Demographic Change

What follows is a look at the Gen Z-focused offerings from Navy Federal and four other banks and fintechs. 1) Navy Federal Credit Union recently adopted a consumer-permissioned data reporting product through a partnership with fintech Bloom Credit. The credit union said it has integrated Bloom’s product as a checking account feature as part of a handful of updates to its offerings. The partnership gives Navy Federal’s customers the option to report up to five existing payments, including rent and utility payments, from their checking accounts to TransUnion, one of the three main credit reporting bureaus. Justin Zeidman, vice president of strategy at Navy Federal, told that through this product, rent payments can be treated as credit history in a way similar to mortgage payments. “It allows the credit bureaus to see and track the responsible behavior of consumers who would have otherwise been completely invisible to the bureaus,” Zeidman said. He added that this product is especially relevant for Navy Federal’s users — people who are serving or have served in the armed forces — because many enlisted military members join at a young age, before they have developed a credit history. 2) Jack Dorsey’s payments and commerce company Block is hoping to expand its peer-to-peer payments platform Cash App to more Gen Z consumers, while at the same time increasing the penetration of its small-dollar lending product, Cash App Borrow. Gen Z consumers are an important segment of Block’s customer base and one that it has also targeted with its buy now/pay later product, Afterpay.  The FDIC’s decision to allow Block to originate and service its own loans, which are made through its Square Financial Services unit, doubled the total addressable market of customers on its network it can offer its loans to and improved unit economics, according to the company.

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