8% of adults in the United States have an accounts with online banks.
As it stands, 8% of US adults have an online-only bank account, an increase of 2 percentage points from 2021 according to a recent global survey of 2,501 conducted by Finder in April 2022.
4% of American adults reported not having an online-only banking account at all but plan to open one in the next 5 years. 3% of American adults who don’t currently have an online-only banking account plan to open one in the next year. 2022’s figure of 8% is expected to hit 11% by 2023 and 15% by the year 2027 – an increase of 7 percentage points over the next 5 years.
Men are still more likely to have an online-only bank account
American men are more likely to have accounts with online banks than women, with 10% of men compared to 6% of women saying they have an account.
People aged 18–24 are most likely to bank online
Americans ages 18–24 and 25–34 are most likely to have accounts with online banks, with 11% having an active service, followed by ages 35–44 (8%), 45–54 (7%), 55–64 (5%) and 65+ (5%).
Which country has the most digital bankers?
Brazil leads the way for digital bankers in 2022, with 43% of those surveyed saying they have an account. Brazil is followed by India (26%), Ireland (22%), Singapore (21%), Hong Kong (20%), United Arab Emirates (19%), Mexico (17%), Spain (17%) and South Africa (15%).
At the other end of the spectrum, the United States has the smallest percentage of adults with a digital-only bank account (8%), followed by both the Philippines and Malaysia at 13%, and Portugal and Germany with 14%.
During the previous survey, Mexico was projected to see an increase in digital bankers of 20 percentage points from 2021 to 2026, which was the highest growth rate of all of the selected countries. And that growth is expected to continue in the years to come with the number of digital bankers in Mexico projected to increase between 2022 to 2027 by almost 24 percentage points (once again the highest growth rate). The United Arab Emirates is close behind with a projected increase of 22 percentage points, followed by The Philippines (21 points) and India (19 points).
Did digital banks lose customers as a result of COVID-19?
Interestingly, 5 countries saw a drop in the number of adults who said they had a digital-only bank account from last year's survey.
Malaysia had the largest drop of 7 percentage points. The Philippines saw the second-biggest drop of 6 percentage points, while Germany saw a 5-point drop. Meanwhile, Ireland saw a drop of 3 percentage points.
However, in the majority of countries we looked we see an uptick in the number of people who say they had a digital-only bank account. Brazil sees an 11 percentage point bump in digital bankers between 2021 and 2022, with Mexico not far behind at 6 percentage points.
However, all countries are expected to see an increase again by 2027. On average, 34% of people worldwide will have a digital bank account within the next 5 years, up from an average of just 19% in 2022.
Are men or women more likely to have a digital-only bank account?
In 13 of the 14 countries surveyed, men are more likely to have a digital-only bank account. Of these, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates (9 points), Mexico, Singapore and Spain (8 points) had the biggest gender gaps.
Meanwhile, in Portugal, women are actually just as likely to have an online-only bank account with 14% of both men and women saying they have an account.
Adoption highest with younger people
Across the globe, individuals that are most likely to have a digital bank account in Brazil are ages 25–34 (55%), Malaysia ages 18–24 (20%), Philippines ages 35–44 (16%), Ireland ages 25–34 (34%), Mexico ages 25–34 (22%), Hong Kong ages 35–44 (23%), Singapore ages 18–24 (39%), United Arab Emirates ages 18–24 (31%), Germany ages 35–44 (17%), Spain ages 18–24 (22%), South Africa ages 35–44 (18%), India ages 18–24 (33%) and Portugal ages 18–24 (22%).
Finder surveyed 24,425 adults across 14 countries and regions via Google surveys in March 2022. Due to the varying Google infrastructure in each territory, not all surveys were nationally representative. Where a nationally representative sample was unavailable, a natural fall/convenience sample was used. The list of the countries studied, sample sizes and survey types are presented below:
United States: A convenience sample of 2,501
Mexico: A convenience sample of 2,175
The Philippines: A convenience sample of 2,049
Singapore: A convenience sample of 1,003
Malaysia: A convenience sample of 1,501
India: A convenience sample of 2,899
South Africa: A convenience sample of 2,179
Ireland: A convenience sample of 1,201
Spain: A convenience sample of 1,690
Germany: A convenience sample of 2,003
Brazil: A convenience sample of 2,005
Hong Kong: A convenience sample of 1,001
United Arab Emirates: A convenience sample of 1,015
Portugal: A convenience sample of 1,203
As it stands, 6% of US adults have an online bank account, which equates to an estimated 15,563,592 people. That figure is expected to hit 9% (22,437,512) by 2022 and 11% (29,311,432) by the year 2026 – an increase of 5 percentage points over the next 5 years.
