This week I’m focusing on the evolution of social finance and how Gen Z and Millennials aren’t shy about money. We’re comparing salaries online, swapping salary info on TikTok, sharing budgeting hacks in Discord servers, and sharing savings goals with family. For us, money isn’t private—it’s social. We actually like to talk about it. 

So why is banking still stuck in single-player mode?

The challenge for banks and credit unions is clear: build tools that tap into how this generation actually manages money—collaboratively. And if you do it right? You won’t just win users. You’ll boost engagement, drive real financial outcomes, and position your institution as a trusted partner for the long haul.

Jump into a Deep Dive you won’t want to miss.

ICYMI: Top reads of the week

Deep Dive: Social Finance Challenges: Making Banking a Team Sport

Meet the Future of Finance: Why Wellthi?

Poll: How did we do this week?

ICYMI

Gen Z Wants a Credit Union, Not Your Dad’s Credit Union
Turns out, Gen Z doesn’t hate banks—they just hate boring ones. This piece argues that socially conscious, community-powered credit unions are the unexpected heartthrob of the banking world. Think of them as the Pete Davidson of finance: weirdly appealing and committed to growth.

How to Woo Gen Z Without Looking Like You’re Trying to Woo Gen Z
Evok Advertising drops some truth bombs for credit unions trying to be cool without using the word ‘vibes’ in a mission statement. Spoiler: personalized emails and digital journeys work better than TikTok dances performed by your CFO.

Banks to Gen Z: Please Like Us. We’re Fun Now.
This article from KidVestors offers a crash course in impressing younger customers without sounding like Steve Buscemi in that “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme. Step 1: Make banking less like homework. Step 2: Add rewards, apps, and maybe a dragon or two.

Credit Unions Try Being Cool, Accidentally Nail It
CUInsight shows how credit unions are connecting with Gen Z by being authentic, digitally savvy, and not using Comic Sans in their app design. Think Mr. Rogers with a fintech stack.

Gen Z to Banks: If Your App Crashes, So Does Our Relationship
Amsive spills the tea on what it really takes to win Gen Z over: sleek apps, personalized content, and knowing what the heck ‘rizz’ means. Because if your onboarding flow has 14 steps and requires a fax machine, you’ve already lost.

DEEP DIVE

Social Finance Challenges: Making Banking a Team Sport

By Fonta Gilliam, CEO & Founder, Wellthi Technologies

Gen Z’s comfort with “social finance” is in sync with our broader digital habits. We expect seamless mobile apps and crave authentic, community-centric experiences. 

Unlike older customers who might prefer one-on-one sessions with a banker, Gen Z is happy learning from YouTube or discussing money in group chats. We trust “people like me” almost as much as professionals – Gen Z’s trust in friends/family for financial advice is nearly on par with trust in banks themselves.

Think: we require a referral, a rating, or follower count for everything that we buy, follow, endorse, literally everything.

Studies show that 58% of Gen Z gets financial advice from friends and family. Another 65% turn to social media. And 86% are open to discussing salaries—that’s a revolution compared to our elders.

Our trust in banks? Just 32% globally, compared to 51% of Boomers. That’s what growing up through a recession and a student debt crisis will do.

We want tools that reflect their values: transparency, inclusion, and community. Old-school banks offering PDF statements and clunky mobile apps just don’t cut it anymore.

Global Gen Z Money & Social Stats

Banking, Meet the Original Social Network

Let’s not pretend social finance is new. Across the globe, rotating savings circles— Merry-go-round, chamas, gameya, tandas, birthday clubs, giving circles, partner hands—have helped families build wealth for generations, ubiquitous in emerging markets like Africa, Latin America and Asia. The African American community has a rich history with this as well. My mother and aunts grew up using birthday clubs to pay for major life events in the family. What’s new is that Gen Z wants that same collective accountability—just without the paperwork. We want saving to feel like a group project, not homework.

And we’re right. Positive peer pressure accountability. A study in Chile found savers in peer groups deposited 3.7x more often than those flying solo. Knowing your friends are watching? That keeps you honest.

There are 18 million people in East Africa who use informal savings groups with money totaling more than $455 million annually. And that’s just one region in Africa. This is ubiquitous. I saw it first hand in East Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa while working as an American diplomat during the first 10 years of my career.

The Dark Side of Social Finance

But before I dive into the many compelling factors driving the social finance trend, and how banks can benefit from it, I need to share a cautionary tale from my own personal journey in this space.

During COVID, it became apparent that some bad actors had discovered and hopped on the social finance train, co-opting the susu concept of informal rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) commonly used in West African and Caribbean communities to run scams.

While susus are time-tested traditions for community saving, criminals have increasingly exploited the concept, especially online, by using the language and structure of a susu to run fraudulent schemes. 

In America, some of these people were disguising shady, pyramid schemes as susu, using my name to justify their groups. I almost had to issue a cease and desist. Staff at the Board of Education actually asked us to create content to counteract this narrative.

This experience convinced me that there is a strong, practical need to bring saving circles and social finance into the formal banking system so that we can avoid bad stuff like this.

What a Susu Scam Looks Like

Often called “blessing circles,” “money boards,” “cash wheels,” or “gifting pyramids”, these scams mimic the susu structure but aren’t legit savings clubs.

Instead of a closed, trusted group rotating funds, they rely on constant recruitment—and your “payout” only happens if you recruit more people to keep the scheme going.

