The New York Post recently published a report conducted by Deidre Campbell, the Global Chair of Financial Services at Edelman. The report indicates that the interest in cryptocurrencies among millennials is rapidly growing.
Campbell says that among the group, those that had crypto wished they had bought it sooner.
The numbers are also impressive. The study found out that 25 percent of the millennials were already holding or using crypto assets. An additional 30 percent said they were interested in investigating and studying cryptos with the intention to invest in the short term.
Majority Of Millennials Don’t Trust Traditional Financial Institutions
Also, recent studies have revealed that the majority of millennials profoundly distrust banks and other financial institutions.
Partly due to the inefficient systems and outdated models that don’t cater for young investors. A group of people who after graduating college find themselves under immense financial pressure due to outstanding student loans.
In 2015, when cryptocurrencies were still obscure, Harvard University Institute of Politics conducted a study that revealed only 14 percent of Millennials believed that Wall Street institutions ‘do the right thing for their customers.’
At the time Kevin Kelly, the CEO of Recon Capital Partners told The Street that emerging alternatives to banking systems could spell trouble for financial institutions and banks in the Wall Street.
“This could definitely be a problem for Wall Street. We haven’t seen Wall Street change since the financial crisis. Every day, we’re starting to see headlines still: Wall Street does it again, another Wall Street faux pas.”
Fast forward to 2918 and fintech applications and crypto are increasingly becoming popular with millennials. For example, in China, AliPay, the fintech platform owned by Alibaba is currently accounting for more than 80 percent of all domestic online transactions.
Fintech solutions are also gaining mass popularity in areas that are underbanked with no practical banking systems. For instance, in the Philippines, big banks like Union Bank require citizens to store more than $2,000 as a fixed balance in their accounts. It’s something that has denied a large portion of the population in the country from utilizing banking services.
Consequently, companies like Palawan and Lhuiller, two firms that offer remittance services have become the chief financial providers for the majority of the population. The popularity of crypto is also on the rise given that no intermediaries are needed to send and receive funds.
Basil has three years of freelance experience writing on disruptive technologies. He focuses on breaking news and education pieces; helping to spread the gospel of Blockchain. He hopes to have his own blockchain company one day; helping the world through its innovative ledger technology.