Men more likely to have an online-only bank account
American men are more likely to have a online bank account than women, with 7% of men compared to 5% of women saying they have an account.
Around the globe, men are about 2 percentage points more likely to have an online bank account than women, which means the gender gap in the US between men and women of 2 percentage points is about in line with the global average.
People aged 25–34 are most likely to bank online
People aged 25–34 are more likely to have an online bank account with 11% having an active service.
Which country has the most online bankers?
Brazil has the most online-only bankers (32%), followed by Indonesia and Ireland (25% each), Vietnam (23%) and Switzerland and Poland (22% each). On the other end of the spectrum, the United States has the smallest percentage of adults with an online-only bank account (6%), followed by Canada (9%), Finland, Denmark and Mexico (11% each).
Mexico is expected to have the strongest growth in the number of people with online-only bank accounts from 2021 to 2026 – an increase of 20 percentage points. Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines are all expected to see a growth of 18 percentage points.
Did online banks lose customers as a result of COVID-19?
Of the 30 countries Finder looked at for this study, Finder had previously run the same survey in 12 of those nations and regions in 2020. Interestingly, 6 out of those 12 countries saw a drop in the number of adults who said they had an online-only bank account.
Germany had the largest drop of 9 percentage points. The Netherlands saw the second-biggest drop of 7 percentage points, while Spain and Mexico closely followed at 6 and 4 percentage points, respectively. Meanwhile, countries like Singapore and Malaysia saw smaller drops of 2 percentage points and less than 1 percentage point, respectively. Bucking the trend, Ireland actually had an extra 10 percentage points of adults with an online bank account in 2021 compared to 2020, and Brazil had an extra 5 percentage points.
However, all countries are expected to see an increase again by 2026. On average, 28% of people worldwide will have an online bank account within the next 5 years, up from an average of just 17% in 2021.
Are men or women more likely to have an online-only bank account?
In 19 of the 30 countries surveyed, men are more likely to have an online-only bank account. Of these, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Finland and Japan had the biggest gender gaps of 8 percentage points each.
Meanwhile, in 9 countries, women are actually more likely to have an online-only bank account. Australia has a female-led gap of 3 percentage points, and Ireland and Canada both have a gap of 2 percentage points.
Methodology
Finder surveyed 41,654 adults across 30 countries and regions via Google surveys in March–April 2021. Due to the varying Google infrastructure in each territory, not all surveys were nationally representative. Where a nationally representative sample was unavailable, a natural fall/convenience sample was used. The list of the countries studied, sample sizes and survey types are presented below:
The Philippines: A convenience sample of 2,023
Singapore: A convenience sample of 1,003
Malaysia: A convenience sample of 1,503
Hong Kong: A convenience sample of 1,000
Ireland: A convenience sample of 1,215
Canada: Representative sample of 1,200
United States: Representative sample of 2,001
Australia: Representative sample of 954
New Zealand: A convenience sample of 1,001
United Kingdom: Representative sample of 2,001
United Arab Emirates: A convenience sample of 1,002
Japan: Representative sample of 2,001
Indonesia: A convenience sample of 2,004
Vietnam: A convenience sample of 2,001
France: Representative sample of 1,505
Italy: A convenience sample of 1,510
The Netherlands: A convenience sample of 1,201
Mexico: Representative sample of 2,001
Spain: Representative sample of 1,515
Brazil: Representative sample of 2,048
Germany: Representative sample of 2,002
Austria: A convenience sample of 1,215
Switzerland: A convenience sample of 874
Sweden: A convenience sample of 839
Portugal: A convenience sample of 1,202
Poland: A convenience sample of 817
Norway: A convenience sample of 1,201
Hungary: A convenience sample of 1,201
Finland: A convenience sample of 1,009
Denmark: A convenience sample of 605
“Back in my day” is usually followed by stories of walking four miles to school or trudging through the snow to a job earning pennies on the dollar. There’s no doubt we’ve entered an era in which those tales are about upgrading from a Razr to your first touchscreen, the number of your Instagram followers and transitioning into online banking.
Finder surveyed 2,068 adults ages 18 and older to learn whether they currently use a digital banking account, have an interest in doing so and why. Extrapolating that data to represent the US population, an estimated 76.9 million Americans (30.3% of the US population) say they have, or are planning to, open a digital-only — or neobank — account. In fact, 54.4 million digitally savvy Americans (about 21.4% of the total US population) already bank with digital-only banks like Aspiration or Chime.
Although more than 177.0 million Americans (roughly 69.7% of the total US population) bank with such traditional brick-and-mortar brands as Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, research finds that some 22.5 million Americans (8.8% of total US population) intend to open a digital-only bank account in the coming months.
