From a banking sector perspective, the youth demographic is quite important because numbers don’t lie — youth aged 15-24 years are estimated at over 60% of the country’s population.
Financial Sector Spotlight with Omen Muza
This demographic therefore holds immense promise since some of these youths will eventually enter the working populace – they are a promising market for financial services products. The youths have peculiar needs such as low cost/affordable products, convenience (eg on-campus services); low minimum balance thresholds et cetera. Are banks making adequate effort to catch them young and if so, how are they doing it?
Financial Sector Spotlight sets out to establish what savings and transactional products banks are deploying to bait the youths. Our conclusion is that while a number of products are in place, these are designed mainly to track the spoor of liquidity associated with school and university fee payments.
It would appear that very few products designed to offer real transactional and savings convenience to the youths are coming onto the market and the reason for this might be that the youths do not have much money to spend, let alone save in the first place.
Agribank: Platinum Schools Account
The bank does not have specific products for students themselves, but has an account called the Platinum Schools Account which enables schools to earn some interest while enjoying no cash withdrawal fees, no ledger fees and free custody fees.
BancABC: My Star Fund
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BancABC offers My Star Fund through its sister company ABC Asset Management. My fund is not targeted at the youth themselves, but at their parents or guardians and is touted as “an affordable education savings product for parents who want to secure their children’s future for any education level.”
CBZ Bank Limited: Guaranteed Education Plan & Cashplus Teen
Just like in the case of BancABC, this plan is not aimed at youths themselves, but enables their parents and guardians to save for their children’s future education from pre-school right up to tertiary/university/college education. The bank also has the CashPlus Teen Savings Account which is more youth-oriented because it provides them with an opportunity to learn how to manage and monitor funds in their accounts.
FBC Bank: University Fee Payments & FBC-ACCA MasterCard
The bank says it seeks to provide innovative and convenient financial solutions to students and university institutions alike. Accordingly, it has a facility which allows students to send their university fees instantly to selected national universities.
Metbank: MET-Student
Metbank has the MET-Student Account which enables students to enjoy banking services without withdrawal charges. This account comes with a debit card. NMB Bank Limited: NMBYOUNGPRO Account
NMB Bank’s YoungPro Account is for those 30 years old and below who graduated with a degree or diploma from a recognised tertiary institution. The account offers these young professionals various loan facilities for study purposes as well as for purchase of books, cellphone handsets, laptops and clothing items. It comes with free Internet banking enrolment.
POSB
The bank has no specific branded product for the youths or students, but insists that its products cut across market segments. For the youths, it recommends the Smartsave Account as a savings product which is ideal for students, for instance, since it has a low minimum balance of $10 and no service charges or cash withdrawal fees are levied on the account. For transactional purposes of youths, the bank recommends the Individual Account which is a transactional account which comes with a debit card which has access to Zimswitch and also enables access to cellphone banking.
ZB Bank Limited
The bank has partnerships with several local universities under which it provided sponsorship to uplift educational standards. ZB Bank also has partnerships with these universities enabling students to make convenient and immediate fee payments.
