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Covid-19: Rise of the 'silver tech' generation?

Covid-19's impact on how older people use digital financial services is up in the air, with PayPal reporting a rise in 'silver tech' but Santander finding no boost in online banking usage.

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Covid-19: Rise of the 'silver tech' generation?

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

As the coronavirus lockdown limits the ability of people to venture out to shop and bank, digital services have helped to fill the void.

PayPal says that from March to April, people over the age of 50 were its fastest growing segment, helping the firm get back to pre-Covid payment volume levels.

The company suggests that this may be because older "silver tech" users have used the shutdown to finally begin experimenting with online shopping and with sending money to family and friends digitally.

A survey of 2000 Brits for Santander shows a similar trend among older people to take up digital services, with TV streaming, video conferencing and online shopping usage among over 55s all up significantly.

However, the trend does not extend to online and mobile banking. Santander says that although almost a third of customers over the age of 55 use online banking or the mobile app, only 0.5% have taken up banking digitally since the beginning of the pandemic.

About two thirds of those that do not use digital banking blame concerns over security, while the same number admit to simply never having got around to using the service.

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Comments: (1)

Hitesh Thakkar

Hitesh Thakkar Technology Evangelist (Financial Technology) at SME - Fintech startups (APAC and Africa)

Apart from Security which is essential for wining user's confidence equally, usability is also always paramount for digital services. If more iron clad Clicks and Voice menus options are offered to users, ( Now in Chat bot you get those explorating questions) more the users to get away from using such channels.

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