JD Power: Fintechs Continues to Attract ‘Soft-Switching’ Banking Accounts

By Roy Urrico

A “soft switching” phenomenon, where banking and investment services customers open secondary accounts and then gradually shifting them into their primary relationships, continues for a second consecutive quarter in 2025. That is a finding in the JD Power Financial Services Churn Data and Analytics Report, part of the Troy, Mich.-based data analytics company’s financial services intelligence research.

“The findings in this report are noteworthy because they spotlight a critical transition point in the decision-making process of financial services customers as they evaluate a steadily growing list of brands and options for how to manage their money,” proposed JD Power in the report, which is based on 263,151 responses collected between October and December 2025.

JD Power continued, “The fact that many of these brands are succeeding at converting customers suggests that effective digital engagement will play a major role in the future development of the financial services industry. Incumbent brands need to monitor this trend closely and make sure they are continuing to connect with the right customers at the right time with the right approach.”

Key points identified in the report include:

• Fintech brands are the biggest beneficiaries of the soft switching trend, particularly in the mass market banking segment, while traditional brands continue to lead on new account openings in the mass affluent and affluent banking categories.

• Chime, the San Francisco-based fintech firm, saw the highest new customer acquisition and conversation rates for checking and savings accounts.

• Bank of America (BoA) and Chase captured the highest percentage of mass affluent and affluent banking customers.

• Fidelity leads on new investment account openings; SoFi leads on investment account conversion rate.

Jennifer White, senior director, financial services intelligence at JD Power/

“JD Power surveys over 100,000 retail banking and over 11,000 credit union members with at least a checking account annually about their customer experience. In this research, we focus on asking questions about the customers' primary banking relationship,” said the report’s author Jennifer White, senior director, financial services intelligence at JD Power, who shared additional insights with Finopotamus. “In addition, our Churn product surveys 3,000 consumers daily about account consideration, selection, and closures.”

Chime-ing into New Banking Accounts

Churn survey findings include:

• There is a movement toward more consumer interest and experimentation with new fintech brands, especially for mass market customers. Recent trends suggest digital engagement as a big factor in this dynamic – and traditional/incumbent players need to be ready for the competition.

• Just under half of new checking (49%) and savings (46%) account openings in the fourth quarter of 2025 were for secondary accounts, opened by customers who already have an existing banking relationship, while 26% of checking and 18% of savings account openings were replacement accounts.

• Brand new banking relationships among customers who did not previously have a banking or checking account represented 25% of all checking and 36% of all savings account openings. This pattern of secondary account opening, which is consistent with the third quarter of 2025, “suggests that more banking customers are expanding and diversifying away from their primary deposit relationships.”

• Chime claimed the largest share of new checking account openings in fourth quarter 2025 with 12.8%, followed by Chase (8.4%) and Wells Fargo (7.1%). Among new savings account openings, Chase saw the largest overall market share at 9%, followed by Chime (8.4%) and BofA (6.3%).

• Chime continued to show strength for a second consecutive quarter in its conversion rate — the percentage accounts open with the fintech after customers evaluated other options. Overall, Chime claimed the highest conversion rate for customers who considered opening checking (78%) and savings accounts (85%). For both checking and savings accounts, Chime consistently outperformed both fintechs and more established brands on new account conversion.

BofA, Chase, SoFi Winning Customers

When it comes to targeting higher income, and higher net worth customers, the big four national banks— Chase, Wells Fargo, BofA, and Capital One — are outperforming fintech brands, according to the Financial Services Churn Data and Analytics Report.

Among checking account openings, Chime led on customer acquisition in the mass market segment, claiming 11.5% of new customers, while Chase led in the mass-affluent segment, with 10.9% of new customers, and BoA led in the affluent segment, with 14.1% of new customers in Q4. A similar trend played out in savings accounts, where Chime led mass market customer acquisition with 11.5% market share, and Chase led in both the mass affluent (9.7%) and affluent (11.5%) segments.

In the investment account category, Fidelity claimed the largest share of new account openings in fourth quarter 2025 with 16.8%. It was followed by Charles Schwab (9.1%) and Robinhood (8%). When it came to new account conversions, however, fintech brand SoFi claimed the lead, capturing 83.1% of accounts that were opened after other brands were evaluated. SoFi was followed by Fidelity (80.2%) and Acorns (78.2%).

When segmenting customer acquisition by total investible assets, Fidelity maintained the top position among mass market (16.3%), mass affluent (17.7%) and affluent (16.4%) customers; followed by Robinhood (10.5%) in the mass market segment and Charles Schwab in the mass affluent (10.8%) and affluent (13.1%) segments.

Insight on Credit Unions

“From this body of research, we have learned a few things about credit union members,” White told Finopotamus. In a separate conversation, she provided the following insights:

• In the last year, the number of accounts held by credit union checking account members has declined.

• Members under the age of 40 are more likely than their older peers to have multiple deposit products at financial institutions other than their credit union (“that is, they have a higher likelihood of fragmented financial partners”).

• This data is similar to trends we see among retail banks, overall today's checking account customer on average has accounts across two-three institutions.

• “We know that members have accounts at secondary banks because they are interested in isolating their savings for goals like large purchases or building emergency funds from their everyday financial activities.”

• In this diversified (or fragmented) financial experience, members are juggling accounts from a variety of different bank types - their credit union, other credit unions or community banks, traditional retail banks that are often large national banks, or among fintechs like direct or neo banks.

• Among all newly opened checking accounts in January-February 2026 across all financial institution types: 35% opened at national banks, 23% neo banks, 9% direct banks, 7% midsize banks, 7% regional banks, 4% credit unions, and 15% other (smaller banks and smaller credit unions).

• “If we look closely at newly opened checking accounts by Gen Z during this same timeframe: 40% national bank, 23% neo bank, 8% direct bank, 6% midsize banks, 5% regional banks, 5% credit unions, and 12% other - the bulk of new checking accounts opened by Gen Z occur at national or neo banks.”