People under 30 judge the credibility of a financial product through visual signals before they read the interest rate. Color, tone of voice and interface must speak the same language as the target user, not the board of directors. If the design looks like an internal bank document, young people will close the screen before they reach the numbers.
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Picture a 26-year-old opening their phone at 11 p.m., having just received their first paycheck large enough to set a little aside.
They search for “high-interest online savings”.
The top three results appear, all with white backgrounds, navy text, and a cover image of a middle-aged family smiling in front of a new home.
They closed all three. Not because the interest rate was poor. Because no one in the picture looked like them.
Trust forms before anyone reads
Research by Lindgaard et al., published in Behaviour & Information Technology in 2006, measured that visual impressions form within 50 milliseconds.
That is the moment before the brain has had time to process a single word.
Stanford Web Credibility Research (2002–2004) found that 75% of users judge an organization's credibility by its interface design, not its content.
For people under 30, who grew up with Spotify, Duolingo, and TikTok, the threshold for judgment is even lower.
They don't ask themselves, "Is this design beautiful?" In a fraction of a second, they ask: "Is this place for someone like me?"
A brand is what customers feel, not a logo or a color. Design is simply the language that lets that feeling form in the right way.
Interpretation from Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap
Why traditional banking language can't speak to young people
Traditional banks build their identity language for an existing customer group: middle-aged, asset-owning people who value stability and formality.
Navy or deep blue, serif or Gothic fonts, images of solid buildings, a formal tone and many terms. All of it makes sense for that customer group.
But the Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 reports that finance remains near the bottom of the trust rankings, at just 64% globally.
For people under 30, this figure is even lower, because they have no transaction history to make up for the first impression.
When a savings product for young people uses that same language, it doesn't create a sense of safety. It creates a sense of distance.
Three signals that decide whether young people trust you
Sinh Vũ calls these three layers of trust signals that people under 30 read instantly, even though they are not aware of it.
Color: the question isn't "which color suits the young mind," but whether this color creates the feeling that "this place gets me."
Nubank chose purple because no one in finance had used it, and that difference is a signal in itself.
Tone of voice: short, direct, with no terms hidden in the main sentence. Don't write “in accordance with current legal regulations on credit institutions”.
Write “your money is insured up to 125 million dong.”
Interface: young people compare a financial app with every other app they use daily, not just with other banking apps.
If the experience falls short of Grab or Shopee, a sense of unease appears immediately.
The interest rate is the reason to stay, not the reason to click
This is where many financial products go wrong most often.
They invest in competitive interest rates, zero fees, extended benefits. Then they present it all in a dense comparison table with small type on a gray background.
Young people don't read that far. Not because they lack patience, but because within the first few seconds they have already decided this place is not for them.
Kantar BrandZ reports that brands seen as meaningful and different can command prices up to 38% higher than their competitors.
That means the right design doesn't just attract young customers, it also helps you step out of the interest rate war.
When your products look alike, buyers are left with only one criterion to compare: price.
Compiled from Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow
A distinct product needs its own language
A common question is: if you build a youthful identity language for a savings product, will you lose older customers?
The answer lies in brand architecture, not color.
A product focused on people under 30 doesn't need to look like the whole parent bank.
It can have its own name, its own colors, its own voice, while still being backed by the name of the bank behind it.
This model, commonly called “endorsed brand”, lets both customer groups receive the signals they need, so no one feels they are being spoken to in someone else's way.
- A product with its own name and colors, made for young people.
- The parent bank's name appears in second position, as an anchor of credibility.
- A tone of voice written for people aged 22 to 30, short and direct.
- The digital interface matches the standard of today's consumer apps.
The starting point is not the logo but the right question
Most of the projects Sinh Vũ does in the financial sector start not from “which color suits young people,” but from:
What are your under-30 customers afraid of when they deposit money for the first time?
The answer is usually: fear of losing control, fear of not understanding the terms, fear of having money locked when it's needed.
Only from that fear can design build real trust signals, not surface decoration.
Color, tone of voice and interface are then no longer aesthetic decisions. They are the answer to a question: how do you make someone handing over money for the first time feel they are doing the right thing?
References
Lindgaard et al., Behaviour & Information Technology, 2006. Stanford Web Credibility Research, 2002–2004. Edelman Trust Barometer, 2025. Kantar BrandZ. Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap. Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow.