In our recent article on How COVID-19 Has Affected Affiliate Marketing, you learned that within the financial industry, some products have had a greater focus than others. Today, we will be taking a deeper look at the current top performing products in the financial services space.

With the financial industry shifting, Fintel Connect and our publishers are also noticing changes in traffic and conversion rates across different verticals. Read on to find out what we’re seeing in the space and hearing from our publisher partners on where the opportunities are and what we can expect as the impact of COVID persists into the summer months.

Banking

There is a general uptick for banking products during this current climate. What we have found across the Fintel Connect Network is that conversions for savings accounts are performing 50%-150% higher in April and May than previous months prior to COVID.

Publishers have seen 30% increase in engagement for banking products. This is likely because people are at home and online more. Statista noted that online traffic across 20 industries in April increased by 25% when compared to January and February. Our publishers also noticed their savvier audiences have been chasing saving accounts with high interest rates and promotional offers. This is to build or grow their emergency funds, especially during a time of financial uncertainty.

According to RateSupermarket, more Canadians are turning to online and mobile banking due to bank branch closures and reduced hours of operations to honour the pandemic safety measures. With increased phone and in-person wait times for banking customer servicing, online and mobile banking have become one of the safest and most convenient ways to meet banking needs.

Along with COVID-related needs for online banking, Wealth Professional shared that there has been increased demand for digital banking from younger consumers who are interested in innovative banking solutions.

Investments

During this pandemic, those who may already have emergency funds or have fortunately been financially stable throughout, are looking to invest the extra cash they have.

As stock prices have been declining for the last few months, it has been an opportunistic time to enter the market. Especially for those who are in a position to do so. The foundation to good investing is to buy low and sell high. In an article by Motley Fool, they used Nike and Disney as examples where these big companies rewarded their shareholders with high returns of 434% and 354%, respectively, between 2009 to 2019.

GreedyRates suggests opening a robo advisor account if you are worried about investing during market volatility. Robo advisors follow algorithms to invest based on individuals’ financial goals and risk tolerance.

From what we’ve observed, consumers have been following this advice. Robo advisor and investment products have increased in popularity in the last couple of months. Our findings show that conversions increased by about 28% in April and May, compared to previous months.

Life Insurance

As COVID-19 symptoms and cases began to spread a few months back, more people started to consider life insurance more seriously to financially protect themselves and their families.

From a recent PolicyMe study, 67% of the Canadians surveyed began to consider purchasing life insurance because of Coronavirus-related concerns. The survey showed that 41% of Canadians do not have life insurance because they find it too expensive. However, people’s attitudes toward life insurance are also changing. People are becoming more aware of threats to life and loss of job due to COVID.

There’s growth in the life insurance vertical as our publishers found that there is more engagement with and active searches for this category. This resulted in 40%-50% increase in traffic for their life insurance blog posts.

Credit Cards

Credit cards are used for their perks and added benefits, such as points and insurance, and are a powerful financial and travel tool for those who pay their bills on time. During this time, not everyone has the luxury to use or continue to use reward credit cards with APRs of 20-30% solely for their perks. This has been observed by our publishers who have seen a dip in the credit card vertical since the start of COVID-19.

A CBC article shared that at the end of March, many Canadians can’t afford to make the minimum payments as interest rates are too high. Many who have been financially affected are focused more on managing their existing credit cards and possible debt and are not looking to take on new cards. In fact, some are looking for access to credit products with lower APRs if low interest credit cards do not suit. In response, all six of Canada’s Big Banks have temporarily reduced their credit card interest rates to help provide relief during this pandemic. Global News shared that approximately 140,000 BMO and TD clients have taken advantage of relief measures for credit cards, mortgages and overdraft fees.

It’s no wonder that Ratehub.ca found that their audience’s credit card preferences have changed drastically year-over-year (YoY) in April for travel rewards cards and low interest cards. Ratehub.ca’s user views for travel rewards cards decreased by 61% YoY, while low interest cards increased by 36%. Although travel rewards card saw the highest decrease, it is still the most preferred card type amongst Ratehub.ca’s audience.

Having travel bans in place and an increase in financial stress for many, we can understand the trends observed for the travel and low interest credit cards. From Fintel Connect’s data, we found that traffic for travel cards decreased in the double digitals for April and May, compared to months prior to the outbreak. We also found that traffic for low interest cards nearly doubled.

Loans

In a recent Borrowell Survey, research found that 3 in 4 Canadians are experiencing financial stress from this pandemic. When COVID started spreading and people started getting laid off or experiencing reduced hours, many people did not have emergency funds set aside for situations like this.

Even pre-COVID, the Financial Post found that more than half of Canadians were living pay cheque to pay cheque. The current climate has made Canadians’ living situations worst due to additional financial stress.

Personal loans and line of credits grew in popularity as CERB or EI were not enough to cover people’s monthly costs. A study by Acorn Canada found that almost 35% of Canadians said they didn’t have enough money to pay for rent. What we found is that traffic in April and May for personal loans more than doubled in comparison to traffic between January to March.

Conclusion

As we know, this pandemic outbreak has financially impacted many Canadians, and some more than others. Now more than ever, people are becoming much more aware of their financial situations. People are looking for options to protect themselves better financially for future periods of uncertainty.

Although COVID restrictions are slowly lifting across Canada, we will likely continue to see these products trending in the financial space in the coming months as Canadians transition to the new normal.

Do you agree with our list of top trending financial products? Comment below to share what you have noticed in the last few months, we’d love to hear from you!

For those publishers out there looking to help build awareness on available financial products for consumers, we welcome you to reach out to our team or sign up to the Fintel Connect Network by clicking here!