How Financial Brands Can Build More Trust With Gen Z And Millennials

Digital Natives Prioritize Tech Capabilities And Transparency Over Tradition

The Braze survey shows that when younger consumers consider long-term wealth strategies, they prioritize technology over tradition. As Laker alluded to, roughly 32% of both groups choose a financial services platform primarily for its self-service app quality and real-time transparency — outpacing the roughly 20% who stick with traditional banks or family advisors out of habit.

Yet their preference for digital convenience only goes so far. Only 28% of Gen Z say they’re willing to juggle three or more accounts across different banks or apps to chase the best rates, compared to 34% of millennials.

These shifting habits signal that financial brands should move beyond broad-stroke, legacy batch marketing, and instead use real-time insights to improve the customer journey. For Insurify, an insurance comparison marketplace and Braze customer, that means presenting true apples-to-apples comparisons for millennials, while also removing friction for Gen Z.

“Earlier in my life … I’d have to spend a tremendous amount of time going from car insurance carrier to carrier to get quotes, and I’d have to enter my information multiple times,” says Mike Hanrahan, head of retention at Insurify. “Our goal was to provide drivers with a one-stop shopping experience.”

Convenience looks different from customer to customer, and basic demographic segmentation leaves value on the table, Laker says. The Braze AI-powered decisioning tools help Hanrahan and his team reach the right users at the right moment, distinguishing customers who already know what they need from those who need more time, more education or a nudge to pick up where they left off. Brands can test hundreds of combinations of message, channel, timing and incentive simultaneously, learning from each interaction in real time, Laker says.

“It’s really helpful for us that we can have an event that we push into Braze from a triggering perspective and then get communications out to users in a timely fashion,” Hanrahan says.

Small, self-service fixes matter on the customer side, too, and yield important insights. One Braze customer, a Latin American fintech company, let cardholders update their address via a messaging app instead of a web form. This seemingly simple change tripled address updates, Laker says.

Data transparency drives similar results. A U.S. digital finance platform saw loan referral shares jump 80% after building a live recap of referral activity and earnings for customers.

The message for financial marketers: younger consumers reward brands that make their money — and their data — visible and accessible in real time.

Young Consumers Are Using AI For Financial Advice, But Still Prioritize Human Advisors

Digital-native generations like Gen Z and millennials live with technology every day, but Braze data shows their reliance on AI and social media for financial services has limits.

Gen Z leans on AI for budgeting recommendations (40%), while millennials use it to compare products and services (39%). But when it comes to acting on financial advice, a human advisor still wins.

Certified in-person, human financial advisors received the highest efficacy ratings across both cohorts — 65% for Gen Z and 64% for millennials. Behind human advisors, 60% of Gen Z and 59% of millennials say they consider the financial advice from public AI chatbots as effective. Financial influencers received the lowest trust ratings, though nearly half of both generations (48%) still view them as effective.

“There’s more access to financial advice and education resources than there ever has been,” Laker says. “[Consumers] are inundated with information, whether it’s from their own AI research or the finance influencer that pops up in their feed.”

Improving the space between digital tools and human judgment is where financial brands should focus their efforts, says Laker.

The fix for brands, he says, is using first-party data to make human moments more meaningful — starting with how brands recognize a customer’s journey. For example, instead of asking for simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback on a customer service experience, brands can solicit written comments and other open-ended feedback. AI can then classify those comments to pinpoint exactly where customers are feeling friction. Using technology to gauge a nuanced understanding of historical experience and current sentiment can then better inform the humans who handle the next step in a customer journey.

“Brands need to improve the consistency and the handoff of data between customer engagement messages and one-to-one interactions with human agents,” Laker says.

Do this well, and AI-assisted service becomes “a huge unlock for further personalizing those human interactions,” he says, making the transition feel authentic and earned.

Millennials And Gen Z Want Personalized, Real-Time Communication About Their Finances

Personalization is no longer optional for brands; it’s table stakes. But Braze data shows that financial services brands are still falling short.

Just 27% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials say their financial service providers “understand me well with real-time, personalized recommendations that help me hit my goals,” the report shows.

The opportunity isn’t merely to personalize; it’s to make younger consumers feel more in control of their financial choices.

The Braze data shows that about one-third of Gen Z (34%) and millennials (32%) prefer automated, real-time messages triggered by actual life events or market changes. This outpaces standard touchpoints like monthly summaries by roughly 10 points (24% of Gen Z, 23% of millennials). Gamification is another area of interest, especially with Gen Z: 20% want to be rewarded through interactive challenges and exclusive unlocks, versus 15% of millennials.

For financial services brands, timing should be seen as a trust signal, says Laker.

Consider Bilt, a rewards and payment membership platform where members earn points by paying their rent or mortgage. While managing and paying for housing can be a source of stress, Nabilah Abu Bakar, Bilt’s director of lifecycle marketing, says the platform uses timely communication signals and notifications to eliminate uncertainty around important questions like, “Has my money been received by my property manager? Has it gotten to my mortgage provider?” At every step of the payment cycle, Bilt uses Braze customer engagement capabilities to send proactive updates, delivering instant confirmation messages: rent paid, rewards redeemed, flight booked.

But building trust doesn’t always require real-time contact. For example, when a Bilt member pays for a rideshare using Bilt Cash, the team waits several days before recommending via email or a push notification that the customer link their account for a smoother experience and stronger engagement.

“[Sending immediately] feels a bit too intrusive,” says Abu Bakar. “Five days is a good enough time because it’s still contextual and it’s still early enough that we’re still hitting it while it’s hot.”

That balance — present and helpful, but not overbearing — is what turns personalization into a perk, not an intrusion.

Closing The Generation Gap

For financial services brands, earning the trust of millennials and Gen Z comes down to unifying first-party data into real-time, human-centered service that adapts as these generations change, says Laker.

“We think about this in terms of three jobs a brand’s data has to do,” Laker says. “One, unification; two, activation; and three, distribution.”

Financial brands that master this combination won’t just capture the attention of younger consumers — they’ll keep it.