How Financial Wellness Content Builds Loyalty for Banks and Credit Unions
Research Report by CARAVAN Wellness
Consumers increasingly expect their financial institution to do more than process transactions. They want relevant guidance, useful tools, and support that helps them make better decisions across the moments that shape their financial lives.
That expectation is growing as financial vulnerability increases. J.D. Power found that 43% of retail bank customers were financially vulnerable in 2025, up from 27% five years earlier. More than one-fourth of customers were very interested in receiving advice from their bank, rising to 36% among customers under age 40.
This creates an opportunity for banks and credit unions. Financial wellness content can deepen the relationship by helping customers and members understand complex topics, prepare for major decisions, and take action with greater confidence.
Loyalty Is Harder to Hold
Digital convenience has made it easier for consumers to spread their financial relationships across multiple institutions. A person may use one provider for checking, another for savings or credit, and a separate platform for payments or investing.
The average retail bank checking customer now maintains three deposit accounts at different institutions. In 2026, 20% of retail bank customers had moved money away from their primary bank within the previous three months, up from 17% the year before. The rate reached 23% among customers under age 40 and 25% among affluent and mass-affluent customers.
Credit unions face the same pattern. Fifty-nine percent of members now hold a checking account with another financial institution, while 56% hold savings elsewhere. The percentage of members who said they would definitely reuse their credit union also fell to 71%, down two percentage points year over year.
Consumers do not always formally close the original account. They may gradually move deposits, transactions, and attention elsewhere. This means account retention alone may overstate the strength of the relationship.
Financial guidance gives institutions another way to demonstrate continuing value before the next product or switching decision occurs.
Consumers Are Seeking Practical Financial Guidance
Demand for advice is increasing, particularly as more consumers experience financial uncertainty.
In 2025, 46% of retail bank customers recalled receiving financial advice from their bank, up from 34% in 2021. The topics consumers sought most often were immediate and practical, including improving their current financial position, building emergency savings, maintaining a budget, and preparing for a goal or large purchase.
These needs extend beyond traditional product education. Consumers may be trying to reduce debt, improve credit, prepare for homeownership, manage healthcare costs, or build a stronger financial buffer.
Financial wellness content allows an institution to address those questions before the consumer begins comparing products. It creates useful interactions between transactions and helps the institution remain relevant throughout the broader financial journey.
More Advice Does Not Automatically Create More Value
Although advice recall increased, satisfaction with that advice remained flat year over year. One in five customers who researched budgeting services did not ultimately use them.
This suggests that institutions do not simply need more content. They need content that is clear, relevant to the consumer’s situation, and connected to a practical next step.
A general article about emergency savings may create awareness. Guidance that explains how to begin, identifies an appropriate account or tool, and provides a direct path to take action is more useful.
Content should help consumers move from recognizing a need to understanding what to do next. That connection is what turns education into a meaningful part of the relationship.
Financial Inclusion Requires More Than Account Access
Loyalty and relationship depth also depend on whether consumers believe the institution understands their financial reality.
The FDIC’s nationally representative 2023 household survey found that 14.2% of U.S. households, approximately 19 million households, were underbanked. These households had a bank or credit union account but also relied on nonbank services such as check cashing, money orders, payday loans, pawn loans, or similar alternatives to meet core financial needs. Another 4.2%, approximately 5.6 million households, were unbanked.
For unbanked households, insufficient funds to meet minimum balance requirements remained the most frequently cited primary reason for not having an account. Distrust of banks was the second most common reason.
These findings show why product access alone does not guarantee a durable relationship. Consumers may need clearer education on fees, minimum balances, credit, account protections, payment options, and how mainstream financial products compare with nonbank alternatives.
Content cannot remove affordability barriers or repair trust by itself. It can make terms, costs, and available support easier to understand.
Trust Requires More Than Product Promotion
Consumers can distinguish between education designed to help and content designed primarily to sell.
Financial wellness content is most credible when it is grounded in qualified expertise, clear sources, current information, and balanced explanations. It should help consumers understand a decision before presenting a related product.
A homebuying article can explain credit readiness, down payments, affordability, and closing costs before introducing a mortgage option. Retirement education can explain contributions, time horizon, and risk without implying that one product is appropriate for everyone.
This distinction matters because institutions may be communicating most often about the topics consumers value least. J.D. Power’s 2026 credit union research found that frequent communications about products, features, and special offers were associated with relatively low satisfaction. Guidance about saving money and broader financial advice was communicated less frequently even though those topics were associated with higher satisfaction.
Useful education earns attention because it respects the consumer’s decision process rather than treating every interaction as a sales opportunity.
