Segmenting German Financial Consumers

Our analysis of consumers' financial attitudes shows that we can divide people into four distinct types: Self-Directed consumers, Validators, Delegators, and Avoiders. Each customer type shows a characteristic behavior when it comes to making financial decisions and interacting with financial services firms. German financial firms face a particularly challenging customer mix, with large numbers of Self-Directed customers. German financial services strategy executives need to align their market strategies with the expectations of each group that they want to serve. The first step, however, is to understand what their target customer types are and what exactly these customers need and expect.