Since the 2008 financial crisis, the financial services industry has been trying to rebuild relationships with their customers and regain their trust through new initiatives focused on advancing financial health and wellness. This effort has never been more relevant, as currently more than 70 percent of Americans are struggling with some aspect of their financial lives.

To better understand the extent of this shift to focus on customer financial health, Flourish has partnered with the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) to carry out a survey of senior executives at financial institutions. "From Buzzword to Business Model: How Industry Executives View Financial Health" brings the voice of the providers to the fold, with a survey of nearly 660 C-suite senior executives at banks, credit unions, insurance companies, retirement companies, payment networks, credit bureaus, and fintech companies. Given that senior leadership is essential to driving real organizational change, the survey was designed to measure how senior executives in financial institutions think about their customers’ financial health and to determine what–if any–action is being taken to improve customer outcomes.

The results show that, while consumer financial health has reached broad awareness and ranked high on most providers' priority list—69 percent of executives surveyed said that improving customer financial health was an important strategic priority for their business—actions in that direction are still trailing behind intentions, with only 51 percent of companies reporting launching a product or service aimed at achieving that goal.

The survey also brings other interesting findings related to providers' focus on following data on customer financial health outcomes and how the implementation of a customer financial health agenda may vary depending on the enterprise size and segment.

To download the full report, please click here.