Banking back in whose day?
Your age tends to determine which “back in my day” story comes to mind. Of the generations, analysis shows Generation X as the most likely to have transitioned to digital-only banking, with approximately 26.3 million Gen Xers (30.0% of Generation X) saying they have a neobank. Compare that to about 20.6 million millennials (27.2% of all millennials) and 7.5 million baby boomers (8.4% of the generation).
Of baby boomers, about 11.4 million (12.8% of the boomer population) surveyed have a neobank account or plan to open one, with more than half, or 64 million, of these digitally savvy baby boomers saying it’s more convenient than traditional banks.
About 9.8 million (13.0%) of the millennial population say they’re open to the idea of a digital-only bank. Boomers, however, are the least likely of all generations to open a digital-only bank, with some 3.9 million (4.4% of the baby boomer population) planning to. Roughly 78 million (about 87.2% of the baby boomer population) bank with a traditional brick-and-mortar financial institution.
As convenience becomes more of a commodity, can brick-and-mortar banks stand the test of time? About 57%, or 43.8 million, Americans believe that banking online offers a level of convenience that brick-and-mortars do not. Around 25.0 million American men (61.8%) and about 18.8 million American women (51.7%) report doing all their banking online for its convenience.
Among all three generational demographics, more than 50% report banking online as more convenient than traditional banking:
Those who use, or plan to use, digital-only banking:
Generation
Millennials
Generation X
Baby Boomers
Percentage of Generation
60%
54%
56%
The second most popular response for people transitioning to digital-only banking is that neobanks typically offer lower fees and more convenient transfers than traditional banks.
Interestingly, baby boomers have more interest in easy transfers than lower fees, with about 4.8 million preferring easy transfers and 3.3 million preferring lower fees.
For both Gen Xers and millennials, a preference for digital-only banking over traditional banks because of its lower fees outweighs an interest in easy transfers. Our survey found that 11.4 million millennials favored neobanking for its lower fees and 10.8 million stuck around for ease of transfers. Gen Xers came in ahead with 15.2 million interested in lower fees and 12.5 million enjoying the easy transfers that come with digital banking.
Why Americans aren’t banking digital
Nearly 129.0 million Americans (73% of the US population) who don’t use neobanks say they’re happy with how they’re banking and don’t feel they need to make the switch. Of these Americans, nearly 66.2 million (72%) are women and only 63.0 million (74%) are men. Aside from enjoying their brick-and-mortar banking experience, both these men and women are also concerned with the ability to speak to a teller or representative for assistance.
The generation that’s happiest with traditional banking is baby boomers, with 61.0 million (78.1% of all boomers) leaning toward a brick-and-mortar lifestyle. That may sound like a large number, but there’s general consensus for not transitioning to neobanks among the three age demographics.
Those who don’t use digital-only banking and why:
Generation
Millennials
Generation X
Baby boomers
Happy with their banking institution
69.4%
68.4%
78.1%
Prefer option to speak to someone in person
23.3%
23.6%
35.7%
Do not trust digital-only banking
17.9%
20.4%
22.8%
Methodology
Our data is based on an August 2019 online survey of 2,068 US adults ages 18 to 91 commissioned by Finder and conducted by Pureprofile.
We assume the 2,068 participants in our survey represent the US population of 253.9 million Americans who are at least 18 years old, according to the 2018 US Census Bureau estimate. This assumption is made at the 95% confidence level with a 2% margin of error.
Our survey asked people if they have an account with a digital-only bank and, if not, whether they plan to open an account in the next 12 months or five years. We also asked participants why they opened or planned to open a digital-only bank account or why they don’t have a digital-only bank account. Participants could choose multiple answers.
We define generations by the age of participants at the time of the survey:
Millennials — ages 18 to 34
Generation X — ages 35 to 54
Baby boomers — ages 55+
For all media inquiries, please contact:
Richard Laycock, Insights editor and senior content marketing manager
Chelsea Gregori is the PR Specialist at Finder, where she enjoys the ebb and flow of data storytelling, relationship building and link building. Chelsea is passionate about creating content that provides valuable resources to empower the people around her to make the most informed personal finance decisions. Prior to Finder, Chelsea managed the musical duo Well Worn Soles, booking venues and festivals across the Southeast. She also managed her personal homesteading blog, Grow Where You Sow, creating content to guide individuals looking for a slower, more financially savvy lifestyle. When she isn’t diving into the world of digital and traditional PR, she’s hang drying laundry, milking goats, growing gardens, humanely raising happy livestock, making mayonnaise and contributing to a 50-acre subsistence agricultural farm and community.
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