Key Warning Signs of a Susu Scam

• You’re promised a big return (e.g., “Pay $100, get $800”) after a few weeks.

• You’re required to recruit others to get paid.

• The structure is a “flower” or “wheel” with outer layers feeding the center.

• The group is run through encrypted messaging apps or under vague names like “gifting circle.”

• There’s no real rotation or schedule—just whoever gets recruited next.

Turning Finance Into a Team Sport

At Wellthi, we’ve built our technology on these traditions. We bring the best of savings circles into the mobile era—making it easy for users to start group goals with friends, contribute transparently, budget together, and hit milestones as a team. My team spent years designing social finance software that banks can use safely, compliantly and cost-effectively. Think family vacation funds, business capital, emergency savings.

Others are catching on:

• AjoMoney in Nigeria digitizes traditional ROSCAs.

• Moja enables cross-border group saving with stablecoins.

• Frich turns budgeting into a social leaderboard.

• Everything in the UK gamifies premium bond savings with squads.

• Money Fellows in Egypt provides rotating savings groups for 7 million people through its mobile app.

Even big banks are testing the waters—adding friend-to-friend transaction feeds and family savings features.

What Makes It Work

Social finance works because it’s rooted in behavior. People save more when they feel seen. Group chats become budget check-ins. Leaderboards drive motivation. Mutual goals turn into real progress.

But the secret sauce? Control. Users must choose what to share, who to share it with, and how. You don’t need to show your balance to feel accountable—sometimes, just seeing a shared progress bar is enough.

Gamification helps too—badges, streaks, small wins. But only if it’s authentic. MilZ can smell a gimmick from a mile away. Your rewards have to mean something.

What Banks Should Do

• Start with opt-in shared goals: Let users build savings missions with trusted friends. We use vision boards at Wellthi.

• Design with cultural fluency: Spanish translation and multicultural staff would go a long way. Keep in mind that 40% of Americans self-reported a multicultural background in the 2020 US Census.

• Make it visual and social: Positive affirmations, emojis & memes, reactions, milestones—speak their language.

• Moderate lightly, empower often: Build in templates, nudges, and optional advisor content.

Social finance isn’t about posting on social networking. It’s about enabling financial trust, transparency and collaboration. The institutions that succeed will treat users like partners, not accounts.

Final Word: Money Is Social. Always Has Been.

It’s time to let banking catch up.

The future isn’t solo. It’s shared. It’s transparent. It’s powered by communities and built around goals that matter.

At Wellthi, we believe in helping users build wealth better—together. And we’re just getting started.

Banks: your customers are already playing the game. The question is, are you on their team?

Quick Wins: Social Finance Features for Banks

1. Shared Goal Accounts: Allow customers to create a savings or investment goal and invite others to contribute. Each member can track the group’s progress in the banking app. This fosters accountability (no one wants to let the group down) and makes saving feel collaborative. Even a simple feature like a “Friends Fund” savings account with multiple contributors can be a great start.

2. Social Savings Challenges: Integrate opt-in challenges or competitions. For example, a 30-Day Savings Streak challenge where friends team up and each person sets aside a small amount daily. Provide a leaderboard (visible only to the group) and reward the winners with a bonus or badge. Research shows social comparison can motivate higher savings , so a little friendly competition can go a long way.

3. In-App Communities or Forums: Create moderated money circles within the app centered on common goals or interests. Think “New Parents Budgeting Group” or “First-Time Homebuyers Club” hosted by the bank. Members can share tips, ask questions, and celebrate milestones (like paying off a credit card). A bank-employed facilitator or smart bot can drop in expert advice to keep guidance on-track.

4. Peer Benchmarks in Personal Finance Tools: Enhance budgeting or savings tools with peer benchmarks. For instance, show users how their monthly spending on dining out compares to the average in their age group or city. Seeing that they spend more than their peers can nudge a user to cut back, while seeing positive peer behavior (e.g. “people like you saved $300 this month”) can encourage them to save a bit more.

5. Social Gifting and Rewards: Make it easy for users to send small monetary gifts or boosts to friends’ goals. If a friend is just $50 short of their goal, another friend could chip in as a surprise. Or implement referral rewards that benefit groups – e.g. if you refer a friend and they join, both of you get $10, or your savings circle gets a group bonus. This leverages friend networks for growth while reinforcing teamwork.

6. Partner to Move Faster: Banks and credit unions don’t have to build social finance features from scratch. The smart move? Partner with fintechs who’ve already done the heavy lifting. Wellthi, for instance, provides white-label solutions that let financial institutions offer group savings goals, and in-app financial communities—all integrated into their existing systems. With Wellthi, a bank can launch collaborative finance tools that feel native to Gen Z and Millennial users in a fraction of the time it would take to build in-house.

Meet the Future of Finance!

Wellthi Technologies—backed by Mastercard & Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures—offers a turnkey Virtual Advisor Technology app tailored for lowering branch costs, driving low-cost deposits, and maximizing billion dollar opportunities with under 45 consumers. Engage Millennials & Gen Z with social finance features that drive loyalty and deposits. Our platform transforms banking into a community experience with goal sharing, crowdfunding, and peer support—helping credit unions stay relevant, digital-first, and growth-ready. Seamlessly onboard new members, boost engagement, and unlock new revenue streams—all without costly tech investments.

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