Despite the latest news related to the use of social networks as a source of information, Google continues to be the leader in the search engine market, with 92% of its use worldwide. For this reason we have decided to talk about the latest trends in searches published by the USA giant.
According to the search engine’s figures, inflation, economic uncertainty and the rising cost of living are topics that have boosted its entries compared to previous years. There is no doubt that we had to adjust our budgets because of the complicated situation of the global economy.
Increase in finance-related searches
“What is inflation” is one of the phrases that has seen its search interest grow worldwide, including Spain. Due to the need to adapt our consumption habits to, shall we say, “ride out the storm”, many of us have had to adjust our budget in the face of new economic challenges.
In addition, the price of the basic food basket has led to a 20% increase in searches for “why” related to “expensive”. We are trying to understand what is happening in the world and the reasons for it. We all want to minimize the effect of inflation in our pockets. In Spain, the sectors that generated the most interest last year were those related to energy, specifically gasoline and electricity.
The Google team indicates that searches related to previously non widespread financial termshave alsoskyrocketed. This is the case of “what are interest rates”, for example. Although we do not currently have a study on financial stress in our country, there is no doubt that it has increased significantly since the start of the pandemic.
Concern for savings and sustainability
We are not only distressed about reducing costs in our daily lives, we also demand companies, entities and institutions to be respectful of the environment. Customers are very aware of the climate emergency situation and that is why we try to act responsibly. We can see this in the increased searches for products that include “second hand” and “used”. These are terms that used to have negative connotations but are now boosting due to C2C marketplaces.
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Another case that emphasizes this trend is “how to save energy”, which broke a record worldwide last year. We are interested in saving on our electricity bill, but we also know that we can help the planet by consuming less energy. Rising prices made many Spaniards want to know the “cheapest time to use the washing machine today” or “electricity prices per hour”. Other countries also asked Google if “does switching off the geyser save electricity.”
There is no doubt that customers are waiting for better times to invest their savings. As the Government indicates in its 2022 Spanish Economic Situation Report: “In 2023, the evolution of private consumption is revised slightly downwards, due to the impact of uncertainty, inflation and rising interest rates on household decisions”.
Offering tools to save money in complex situations
In this state of affairs, with important and unpredictable changes, it is essential to offer information about the evolution of the economy and its influence on households. At Coinscrap Finance, as a fintech startup, we are allies of the banking industry in everything related to increasing the financial health of customers. In addition, we offer them automatic recommendations and hyper-personalized products.
To know in detail the needs of banking users, it is essential to obtain a general overview of their spending habits and recurring income. This is the only way to provide them with the tools they need to improve their financial health. Banks have this data, but they need to categorize it in order to use it in their business strategies.
The fact that users are concerned about their financial health is an opportunity for the bank to become a trusted advisor and ensure user satisfaction, i.e. to build user loyalty. It is about offering the right service at the right time and ensuring that both parties benefit from the agreement.
Only in this way will we be providing value to the user and improving their living conditions in a complicated economic situation. We hope these insights have helped you to discover what concerns banking users today.
See you soon!
