Teenager Paulo (fictitious name), 15 years old, invests in cryptocurrencies with some regularity. Under his father’s supervision, he sets aside a small amount of his allowance to invest in bitcoins and other virtual opportunities. When I ask him what led him to choose this type of investment, the young man explains: “it’s easy and I can do it on my cell phone.”
For the boy, buying crypto and maintaining an online wallet feels as palpable and natural as hoarding.skins‘ em games – items acquired by characters within the game – Fortnite or Free Fire. After all, digital accessories are “real” goods. Or an asset, as the financial market prefers to call investment products.
In addition to virtual currencies, when he wants to save money, Paulo simply leaves part of his allowance in his digital account or put it in one of the boxes in the bank's app, which yields a percentage of the CDI. Savings account? “I don’t know. My friends have never heard of it either.”
The teenager's behavior is similar to that of millions of other young people, as recent research shows. And this raises a red flag for the most traditional Brazilian investment product, the century-old savings account.
For decades, this instrument reigned supreme as the main refuge for the population's money. But it is now beginning to feel the weight of its age. With a new generation of investors on the rise, the traditional financial vehicle is now sharing the spotlight with more modern – and more profitable – products.
Economist Marcelo Billi, superintendent of Sustainability, Innovation and Education at the Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Market Entities (Anbima), states that research by the entity itself has highlighted these generational changes.
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The results of the latest Investor X-Ray indicate that young people between the ages of 16 and 27 (the so-called generation Z) understand savings not as a specific product, but as a concept: that of a simple and easily accessible investment where they can leave their money earning interest, but with the convenience of using it at any time. “People are calling other instruments that look like interest-bearing checking accounts savings,” says the economist.
The power of digital
The Anbima study also shows that the majority of generation Z – or 66% of this audience – has an account with digital banks. This is quite a change in behavior. In the overall result, which considers all age groups, traditional financial institutions still hold a large lead: 69% of those interviewed say they have a checking account with a major bank.
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Another piece of data, but without a generational breakdown, shows savings accounts are still the most widely used investment vehicle by the population, with 25% of respondents using them. However, there is a continuous increase in cryptocurrencies among respondents. The digital asset is now in third place, tied with real estate and investment funds, all with 4%.
The future president of the Central Bank and current director of Monetary Policy, Gabriel Galípolo, is keeping an eye on the phenomenon. At an event last month, he noted that income growth in recent months has not led to an increase in savings or consumption. In his view, money seems to be “leaking” into cryptocurrencies and gambling.
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Generation Z sees the digital world almost like an extension of real life, says Mercado Bitcoin director Fabricio Tota. “For younger people, having a digital asset, such as cryptocurrencies, seems natural, because they already buy virtual goods in games or platforms.”
Tota points out that “even the relationship with music is different, because it comes from the cloud, from an app.” Older people, on the other hand, have some difficulty understanding the value of something that only exists on screen.
Complicated account
For the Mercado Bitcoin executive, the interest-bearing account It ends up being a much more practical instrument and closer to Generation Z. “Younger people already have options for saving money. A digital account is a way to organize your finances and keep your money earning more than a savings account.”
Some digital accounts bring remuneration of up to 100% of the CDI – but it is necessary to leave the money in the account for a long time to be able to reach this 100%. Today, if this profitability ceiling for remunerated accounts is reached, the account holder will receive something around 10.4% per year or 0.83% per month.
In the case of savingsthe rules are much more complicated. Just look: the product brings a fixed gain of 6.17% per year or 0.5% per month plus the variation of the reference interest rate (TR), currently at 0.07% per month. However, if the basic Selic rate, defined by the Central Bank, falls to 8.5% per year or below, the remuneration becomes 70% of the Selic.
Even those who are already familiar with the savings account probably had to read it twice to understand. In addition, there is another complicating factor: the gain is calculated monthly according to the anniversary date, that is, from the day the savings account was created. If the investor withdraws money before, he or she loses the remuneration of that amount. Did you withdraw it?
Fabrício Tota also sees a broader movement that could impact the investment industry in general. “Cryptocurrencies, tokenized assets, all of these will become increasingly popular. Today, there is a much wider range of investment options. Back then, older generations only had savings accounts and CDBs. Then came the platforms and, recently, the digital assets market has become mega popular.”
It's not that savings accounts are going to die. Billi, from Anbima, argues that savings accounts will continue to be an important way of learning and organizing finances, even for the youngest. The issue is that a generation that is connected all the time and has access to a massive amount of information will naturally seek to diversify its investments.
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Furthermore, the customer journey of this new generation requires the experience to be fast, simple, clear and effective. Therefore, there is a challenge for traditional investment instruments to modernize.
What about your own home?
In the case of savings, there is still an important point to consider. The century-old instrument works as a pillar of real estate credit system. By law, financial institutions are required to use 65% of the deposits in these accounts as resources for housing loans, both for home purchases and for construction.
Since the savings account yield is low compared to market rates, banks can lend at an attractive cost. This is why housing credit has become the cheapest option among all the lines offered by financial institutions in Brazil. Even cheaper than payroll loans.
When mentioning that, even with employment and salaries on the rise, savings accounts have not seen the color of money, Galípolo, from the BC, also indicated that he is monitoring this situation.
According to the authority's data, although the balance of deposits remains above R$1 trillion, the instrument has been facing net losses of resources over the last three and a half years – and with no sign of reversal in the short term. From 2021 to August 2024, net withdrawals, that is, the difference between the money coming in and the money going out, have already accumulated a loss of more than R$230 billion.
PIX Generation
Generation Z also displays another characteristic that could bode ill for savings accounts. “They are more immediate,” says José Artur Ribeiro, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinext. “This is our PIX generation.” The expert believes that these new entrants will change the investment industry as they gain financial power.
This insight was important for the growth of the Coinext platform itself. “In the beginning, our website took 9 seconds to load and we realized that this was unacceptable, and today the platform takes one second to load.”
Thiago Bertacchini, a specialist at digital fraud prevention fintech Mangopay, has a similar assessment. “Younger people want faster results, they are more short-term.” Speed is an ally for applications specializing in digital assets.
In 10 years, perhaps young Paulo, when he starts earning his own money, will see the savings account as a safe haven for his savings. Maybe. In any case, he will certainly invest less than his parents. And much less than his grandparents.