Generation Z's Money Matters

Does the financial services industry focus adequately on young adults and what they require with regard to their personal finances?

-  Zerelda Esterhuizen

They are the tech-savvy generation. The 20 somethings that will show you which cable goes where and what you should do when your laptop ignores you. They have an app for everything and there is nothing they do not know about social media; in fact, they even visit TikTok for advice on personal finances. Do yourself a favour and type in #personalfinance on TikTok and you will see those videos have been viewed more than 4.3bn times, while #personalfinancetips has been viewed 34m times and #personalfinancetok has had more than 7.5m hits.

Sakhile Mabena owns a fintech company, Ofin, which specialises in behavioural data analysis, financial processing automation and behaviourbased finance, and as someone who has just turned 30, he still has his finger on the pulse of the generation.

“We use ‘likes’, ‘views’ and ‘shares’ as shortcuts to decision-making and people jump onto the bandwagon believing that if many people think this is right or true then it must be the case. There is no fact-checking or verifying the credibility of the people on these platforms. Social media influences our decisions whether we admit it or not. I don’t advocate using social media as your only source of financial advice; there are just too many things that can go wrong and just too many people who pretend to be so-called experts.”

Sandy van der Zanden is a wealth manager at Anchor Capital who also warns against the internet being the only source of information.