Young adults still value prefer face-to-face finance advice

Research from Newcastle Building Society reveals that while young people increasingly use AI for financial advice, they still prioritise face-to-face interactions with trusted advisors.

Exclus­ive find­ings for the Express’s Save Our High Street Banks cru­sade, strengthen demands for high street branches to remain open, as it con­firms huge demand across all age groups for per­sonal inter­ac­tion over money affairs.

Tra­di­tion­ally it has been felt that older people would lose out from the mass closer of branches, with over 6,700 shut­ting since 2015.

But the study, has found that as fin­an­cial mat­ters become trick­ier, younger people are pla­cing greater import­ance on being able to con­duct face-to-face meet­ings with trus­ted advisers.

Research­ers found that 26% of Gen Z – people aged 14 to 29 – say they have used AI tools such as Chat­GPT, Claude, Gem­ini or Copi­lot for a money ques­tion, com­pared to 15% of UK adults over­all.

Mean­while, 19% have turned to social media for fin­an­cial guid­ance. Yet des­pite this grow­ing use of digital chan­nels, young adults con­tinue to place a high value on per­sonal inter­ac­tion. In all, 78% of Gen Z said it is import­ant that they can access faceto-face sup­port, com­pared with 63% of Gen X – people aged 49 to 61 – and 69% of UK adults over­all.

While digital tools are becom­ing more pop­u­lar, the find­ings sug­gest young adults remain cau­tious about rely­ing on tech alone. Many use AI as a start­ing point but look for reas­sur­ance from trus­ted advisers before mak­ing import­ant decisions.

While bank branch net­works con­tinue to be rolled up, New­castle Build­ing Soci­ety has bucked the trend by invest­ing £13m in retain­ing and open­ing new ones. Their busi­ness plan is rein­forced by recent research from the Build­ing Soci­et­ies Asso­ci­ation, which found that younger branch users report par­tic­u­larly strong bene­fits from face-to-face fin­an­cial ser­vices.

Among those younger cus­tom­ers, 76% say they improve their fin­an­cial con­fid­ence, while 52% say they have gained fin­an­cial edu­ca­tion or digital skills, and 33% report receiv­ing sup­port that helped them avoid scams. With UK Sav­ings Week 2026 this week focus­ing on how people build fin­an­cial resi­li­ence and develop pos­it­ive sav­ings habits, the research sug­gests younger con­sumers are increas­ingly com­bin­ing digital tools with human sup­port.

New­castle Build­ing Soci­ety’s Man­aging Dir­ector Jill Arm­strong said “Young adults are grow­ing up in a world where inform­a­tion is avail­able instantly and it’s no sur­prise that many are turn­ing to AI and digital chan­nels.

“What’s par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing is that they still place a huge value on being able to speak to someone they trust. When it comes to import­ant fin­an­cial decisions, many still want the reas­sur­ance of talk­ing things through with some­body who under­stands their cir­cum­stances.”