This bias can lead consumers either to make poor financial choices or instead to tip the scales in favor of beneficial choices, as with automatic savings defaults.20 Similarly, “nudges” can help consumers in the right circumstances or instead backfire in surprising ways.21 These behavioral insights are especially powerful when paired with the remarkable advances we have seen in the technological tools available to the average consumer, especially through their smartphones.22 Smartphones are ubiquitous.
The 2016 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer and Mobile Financial Services (SCMF) found that 87 percent of the U.S. adult population had a mobile phone, the vast majority of which were smartphones. 23 Smartphone use is prevalent even among the unbanked and underbanked populations.