New research from financial services technology provider FIS reveals the emergence of "Gen MX," a segment of higher-income Gen Xers and older millennials who share strikingly similar banking behaviors and digital preferences.

For its third annual Performance Against Customer Expectations report, FIS surveyed consumers in various age demographics — millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers — to rank the importance of key attributes of their banking experience and to determine how well their banks are mirroring those attributes.

The study revealed that senior millennials (age 26–36) and Gen Xers (age 37–51) in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and other countries share striking similarities in terms of their banking preferences and behaviors:

• they are more likely than other age groups to use regional banks as their primary financial institutions;
• they share, in the same order, the 10 most important attributes they want most from their banks, ranging from safety and security at the top to simplicity, transparency, omnichannel options, and the ability to anticipate and meet their financial needs;
• they handle three-quarters of their banking contacts via online and mobile channels, and perform more than twice as many mobile banking interactions as baby boomers, on average.

"Gen MX is now in the driver's seat of the global economy," Anthony Jabbour, FIS COO for banking and payments, said in the release. "[These] consumers earn more than any other age group, are starting and running businesses, and are about to inherit the biggest transfer of wealth in history. They are accustomed to using digital channels to manage their personal lives, and they want the same level of digital experience in their banking and business relationships.

"These digital power users are creating the future of banking and payments, and financial institutions of all sizes need to be paying attention to serving their needs."

Other key findings from the 2017 study:

• Banking consumers globally place the highest importance on safety, security, fairness and anytime/anywhere access to their finances, in that order;
• within the past year digital payments have risen from 12th to eighth place as the most important attribute to respondents; and
• mobile payments — from shopping to person-to-person money movement — showed the strongest growth of any payment type from 2016 to 2017.

The report and accompanying country-specific infographics are available from FIS as a free download.

The 2017 FIS PACE Study, conducted in Dec. 2016, surveyed 8,000 banking consumers in eight countries: Australia; Brazil; Canada; Germany; India; Thailand; the United Kingdom; and the United States. Surveys were conducted online with individuals age 18 to 75 who have a checking or equivalent account with a financial institution.