Innovation radar: Giving kids the tools to get started

Clever Kash by ASB Bank (New Zealand)
In an increasingly cashless society, lessons about the value of money need a digital edge. New Zealand’s growing use of cards, mobile and the internet for transactions meant that the moneybox – a traditional savings tool for children – was becoming redundant. As a result, parents were finding it difficult to teach children the value of money they couldn’t see and hold. In response to these issues, ASB Bank created Clever Kash, an elephant-shaped moneybox with a screen on its belly which displays a child’s bank account balance by interacting with the ASB Mobile app. This combination of the traditional moneybox with a digital interface enables children to learn about money and stay motivated towards their saving goals, helping to establish a positive savings behavior from an early age. (Read the case study and the interview)

Viva Kids & Digipigipi by Credit Suisse (Switzerland)
Credit Suisse has transformed the classic piggy bank and integrated the saving/spending of pocket money into the digital world. The comprehensive Viva Kids Banking Package is designed for children under 12 years and allows parents to teach their children the concept of physical and digital money in a fun and easy way. The banking solution contains a transaction account and a savings account with a preferential interest rate, Maestro card (optional for children 7 and older), and Digipigi – Switzerland's first digital money box. As an Internet of Things solution, it comes with two apps (one for children to set saving goals, to check their balances and to manage their pocket money payments and one for parents to always keep control). The product is complemented by the Viva Kids World, an online-based world of learning and experiences for the entire family. (Read the case study & the interview)

HLB Pocket Connect by Hong Leong Bank (Malaysia)
HLB Pocket Connect is an interactive digital banking platform to serve both young savers and their parents. It enables young savers to take charge of their own pocket money and savings and for parents to cultivate a responsible and healthy financial lifestyle in their children from a young age in a fun and interactive way. Under the Earn feature, parents can set tasks or goals and reward their children with extra pocket money when they complete them. As the account comes with reloadable Junior Debit Card for children to Spend, parents can have peace of mind knowing that they can monitor and control their children’s pocket-money spending. Not only can they top-up the pocket money through seamless transfer from their HLB Connect, they can set spending limits, control where and what their children can spend on as well as monitor real-time spend of their children. (Read the article)

POSB Smart Buddy by POSB (Singapore)
POSB (part of DBS Bank) offers a contactless payments ecosystem in schools to help cultivate sensible savings and spending habits among young students in an interactive & engaging manner using wearable tech (a free watch). It revolutionizes how money is handled by digitizing the end to end journey. Its accompanying Smart Buddy mobile app allows parents to remotely manage their children’s spending and savings, while empowering students to monitor their own finances. The Smart Buddy Application has a disable account function to ensure losing one’s wearable doesn’t mean losing one’s money. Additionally, the watch can be personalized via the syncing through the application. (Read the case study & the article)

Swipe by Banque Populaire (Morocco)
Banque Centrale Populaire has launched a banking package that offers teenagers a wide range of services. The Swipe package, which includes a current account, mobile app and bank card, allows young people aged between 12 and 17 years to, among other things, buy airtime for their phones, draw cash from ATMs, shop online and pay in stores using QR codes. Parents or guardians are required to initiate the Swipe account. They also have access to transaction histories and can disable the service without notice. (Read the case study)

PKO Junior by PKO Bank Polski (Poland)
PKO Bank Polski has a comprehensive offer for children - PKO Junior, which includes a personal account for children up to 13 years of age, a special website, mobile app, debit card and educational materials. The app helps children to develop their money skills by setting financial challenges. Parents can define the duration of the challenge and reward their children for completing it. Children can also earn badges for their healthy financial behavior. Tools are also provided to encourage financial responsibility and informed decisions: a calculator to discover how much money the children could make by depositing an amount over a period of time according to the account’s current interest rate or a Your Savings Plan function to define a proportion of their savings to be put in predefined piggy banks, and the proportion to be kept in the account as liquid savings. And going beyond standard financial products, the PKO Junior offers educational materials in various topics such as ecology and cybersecurity and the possibility to purchase a child's insurance with accident protection. (Read the case study)

Digital Explorer by Kuveyt Türk (Turkey)
The Digital Explorer Mobile Application allows children to view their account balance and account activities, contributing to personal budget management and the development of financial literacy. Through the application where Digital Explorer current and participation accounts can be viewed, Digital Explorers can learn their own IBAN information, share the learned information with their parents and ask for pocket money. Digital Explorer accounts can be opened by customers up to the age of 18, in Turkish Lira, dollar, euro and gold. And Mission Mars, the coding game given to children who purchase the Digital Explorer Card designed by Kuveyt Türk, contributes to the scientific development of children and allows them to meet the world of coding. (Read the case study)

PeoPay KIDS by Bank Pekao (Poland)
The PeoPay KIDS app provides a wide range of functions for kids, with account balance and history, transfers, top-ups, and a savings management tool. Kids that use the app will also be provided with their own, dedicated PeoPay KIDS card that is linked to their account. Beyond providing the essential money tools, Bank Pekao has developed virtual coaches that will provide guided messages, hints, and education about how to intelligently manage finances. All of this will take place under parent supervision. Parents will have a special area of their PeoPay banking app in which they can monitor their kids’ activity. From the app, parents can quickly transfer funds into their child’s account, oversee spending activity, and manage all of the child’s card functions. On top of that, the opening of the account is done entirely remotely.  (Read the case study, the article, and the interview)

Revolut <18 (United Kingdom)
Revolut <18 is a banking app dedicated to young people from 7 to 17 years old. Accounts are managed by the parent through their Revolut app. The Revolut Junior offer includes an exclusive prepaid card for juniors, balance checks and transaction alert notifications with a new special section within the Revolut app that allows parents manage children’s expenses, ‘Tasks’ allowing kids and parents to agree on a number of tasks to complete in order to receive a small reward, letting children appreciate the relationship between work and money and ‘Goal’ allowing the child to set a goal and save to reach it. (Read the article)

Kidz Banking by Standard Bank (South Africa)
Kidz Banking is an app that makes the concept of money more tangible for one’s children, empowers them to take responsibility, and ensures they’re developing healthy financial habits. Designed primarily for children aged 6 and 11, this immersive game-like app helps parents explain things like earning, saving, and spending in a practical way. With direct integration into the parent’s banking app, they have visibility and control over the transactions available to their children. Colorful digital characters – themed on the Big 5 animals – will delight children while helping them to: Complete ‘missions’ and earn pocket money, Check their account balances, Request airtime, data or cash, Create ‘wishes’... savings goals for something they’d really like, Win badges. (Read the case study)

Yongo by AG Insurance (Belgium)
Yongo is a fully online platform for children’s savings answering customer pain points on financial planning, saving goals prioritization and underlining the importance of savings. The platform allows parents and children to define those goals, invite friends/family to contribute to those goals, send party invitations, send thank you messages, etc. all this in a fun and educational way, offering a concept that has relevance at different moments of the child’s life and that provides frequent interactive dynamics between the members of the child’s community. (Read the case study)

eKonto Junior by mBank (Poland)
eKonto Junior is an online banking account for children under 13 years old. With this account, mBank offers a debit card made of 85% recycled plastic that children can personalize with a large choice of cool and funny illustrations. This card allows children to pay and to withdraw money at ATMs. The eKonto Junior app is a PFM tool that includes parental control. Parents can set a daily payment limit for instance. eKonto Junior also has a game that helps children prepare to use the card in the real world. In addition, mBank also offers eKonto, an account for children 13 years and older.

imaginKids/imaginTeens by imagin (Spain)
imaginKids is a financial app for children up to 11 years old. It includes a bank account and offers games and videos with funny monsters to educate children financially but also to help them train their memory and creativity. The app adapts to the age of the children and evolves with them as they grow: imaginKids becomes imaginTeens for children aged 12 to 17. imaginTeens allows children to receive and make payments, to have a debit or prepaid card and to have a youth card that offers many discounts across Europe.