Digital financial services: What are Australians’ top concerns?

Five in six consumers in Australia have some concerns about using digital financial services – such as digital-only banks, e-wallets and cryptocurrencies (84%).

Research by YouGov shows that almost half of consumers feel there is too much risk from hackers when using digital financial services (49%) and worry about their identity being stolen (46%).

Additionally, more than two in five are concerned about not being able to easily speak to a person if they run into problems while using digital financial services (46%), not being able to access their money without an internet connection (46%) and there not being enough fraud protection (41%). Just 10% say they do not have any concerns with digital financial services today.

How do concerns about digital finance vary across different generations in Australia?

Older consumers are more concerned about the risk of being hacked when using digital financial services. More than three-fifths of Baby Boomers (born 1946 – 1964) and almost half of Gen X (born 1965 – 1980) worry about this, compared to just under two-fifths of Millennials (born 1981 – 1996) and Gen Z (born 1997 – 2009) consumers.

Concerns about having one's identity stolen and not enough fraud protection when using digital financial services are also higher among older consumers. More than half of Baby Boomers worry about these two issues, as do more than two-fifths of Gen X consumers.

In contrast, the risk of identity theft when using digital financial services is a concern for under two-fifths of Gen Z and Millennials. Meanwhile, one-third of Gen Z consumers (33%) also feel there is inadequate fraud protection for digital finance, as do more than a quarter of Millennials (28%).

Half (51%) of Baby Boomers are concerned about not being able to access their money without an internet connection when using digital financial services, compared to around two-fifths of Gen X and Gen Z consumers, and one-third of Millennials.

The difficulty of easily speaking to someone when there’s a problem also bothers almost three in five Baby Boomers (59%), compared to more than two-fifths of Gen X consumers, and under one-third of Gen Z and Millennials.

Around one-third of Gen X (31%) and Baby Boomers (37%) also say they have difficulty understanding digital finance services, compared to about one-fifth of Gen Z (22%) and Millennials (19%).

Older consumers are also more likely to feel that digital finance today lacks adequate government regulation and is not as reliable as traditional financial services. Baby Boomers are three times more likely than Gen Z consumers to think there is not enough government regulation of digital finance at present, and more than twice as likely to worry about the reliability of digital financial services.

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Methodology: YouGov Custom Research is a full end-to-end service from YouGov experts, from sample framing and questionnaire design to analysis and more, which provides bespoke market intelligence and research insights. Australia data figures (N = 1,018) have been weighted by age, gender, and region to be representative of all adults in Australia (18 years or older), and reflect the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population estimates. APAC data figures (N = 5,653) include the following markets: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Learn more about YouGov Custom Research.