What Credit Unions Need to Know About Consumer Banking Preferences in 2026

If you downloaded our 2026 Consumer Preferences & Behavior Study for Financial Institutions, you already know the headline: consumer expectations are moving fast and the gap between what people want and what many institutions deliver is widening.

We hosted a webinar to break down the most important findings and explain what they mean for credit unions and community-based financial institutions competing with big banks and neobanks. Here is the summary. 

Quick context: who we are and why we ran this study.

We’re Geear (formerly WebStrategies, rebranded mid-2025), a performance marketing agency focused on helping community-based financial institutions punch above their weight. Through progressive marketing, better technology, and smarter automation.

A couple of notes that matter for FI teams:

• We’ve partnered with 120+ credit unions and banks
• We’re a HubSpot Diamond Partner
• We’re SOC 2 Type II compliant (because security and governance aren’t optional in this space)
• Our team is 45+ people
• Named a 2025 HubSpot Impact Awards winner for Technical Expertise (North America regional winner)
  
  

About the study: how the data was collected.

We originally ran this research in 2022 and brought it back to take the temperature again, keeping many of the same questions and adding new ones (including AI and LLMs).

Methodology highlights:

• 1,000 respondents
• Fieldwork completed in Q4
• 95% confidence interval
• Intentionally split: 500 credit union members / 500 non-members
• Data sliced primarily by:
• Under 45 vs. 45+
• Credit union member vs. non-member
• Credit union as Primary Financial Institution (PFI) vs. not

Neobank adoption is rising, and the 45+ segment is joining too.

We looked at membership in online-only “banks” (more accurately: tech platforms that partner with banks), like SoFi, Chime, Current, Betterment, Wealthfront, and newer entrants like Robinhood moving further into banking.

No surprise: under-45 consumers are much more likely to be members.

The real headline: 45+ adoption is climbing meaningfully versus 2022.

Why this matters:

• Neobanks compete aggressively on rates (including high-yield cash products)
• They bundle experiences: checking + saving + investing (ETFs/IRAs) in a couple of taps
• They’re UX-first, fast, intuitive, and “feels modern” by default

Implication for credit unions: this isn’t just a “young people thing” anymore. If the older segment is becoming comfortable banking this way, it accelerates what “normal” looks like for everyone.

Search still dominates, but LLMs just became a real research channel.

We asked: What’s your first step when researching a financial institution?

Online search is still #1 across age groups. But this year we introduced a new option: LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.).

What stood out:

• For under-45s, LLMs emerged as a top research focus, a new “default step” for many people.
• For 45+, traditional behaviors still hold more weight (including visiting a website directly and in-person behaviors).

A crucial nuance from the webinar:

• Search behaves like a performance channel (action-oriented)
• LLMs behave more like awareness/consideration (higher-funnel, “help me understand”)

And yes, the line between search and LLMs will likely blur, especially as platforms like Google blend AI directly into search results. The interface may change quickly, but the strategy shouldn’t swing wildly: don’t abandon search. Expand your visibility playbook.

AI expectations split sharply by age (but ignoring it isn’t a strategy).

We asked: How would you like your FI to incorporate AI?

Under 45 consumers were much more likely to want:

• An AI assistant on the website/app for questions and support
• AI-driven guidance and quicker self-service experiences

Both age groups saw value in:

• AI to detect and prevent fraud (this is likely going to be table stakes)

And a big signal:

• A large share of 45+ consumers prefer “no AI” in the experience

The tension is real. But here’s the practical takeaway:

• Whether an FI “likes AI” or not, neobanks will deploy it and deploy it well
• Consumers will compare your experience to the best digital experiences they’ve had, banking or otherwise

So the question shifts from “Should we do AI?” to:

• “Where does AI improve the experience without eroding trust?”
• “How do we implement it with transparency, security, and governance?”

The perception gap is the real competitive threat.

One of the most revealing sections of the webinar was about who consumers believe is “best” at key factors like customer service, mobile app, accessibility, online experience, variety of offerings, financial education, and community involvement.

Here’s the pattern:

If someone is under 45 and uses a credit union as their PFI…

Credit unions win in almost every category.

Translation: once you have them fully, they value you highly.

