Teenagers and college students are just beginning their financial lives, and the earlier they learn how to successfully manage those lives, the greater the chance they will achieve their financial goals. However, many are quite clear on the fact that they don’t find the topic of finances very interesting, and most don’t read about it either online or in print. Given that they also don’t find financial advertising very interesting, how can the industry expect to reach them and encourage them to take the necessary steps to learn how to manage their money, safely build credit, and save the money they will need for the future?

This report covers the behaviors and attitudes of teenagers and college students toward finances and financial services. It explores the type of products they own, whether and how closely they manage their accounts, how they spend their money, and how they pay their expenses. It also examines whether their parents are involved in some of their decisions and how independent they really are.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel has used the following definitions:

This report includes information on the behavior of respondents aged 16-22 who have access to the internet. They may be high school students, full-time or part-time college students, people with full-time jobs or people who are unemployed.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive consumer research through GMI to explore teens’ and college students’ consumption of/attitudes and behaviors toward financial products and services. Mintel was responsible for the survey design, data analysis, and reporting. Fieldwork was conducted in February 2014 among a sample of 504 respondents aged 16-22 with access to the internet.

Mintel selects survey respondents by gender, age, household income, and region so that they are proportionally representative of the US adult population using the internet. Mintel also slightly over-samples, relative to the population, respondents that are Hispanic or Black to ensure an adequate representation of these groups in our survey results and to allow for more precise parameter estimates from our reported findings.

While race and Hispanic origin are separate demographic characteristics, Mintel often compares them to each other. Please note that the responses for race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, or other race) will overlap those that also are Hispanic, because Hispanics can be of any race.

Mintel has also analyzed data from Experian Simmons Consumer Research, using the Simmons National Consumer Study (NCS), the Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Study (NHCS), the Experian Simmons Teen Study, and the Experian Simmons Kids Study.

The NCS/NHCS study was carried out during November 2012 – December 2013 and the results are based on the sample of 1,495 adults aged 18+, with results weighted to represent the U.S. adult population.

All estimated mail volume data and consumer direct mail marketing creative examples are provided by Mintel Comperemedia.

Mintel Comperemedia is a searchable competitive database tracking direct mail, print and online advertising in the U.S. and Canada, as well as email in the U.S. Comperemedia tracks information across eight sectors: Banking, Credit Card, Investments, Insurance, Mortgage and Loan, Telecom, Travel and Leisure, and Automotive.

For more information, please contact Account Services Management at 1.312.450.6353 or www.mintel.com.

The following is a list of abbreviations used in this report: