Analyzing My Consumption MBTI... Hongdae-byeong Hipster? Self-Management Master?

Shinhan Card Launches 'SoBTI' Service Applying MBTI

[Asia Economy Reporter Yu Je-hoon] "I tend to spend more money when I am with others than when I am alone. I prefer offline shopping over online shopping. Sometimes I overspend when I’m in a good mood, but since it’s an investment in myself, I don’t feel it’s a waste. I keep up with all the trends."

This is the consumption pattern of the ‘Hongdae-byeong Hipster (ESTP)’ type, which accounts for the largest share in Shinhan Card’s customer analysis. This type, representing 10% of the analyzed subjects, showed notable spending on lodging (2.8 times per month), department stores (160,000 KRW), leisure (0.8 times), and popular restaurants (1.8 times). Particularly, 32.6% were in their 20s and 31.0% in their 30s, indicating a high proportion of the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z).

The second and third most common types were ‘Self-Management Master (ESTJ)’ and ‘Trend Early Adopter (INTP),’ accounting for 9.1% (20s 20.5%, 30s 26.9%) and 8.1% (20s 32.7%, 30s 33.8%) respectively. The Self-Management Master type frequently used camping sites, outlets, and bookstores, with a notable 45% of spending via check cards. The Trend Early Adopter type showed high consumption related to reading, simple payments, exercise, and hot places, with a remarkable taxi usage of up to 222 rides per month.

On the 17th, Shinhan Card announced the launch of the ‘soBTI (Consumption + MBTI)’ service, which applies the personality type indicator ‘Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)’?popular among the MZ generation?to reveal individual consumption tendencies.

For this, Shinhan Card modeled the MBTI system to categorize consumption types into four categories: place, method, priority, and value criteria, deriving eight types accordingly. Specifically, consumption place is divided into external/long-distance (E) and near home (I); consumption method into offline/experiential (S) and online (N); consumption priority into thinking/self (T) and feeling/others (F); and consumption value criteria into planned (J) and trend-preference (P).

Looking at the characteristics by type, E types enjoy various leisure activities with high spending on travel, camping, and airlines, while I types mostly consume near home, with high spending on delivery, subscriptions, and interior design. S types tend to have more direct experiential consumption such as department stores and marts, whereas N types have a higher proportion of online consumption. Additionally, T types spend on personal growth activities like reading, exercise, and beauty, while F types show consumption based on beliefs, such as donations and electric vehicles. P types tend to follow trends with spending on hotels and popular restaurants, and J types prefer check cards, small investments, and cards with many benefits.

Shinhan Card started this service to target the MZ generation, who have a strong interest in MBTI. According to Shinhan Card, 85.2% of MZ generation customers fall into the eight types, which is 23.6 percentage points higher than the average of other generations (61.6%). This indicates that the MZ generation has relatively distinct consumption tendencies.

Currently, the soBTI service is provided through a questionnaire, but Shinhan Card plans to expand it to a service that identifies individual consumption tendencies using its own big data. Furthermore, they aim to enhance the system to determine consumption tendencies and stages within those tendencies solely based on customer consumption data, without the need for questionnaires as auxiliary indicators.

A Shinhan Card official said, "Unlike previous customer classifications limited to age and gender, this service can categorize customers into 16 types based on actual consumption tendencies." He added, "In the future, we will not only provide consumption analysis services but also develop scores for relative preference comparison, and accordingly differentiate customer services, delivering Shinhan Financial Group’s vision of ‘easier, more comfortable, and newer financial services.’"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.