If someone is under 45 and is NOT a credit union member…

Credit unions are barely seen as “best” at anything.

Translation: the problem often isn’t the product, it’s the narrative and visibility.

This is why “we’re great once they join” isn’t enough. You have to market to skeptics, not just members, and you have to start from the headspace they’re already in, often an assumption that credit unions are less relevant, less modern, or simply “not for me.”

Even fees, an objective advantage, get misunderstood by non-members.

We asked which had the most favorable fees (credit unions vs. traditional banks vs. online-only banks). The result flipped based on membership:

• Credit union members (especially PFI members): “Credit unions have the best fees.”
• Non-credit union members: “Credit unions have the worst fees.”

That’s not about reality. It’s about belief.

Marketing implication: lead with what you can prove. If you have a real advantage in fees/rates, that’s safe territory for skeptic marketing because it’s objective and defensible.

But be careful about marketing weaker areas (like a mediocre digital experience) to skeptical audiences. Because it can backfire and reinforce their assumptions.

Digital visibility is improving with younger audiences, but it needs to be consistent.

Credit unions are showing up more in places where younger consumers spend time, especially on Social media, YouTube, and short-form video ecosystems. Meanwhile, older visibility via cable/satellite TV continues to fade.

The truth if members don’t see you, they don’t consider you.
And if they don’t consider you, they default to the brands they do see.

Also: repetition matters more than it used to. Today’s consumers are exposed to an absurd amount of content, so consistency isn’t “nice,” it’s definitely required.

Mobile isn’t a feature. It’s a revenue channel.

Mobile apps overtook branches as the top loan channel for under 45 consumers (with branches still close behind, but trending in the wrong direction). This is bigger than “make the app better.”

It’s a mindset shift:

• Mobile is where consumers monitor spending
• Mobile is where they make decisions in real time
• Mobile is where they expect to complete the journey without friction

A powerful example from the webinar: even when the digital experience is great, a single friction point, such as having to go to a branch to fund an account, can be enough for a younger consumer to abandon the process entirely.

What used to feel “normal” (branch steps, paperwork steps, handoffs) now reads as friction.

Younger non-members are repelled by reviews almost as much as by rates

We asked what would prevent someone from choosing an FI besides rates. For under 45s, the biggest blockers included: Fees/security concerns, Mobile app quality, Online reviews, and Word of mouth reputation.

This is where credit unions can win quickly:

• Make review capture easy (QR codes, post-transaction triggers, automated follow-ups)
• Use a “two-step” approach:
• Ask satisfaction first (1–5)
• Route 4–5 to public reviews
• Route 1–3 to an internal recovery path (“Tell us what happened, we’ll make it right”)

If you’re afraid to solicit reviews because you might get negatives, the reality is: you’ll get reviews anyway. Better to manage the process and build a system that improves both reputation and service recovery.

Which neobanks are worth studying?

A common question in the webinar: Who’s doing digital best?

From firsthand experience shared:

• Wealthfront: standout overall digital experience
• Robinhood: exceptionally strong UX in investing; banking likely to follow (at the time discussed, some banking features were waitlist-based)
• SoFi: strong in lending journeys (especially student loan refi/consolidation), fast and clear process

One important caveat: neobanks can struggle when things get “real-banky” (edge cases, exceptions, complex support needs). That’s still a credit union advantage. When you need a human, a credit union can be a better option. But day-to-day? The benchmark is the app.

What credit unions should do next (practical takeaways)

If you want a short action list coming out of this webinar, here it is:

1. Benchmark your UX against neobanks, not other credit unions
2. Treat mobile as a revenue channel with funnel metrics, not as “a tool you have”
3. Keep search strong and start building visibility for LLM-driven discovery
4. Market to skeptics, not just members, especially under 45 non-members
5. Lead with provable advantages (fees/rates) before you lead with “trust us.”
6. Build a review engine with service recovery built in
7. Remove friction in account funding and loan completion, especially the “branch-only” steps

Want to know more?

The webinar covered only a handful of the report's insights, while the full study includes 40+ charts. So if you would like a deeper breakdown, you can download the full report here.

If you would like to discuss the findings in more detail with our team or need help with actioning some of the initiatives discussed above, book a call here.