lot from finfluencers. He suggested, “Brands must understand what their audience really wants to hear about. There are a lot of tools that help narrow down a content cluster topic. 

The debate around the persona of the brand’s content—be it faceless, a long-term face, or a rotating cast - is ongoing. Binding your content to one face long-term can backfire, as that individual becomes synonymous with problem-solving and, as a result, overshadows the brand. Also, the audience gets too used to the face, and switching in the future becomes a problem.

Chandiramani recommended a good mix of personalities to be the various faces of the content buckets the brand plans to share. “A mix of mature and young faces always helps. However, I am still a big believer in faceless content as well. If created well, it can yield great results at low costs and without the without the hassles of video production. There are brilliant Instagram and YouTube communities that are thriving with brilliant static, animated, and carousel content. There should be a healthy mix of all types of face and faceless content,” he said. 

Chandiramani also asserted that BFSI brands must not obsess over the quality and scale of production and graphic design so much that it hampers the pace of execution. “You need to create content by the dozen to know what's working and what's not. After all, your audience is more receptive to native-looking, UGC-style content. It’s only your boardroom that has a problem with the minor “quality detailing” of your content.”

Utilising the power of audio-branded content, ACKO, an insurance company, also launched a podcast series titled 'ACKtually Speaking with Maddy’, hosted by their brand ambassador, R. Madhavan. 
 
The podcast series covers topics that are most relevant and not covered or comprehensively addressed across many other sources, and it also offers actionable insights to the listeners that can be easily understood and implemented.  

Acko stated that this is aligned with the company's overall strategy of making financial decisions convenient, transparent, and accessible to all Indians.

To launch six sectoral index funds, Tata Mutual Fund broke new ground with a first-of-its-kind initiative: an Endless Zoom video to communicate with Gen Z and Millennials.

Ashish Pawar, Head of Marketing at Tata Asset Management, stated, "When we launched six sectoral index funds, we created awareness and engagement through a unique 'Endless Zoom Video' to communicate with Gen Z and Millennials about the launch."

Underscoring the urgency of the decline in consumers' average attention span. He added, "We observed that nearly 75–80% of viewers watched the video till the end."

With the rise of social media, capturing the audience's attention has become more challenging for brands. Yet, sharing a story on the right platform and in a language that resonates with younger audiences is a smart strategy to ensure engagement.

Tata Mutual Fund introduced a campaign titled 'Index Funds Simple Hai,' to create awareness about investing in index funds for Gen-Z and millennials.  

The campaign revolves around integrating relatable metaphors from everyday life and cricket analogies into a series of nine videos. 

Describing it as a digital-first campaign, Pawar highlighted, "Our focus was on millennials and Gen-Zs, hence there was an emphasis on digital platforms. 

This campaign employs a digital-first strategy to simplify the concept of index funds for the younger generation, he added.