Bankers and the mobile generation

If you turn 18 this year, you are younger than Amazon and Google. You turned three with Facebook’s arrival, four with YouTube, five with Spotify, six with the iPhone and eight with WhatsApp.

If you are at the upper end of the 18-30 age range, you will remember a time before mobile internet, but not a time before mobile phones. If you are anywhere in that range, you use your mobile to read, chat and play, stream music and videos, hail taxis, order food, and search for dates and jobs.

You use mobile phones to manage your money, too. Research last year by Raddon, a consultancy, found that 85% of American millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) used mobile banking, and predicts that the share will  be higher still for Gen Z(born after 1996). The main reason people choose a bank is convenience, the consultancy says. For older people that means a nearby branch; for younger ones it means an excellent app.

In 2017 Bain & Company, another consultancy, asked people in 17 countries which they would miss more for a day: their phone or their wallet. Everywhere except Japan and Malaysia, the share of under-25s who would miss their phone more was above 70% (see chart).

You are a demanding customer, with expectations of speedy, convenient service that have been set by Uber and Amazon Prime. You are generally willing to grant companies access to your data, but want something in return. You let Google Maps track your location to help you get where you are going; you like Netflix using your viewing habits for recommendations.

 According to bankrate.com, a comparison service, just one in three American millennials has a credit or debit card, a much lower share than for previous generations at the same age. All this means banks find it hard to make money from you.

You also demand more from financial institutions than older people do, and care more about corporate social responsibility. The young think bankers should care about helping people to become wealthier, not just about their own bottom line.

From The Economist (edited)

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Beyond Meat - the veggie-burger company

Beyond Meat has a Californian address and a grand, disruptive ambition: changing what people eat.

Beyond Meat makes what it calls “plant-based meat products”, and what most people call veggie burgers and veggie sausages. Unlike some rival products, which are merely hamburger-shaped, Beyond Meat’s patties resemble the real thing.

Meat-eaters  are the firm’s target market. Only about 5% of Americans describe themselves as vegetarians, and it is not clear why they would want to eat something that closely resembles animal flesh. Carve a slice off the gigantic meat trade, though, and you might have a good business. Look at what has happened to milk, says Beyond Meat’s prospectus. Non-dairy versions made from almonds, soya and other things are now one-eighth the size of the dairy milk market in America. Non-flesh meat could grab a similar share of the meat market, or perhaps an even larger one.

A powerful environmental case can be made for the stuff, argues Beyond Meat’s founder and boss, Ethan Brown. The livestock industry accounts for about 15% of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Yet Beyond Meat is not the only company trying to cut into the meat business. Another Californian outfit, Impossible Foods, sells its plant-based products through Burger King, among others. Anyway,  it was possible to order veggie burgers at Burger King before the Impossible Whopper came along.

It is not obvious that more people are hungry for alternatives to meat. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average American is eating more beef, pork and chicken than a couple of years ago. Britain’s Family Food survey shows a rise in meat consumption between 2015 and 2016-17 (the most recent period for which data exists). The parallel with non-dairy milk seems dubious. Many people sip soya milk not because they disapprove of dairy products or want to save the planet, but because they are lactose intolerant.

The meat industry has seen the challengers coming- In several American states, and in France, legislators have written laws reserving the word “meat” for animal products. In Nebraska, the effort has been led by a state senator with the wonderful name of Carol Blood.  

From The Economist (edited)

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