The Best Time to Market Student Checking Accounts is August

by. Rob Rubin

High season for students shopping for checking accounts peaks in August and starts winding down in Septembers as kids find their way to college campuses for fall classes. Over the last 12 months, 14% of shoppers on FindABetterBank have requested student accounts be included in their search results. The percentages are higher from July through October/November and lower during the winter months.

Larger institutions are more likely to have checking accounts designed specifically for students. On FindABetterBank, 64% of banks with more than 1,000 branches offer student accounts, but only 16% of institutions with fewer than 100 branches have student accounts. Yet in most cases, despite requesting student accounts be included in their search results, these student shoppers choose non-student accounts 73% of the time. The fact that they’re more likely to choose another account indicates that banks have not done a good job developing checking accounts specifically for students.

In most cases, it’s difficult to differentiate student accounts from banks’ low-end checking accounts. The differences are usually related to fees associated with withdrawing cash from ATMs — like no ATM fees when cash is withdrawn from non-affiliated ATMs, and some offer ATM fee rebates.

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