"A silent migration across checking accounts is redrawing the map of customer stickiness. Customers aren't closing existing accounts or storming off after a bad experience. Instead, they're moving the greater part of their financial activity elsewhere while keeping their old accounts open. Their linked debit cards still exist in the drawer. Their credit cards still accrue small charges. But the nucleus - the 'primary account' - is relocating."
"Recent findings from J.D. Power's Financial Services Churn and Analytics report quantify what banks have been feeling anecdotally: customers are hedging their loyalty. In Q3 2025, approximately half of all new US checking (52%) and investment (48%) accounts opened were additional accounts. But the deeper pattern is more telling: 72% of people who opened "additional" or "replacement" checking accounts switched to a different provider, and more than half of those (54%) made it their primary account."
Consumers increasingly open additional or replacement checking and investment accounts and shift the majority of transactions, deposits, and primary activity to those new relationships while leaving older accounts technically open. In Q3 2025 roughly half of new US checking and investment accounts were additional accounts, and 72% of people who opened additional or replacement checking accounts switched providers, with 54% of those making the new account their primary. Soft switching is often silent because linked cards and small charges persist on legacy accounts, creating an illusion of retention while primary relationships relocate.
Read at Tearsheet
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]