85% of S.Korea's Gen MZ have contactless savings accounts

A study finds 90% of South Korea's Generation MZ, a demographic comprising millennials and Generation Z members born between 1981 and 2010, use contactless channels like mobile phones  for financial transactions, with only 40% of them having visited a bank in the past three months.

The Woori Finance Research Institute, a subsidiary of Woori Financial Group, on Monday released a study of financial platform use by Generation MZ that surveyed 2,000 adult users ages 19 to 41.

The survey found that 86.8% of respondents made financial transactions via contact-free channels like mobile banking, ATMs and internet banking, with just 42.4% having visited a bank branch over the past three months. Moreover, 58.4% said they mostly used fintech apps — more than the 39.8% who used the apps of credit card companies — when making basic mobile payments.

An overwhelming 84.6% of Generation MZ'ers surveyed used deposits and savings and subscription savings accounts, followed by stocks (63.5%), insurance products (44.3%), virtual assets (30.8%) and funds (28.4%). In addition, 46.8% of MZ'ers considered fees important when selecting a finance app and 45.5% looked at interest rates and reward benefits.

Write to Sang-Yong Park at yourpencil@hankyung.com