Loyalty Pays: A Q&A on the Power of Bank-based Indirect Streaming Bundles with Bango's Giles Tongue
A revealing new report from Bango, “Loyalty pays: the bundle economy advantage,” offered surprising insights into the increasing role banking incentives are playing in the growth of indirect streaming bundles, and how streaming bundle offerings in turn are fostering greater loyalty among bank customers. With Gen Z customers likely to churn from one bank to another 5x faster than their Boomer counterparts, streaming bundles are far more effective than the toaster offers that hooked their parents and grandparents in keeping their accounts in one place longer.
The Bango study gathered data from 5,000 US subscribers on their attitudes and behaviors in the current bundle economy. Noting that the average streaming consumer is now carrying 5.4 paid subscriptions—a 20% increase since this time last year—Bango found that half these subscribers expressed dissatisfaction with the number of individual subscriptions they currently hold and 57% said they had canceled services in the last year due to “unexpected price hikes.” Among those surveyed, 22% said they are accessing services through subscription bundles via a payments or wallet provider, and 14% identified “their primary bank as the preferred home for a one-stop subscription hub.”
Again, the loyalty (to streaming services and banks) goes both ways; a recent survey of European streaming consumers revealed that 54% of those surveyed “would be more loyal to a bank that offers an all-in-one hub.”
I spoke with Bango VP Marketing Giles Tongue about the survey, some of its more intriguing findings, and its further-reaching implications for this Q&A.
Bango VP Marketing Giles Tongue
Steve Nathans-Kelly: The report notes that the average number of subscriptions held by consumers continues to rise, from 4.5 in 2024 to 5.4 in 2025. Assuming this includes indirect subscriptions, would you say that number reflects a significantly different ownership profile when compared to numbers 4-5 years ago, in terms of how subscriptions were acquired and what consumers are actually paying for them?
Giles Tongue: The ownership profile has definitely shifted over the past few years, and we expect the number of indirect subscriptions to continue growing as more industries lean into bundling as a key growth driver. Amazon is a great example. It offered traditional premium cable channels like Showtime as add-ons, but just last October, it began offering Apple TV+ through Prime Video. Moves like that expand reach, reduce friction and keep customers within a single ecosystem, helping to ease the “subscription fatigue” that comes with managing multiple standalone services. That model is only going to accelerate as more companies look for new ways to create a seamless experience while also driving loyalty, engagement and revenue through bundled or shared subscription experiences.
We’re also seeing the rise in the Savvy Subscriber. Four or five years ago, the set price was the price, whether that was buying in the app stores or from the website of the content providers. Now one might find a longer trial period, a discounted price or even a way to get the product included in the price of another service, such as a mobile phone plan or as part of a switching incentive or by increasing their monthly payment to use a bank or credit card. Once deciding on taking a service, the Savvy Subscribers look around for the best value way of taking the subscription.
How sustainable is the bank-led subscription bundle model compared to, say, retail or telco-led bundling, especially as licensing costs and consumer expectations evolve?
Banks have traditionally relied on loyalty and proximity. In the past, customers often chose the branch closest to their homes and stayed there for years. But that model no longer holds. With nearly 750 digital banks now competing globally, consumers have far more choice, and loyalty is no longer tied to proximity. Our research shows that 48% of 18–34-year-olds would switch banks for subscription bundles that cut costs and simplify account management.
Unlike retailers or telcos, banks have a unique advantage: they already sit at the center of consumers’ financial lives. With a built-in trust advantage for payments, and many already offering subscription management tools, banks and wallet providers are well positioned to become the go-to parties that make it easier to consolidate subscriptions in one place.
What kinds of streaming or digital services (video, gaming, music, fitness, etc.) are proving most attractive to consumers in bank-led bundles? How do banks decide which partnerships to prioritize? Are banks working directly with streaming services on an individual basis to bring them into partnerships?
It really depends on the bank and its target customer profile. We’ve seen banks like Revolut offer a wide mix of subscriptions across lifestyle and travel services. However, across the board, we see streaming services among the top choices, especially as prices rise and consumers look for ways to save. There’s also growing interest in AI subscriptions, which we expect to become a major category within the next year.
Building these bundles directly is incredibly complex. Negotiating individual contracts, securing the right partners, managing integrations and tracking ROI all take significant time and resources. The Digital Vending Machine® (DVM) from Bango solves these pain points to provide instant access to pre-built integrations with hundreds of subscription products, apps and streaming services.
With nearly half of younger consumers willing to switch banks for better bundles, do banks face operational or regulatory challenges as they try to scale these offerings quickly and competitively?
We don’t foresee this as a major challenge, but this is where a service like Bango can provide the guidance and infrastructure to scale these offerings. The Digital Vending Machine helps companies grow their subscription offering with speed and at scale, by taking care of many of the complexity involved in bringing together multiple parties, such as entitlement management and billing on behalf of, as well as in some cases, being able to provide commercial terms for subscription content.
Given that “ease of billing” is an even stronger driver than pricing, what are some of the advantages subscription management hubs can offer banks and wallet providers to minimize churn and facilitate daily app usage?
Subscription bundling creates a monthly touchpoint with consumers, prompting them to visit the app or website to view the latest offers. ‘Digitally engaged’ users are significantly more likely to purchase additional products, whether that’s financial health tools, loans and mortgages. Keeping offers frequent and varied will continue to drive users back into the app, and evidence from other industries show already that the more bundles a subscriber takes, the more loyal they become to that first-party service.
As bundling becomes an increasingly common mechanism for banks to build customer loyalty, what are the key metrics these institutions are looking at to evaluate the downstream impact of these incentives, beyond just subscription sign-ups?
Key metrics to track are retention, lifetime value, number of services taken (both 1st and 3rd party), frequency of app opens, cohort analysis of those who took certain offers and retention of those users vs other cohorts.
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