Financial discipline has always been a very important topic and more so with children especially teenagers to lay the foundation of financial planning amongst them. With Money management becoming a critical topic post COVID, it is essential to understand that the only way to prevent money from becoming a taboo subject is to talk about it openly and often, but in a natural way for children.
One need not be a financial expert to have conversations with kids about money or to create saving goals, one just needs to have a plan!
Here are 5 companies that are making a wave of innovation in this space –
Junio – Junio is the first-of-its-kind digital pocket money smart card for children. The idea of the brand is to digitize pocket money for children while nurturing financial knowledge and discipline in them at an early age. Kids often receive cash as their pocket money from parents and grandparents. Junio enables instant money transfer from parents to their children. It also lets parents create in-app daily tasks for their kids and tie them with perks to inspire them to earn some extra cash. Junio’s goal is to promote desired behaviour among children along with developing an understanding of the value of hard-earned money. The app allows parents to keep a track of the spending made by children as it sends an alert for every successful or failed transaction. For ATM withdrawals using Junio smart card, the app allows setting withdrawal limits. It also gives flexibility to parents to cancel the card at any moment through the app.
Greenlight – Greenlight is a debit card for kids, managed by parents. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc. creates safe, healthy and family-friendly financial services. Greenlight's first product, a smart debit card for kids, is the world's first debit card for kids with patent-pending technology that lets parents pick the exact stores where their children can spend. The Greenlight card is issued by Community Federal Savings Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to license by MasterCard International.
Gohenry – UK-based gohenry, which was founded 8 years ago, offers accounts for children charging parents 2.99 pounds per month. It was launched in 2012 and now boasts a community of over one million members in the UK as well as America. They offer a visa debit card app with parental controls for six to 18 year olds. The parent app allows parents to pay children an allowance once a month for free. If you pay an allowance more than once a month there's a 50p charge.
Osper – Osper also offers parents a mobile banking solution that helps to teach children about money and allows them to transact with a debit card. The account can also be topped up, managed and monitored via the parent app. Top ups are free as long as they're scheduled.
RoosterMoney – It is another leading pocket money app that wants to help parents teach their children about the value of money in the digital age. From as young as four years old, you can award stars in the app as a first introduction to the concept of earning and rewards. When they are ready, you can move them onto the Pocket Money Tracker, which is free and ideal for children aged three and over. It lets children keep track of their earnings, save towards goals, and develop better money habits.
