PHILADELPHIA -- A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia shows that high-income millennials’ use of general-purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards grew dramatically in 2014.
Sixty percent of consumers aged 18 through 32 with a household income of $100,000 or more reported having a GPR prepaid card in 2014, up dramatically from the 2013 rate of 49%. If the approach that millennials have adopted in their early years of financial services consumption persists over time, the “millennial effect” on the future of financial services could be significant, according to the report.
Young adults’ openness to new and alternative financial services does not appear to be associated with a rejection of more traditional bank products. Rather, young adults seem to be combining the traditional with the new.
This new report is an update from information published by the Philly Fed in September 2014 that discovered a “power-user” group of young, banked, mid-to-upper-income GPR prepaid cardholders.
Click here to download the report.
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