Tinkoff: Building a strong personal finance offering for kids

What are the different challenges you faced with Tinkoff Junior, in terms of ethics, regulation, and technique?

We have always understood that this product has particular sensitivities, as it aims to serve children, as well as their parents. We don’t try to play a parental role, nor do we aim to influence children. What we try to do is nurture customers and give them a new level of understanding of personal finance – share with them the knowledge that we have as a financial institution. Therefore, from an ethical standpoint, we’ve never encountered any problems; we have a solid understanding of our position and role in this space.

In terms of regulation, children, as a segment, are protected by a lot of legal regulation that impacts everything from our advertising materials to the type of content that we can share. We take all of these aspects into account in our work.

Technically, Tinkoff Junior’s customers are a separate segment that is distinct from adult customers. They have their own restrictions in terms of what operations and products are available to them (for example, we don’t show them loan products and don’t give them access to investment products due to age restrictions). Because of this distinction, we had to make a number of architectural modifications when creating the Tinkoff Junior application, since the code base used across Tinkoff’s primary applications is the same. 

We talk a lot about successes, but we also know that failures are very rich in lessons. What advice would you give to a banker who is just starting to design an offering for minors? What mistakes have you made or almost made? What are the pitfalls to avoid?

1. There is no need to invest in child-friendly interfaces and tools. Children grow up and generally can absorb information quickly. Instead, you should invest in the knowledge and added-value that you bring your customers and the benefits your product can bring over a period of three to five years. What is your product fit? If all you are offering is simply a child-friendly user interface (UI), then you are bound to fail. If you teach customers the basics of financial instruments – how they work and how they can be used to grow wealth – you can change the world for millions of people.

2. Don’t forget that the budget holder is a parent, and therefore up to a certain point, you will need to pay a lot of attention to the types of issues parents experience when it comes to their children and money matters. Make sure to show the same level of interest when communicating with both parents and children.

3. Another tip relates to future prospects: start thinking right away about how your customer will grow up: What can you offer your customers as they grow up and mature? How will you hold onto them? 

Tinkoff is known for its mastery of artificial intelligence and data analysis. How do you use this technology in Tinkoff Junior?

At the moment, we are trying to use AI to automate customer support as well as develop customers’ so-called financial health (to give them more advice on how to deal with their finances). AI also actively helps us find parents among our customer base who may be interested in a product for their children: we analyze their transaction history and other indirect indicators. 

How do you imagine Tinkoff Junior in the near future? What are the next steps? What are the latest technology trends that you feel are important to explore to take Tinkoff Junior further?

We plan to stake even more on this product: to develop its virality, add product value and develop functions that help make parental control even more intuitive and user-friendly. 

Our objective is to make sure that this entire stratum of clients stays with us for many years. As for technological trends, we plan to focus on developing our voice assistants to make it easier for customers to manage their finances, work with recommendation engines, and provide customers with more advice to support their financial health. 

What are the results obtained by Tinkoff Junior since its launch?

Tinkoff Junior now serves more than 1.3 million customers and is a successful channel for attracting customers to our flagship product Tinkoff Black: hundreds of thousands of customers come to Tinkoff for a family banking product and later remain with us. Our Tinkoff Junior customers likewise grow up to become fully-fledged adult customers within our ecosystem. Tinkoff Junior is now one of the fastest-growing debit products in the Tinkoff ecosystem, growing by 2,500 to 5,000 customers a day depending on the season (most of whom go on to become active customers). 

These strong results have been possible thanks to active product promotion, as well as the product’s virality: children ask for a card if they see that their classmates have one, and parents recommend the product because it’s convenient in terms of controlling spending. Thousands of customers switch from Tinkoff Junior to using our other flagship products each month. 

We have greatly expanded the team behind Tinkoff Junior since its launch and have started investing a lot of resources in the product. The company’s management sees great potential in Tinkoff Junior’s strategy for capturing market share.