Personalization Makes Guidance More Relevant
Financial needs change across life stages and circumstances. A recent graduate, first-time homebuyer, caregiver, small-business owner, and consumer approaching retirement require different information.
Personalization can help institutions surface guidance that reflects a consumer’s stated interests, recent actions, or stage of the relationship. It does not have to begin with complex predictive models. Voluntary topic selection, product context, onboarding pathways, and life-event journeys can create meaningful relevance without feeling intrusive.
The opportunity is especially important for younger consumers. Thirty-six percent of bank customers under age 40 were actively seeking advice in 2025, compared with 26% of customers overall.
Personalization should help consumers find useful information more quickly. It should not create the impression that the institution is monitoring, judging, or making assumptions about an individual’s financial circumstances.
Digital Guidance Must Connect to the Everyday Experience
Mobile banking is now central to the financial relationship. The FDIC found that almost half of banked households used mobile banking as their primary method of account access in 2023, and mobile banking use as the primary access method had increased almost ninefold over the previous decade.
Consumers are also increasingly managing financial activity outside traditional bank channels. Nearly half of U.S. households used a nonbank online payment service in 2023, up from 46.4% in 2021.
This expands the competitive environment beyond other banks and credit unions. Financial institutions are competing for attention within a broader digital financial ecosystem.
Education should therefore appear within the same experience where consumers check balances, transfer funds, pay bills, monitor credit, and evaluate products. Guidance about overdrafts can appear near balance alerts. Savings education can connect to transfer tools. Homebuying content can appear before the mortgage application begins.
Articles remain useful, but calculators, assessments, short videos, checklists, and guided pathways can help consumers move from understanding to action. The value comes from placing the right guidance near the decision, not isolating education in a resource center consumers must find on their own.
Credit Unions Must Protect Their Relationship Advantage
Credit unions continue to outperform banks in overall satisfaction, but recent findings show that the advantage is not permanent.
Overall credit union satisfaction declined four points in 2026. Fee experience also became a growing risk. Thirty-six percent of members had incurred an overdraft, ATM, maintenance, or similar fee within the previous three months, while the percentage who said they completely understood their credit union’s fee structure fell from 44% to 39%.
Clear education can help credit unions reinforce their service and mission advantages. Explaining fees, account requirements, savings options, credit decisions, and available support can reduce confusion before it affects trust.
Banks face a different challenge. They may have broader product portfolios and greater digital scale, but they must create consistent guidance across channels and avoid fragmented customer experiences.
Both institution types need to show that their guidance is useful, current, and connected to consumers’ actual needs.
Keep Content Current and Connected to Support
Financial information changes. Rates, tax rules, regulations, fees, product requirements, and eligibility standards evolve over time.
Outdated information can undermine trust, particularly when a consumer is preparing for a high-stakes decision. A credible content program requires defined ownership, source verification, review schedules, version control, and a process for updating every format and channel.
Content should also provide a clear path to human support. Digital education can answer routine questions and help consumers prepare, but financial hardship, fraud, major life events, and individualized decisions may require a qualified person.
The institution should make that transition easy rather than leaving consumers trapped in a self-service experience.
Measure Relationship Depth, Not Only Content Consumption
Views, clicks, and completion rates show whether consumers encountered the education. They do not establish whether it strengthened the relationship.
Institutions should also examine whether consumers became more aware of available support, used a relevant tool, contacted an advisor, funded an account, reported greater confidence, or increased the share of their financial relationship held with the institution.
Soft switching makes this broader measurement especially important. A customer may remain technically active while gradually shifting deposits and transactions elsewhere.
No available research establishes that financial wellness content alone prevents attrition or increases deposits. The more defensible position is that useful guidance can support the trust, relevance, and confidence institutions need to strengthen broader relationships.
The Big Takeaway
Loyalty is built through repeated experiences of value, not transactions alone.
The average retail bank customer now holds three deposit accounts across different institutions, one in five recently moved money away from a primary bank, and more than half of credit union members hold checking or savings elsewhere. At the same time, 19 million U.S. households remain underbanked, illustrating that having an account does not always mean the financial relationship is meeting the household’s needs.
Consumers are also seeking more practical advice about emergency savings, budgeting, financial stability, and major purchases. Institutions that communicate primarily about products and promotions risk missing the topics consumers find most useful.
Banks and credit unions can strengthen relationships by delivering expert-led financial wellness content that is relevant, current, easy to find, and connected to practical next steps.
The strongest programs help consumers make progress between transactions and give them more reasons to keep the institution at the center of their financial lives.
