Millennial generation less likely to make use of traditional banks

Money habits are setting the millennial generation apart from older Americans, including the fact that fewer of them are affiliated with traditional banks.

The findings come from a survey of more than 25,000 adults aged 18 and older by the Washington-based FINRA Financial Investor Education Foundation. The survey has an estimated margin of error of 0.5%.

“Making up nearly a third of the population, millennials are a significant force in the U.S. economy,” the survey said.

About 12% of the generation born between 1978 and 1994 say they don’t use the banking system, which is “more than any other generation, including GenX,” the survey said.

More troubling, the FINRA survey added that “one out of three higher-income millennials use the high-cost services of pawn shops, payday lenders and the like.”

Millennials are also “two times more likely than Gen-X to pay for purchases with their cellphones,” the survey said.

Only about four in 10 of the millennials surveyed have begun saving for retirement.

Although they are the generation that had faced huge increases in the costs of higher education, there may also be a bright spot in all of that mounting debt.

The “combination of millennials with degrees and those pursuing degrees suggests that millennials will likely be the most-educated generation in American history,” the survey said.

The survey results can be found here.

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