How Current and Lumanu are reworking their technology and customer focus to get closer to Gen Z consumer and business customers

Some neobanks and fintechs are resonating with Gen Z much more than traditional FIs. That may be because they have identified niche consumer groups and are thinking out of the box when it comes to designing products for them, according to Josh Stephens, SVP of Product at Current and Tony Tran, CEO and co-founder of Lumanu.

Stephens and Tran joined Tearsheet’s editor in chief and founder Zack Miller on stage, at Mastercard Tech Hub in NYC at the recent Gen Z Symposium, to talk about how their companies are catering to Gen Z.

The big ideas

The standards banks have to meet when serving young customers: “The way I often think about this, is that if I am utilizing a certain type of product that operates in a certain way, there’s no reason why my bank shouldn’t be the same way. That’s my expectation. And that’s the bar and you need to meet that bar. And so we try to bring a lot of that same ethos to the way we design and the way we think through who our target customer is and what they expect.”

Reenvisioning what good UX is for today’s customers: “What is the Job To Be Done (JTBD?, It’s a common term in product: what is the simplest way to get that job to be done? Sometimes you don’t need a nice, pretty screen. You just need a text message.”

Communities may be the way to educate and engage Gen Z: “It’s hard, attempting to create a gigantic committee unity where everyone’s the same, and you throw them all into one big Discord channel. But having those micro communities that add up to be a very diverse community is something that we see works… that’s the best way that we found to really drive that diversity of users and education.”

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The following excerpts were edited for clarity.

Read the full transcript (for TS Pro subscribers)