Financial literacy in kids
Storyline:
Managing money smarty is an art and everyone wants to master it. Unfortunately, many people realize that after half of their life is gone and now it’s hard to learn the art.
Pranav is a 6 yr old boy and his parents want him to learn the value of money, how it’s earned, catch his dreams and become financially strong with his growing age.
Problem statement
- Financial literacy in kids
— Learning
— transaction
Goal
- Building habit
- Working around child psychology and their daily life
Assumptions
- Considered market- India
- Considered users- 7–9-year-old kids and their parents
- Kids might/might not have siblings
- Building MVP version
- Mobile app
Persona
Kids of 8/9 age group
Parents
User interview
Parents of kids of age 7–9
- Studies in school about money starting at age 8
- Studies about saving starting at the age of 9
- Teachers explain concepts like salary/ budget/ need/ want/ must-haves to kids with activities
- Kids performing research based on currencies and their values in different regions and languages
- Practicing the concepts in school with the activities
- Learning from the behavior of the parents
- Understanding (if they are not getting anything they want) more with moral values than money perspective
- Kids handling applications/ devices on their own
- Kids using their saved money to buy goods with the permission of their parents
- Getting into parents' knowledge what they want and asking for permission to buy (if from their saved money)
- Influenced by advertisements and the goods their friends hold
- Relying on mentors and parents to get the knowledge
- Take help from parents for calculations
- Not creating the behavior of only saving, but spending on necessary goods
- Parents helping in saving money
- Parents build interest in money behavior for the accomplishment feeling
- Kids learn from the discussions that happen in the family in front of the kids
- Kids learn the value of giving from the behavior of parents
- Understanding the difference between what the kids see value in and what they don’t
- Satisfaction in cash, by keeping the count and tracking the balance
Major challenges
- Challenge to show the value of money with digital money
— Can be solved with interaction
- Checking the status of the account
— Can be shown with filled/unfilled piggy bank/ deck of cash
- How will the kid know when they receive money and on what basis?
— Can be solved with full-screen notifications with animation that leads to the overview
Existing applications
- Rooster money
- Famzoo
- Zogo
- World of money
- Savings spree
- Green Streets: Unleash the Loot
- PiggyBot
- Renegade Buggies
- Upromise
Neobanking
- fampay
- Akudo
- Y pay
- Omicard
- Streak
- Muvin
- junio
Competitive analysis
Let’s compare the product offerings and pros and cons of the major plays in the similar market
- Rooster money
- Saving spree
- Famzoo
RoosterMoney
Pros
- Manage your kids’ allowances
- Accounts for parents and children
- Helps teach kids responsible financial habits
- Easy to use
- Free version available
- Educational content
- Supports multiple currencies
Cons
- Subscription fee to access all features
- Prepaid cards are only available for U.K. users
Savings Spree
Pros
- Teaches money lessons through games
- Covers important financial basics
- Encourages kids to save money
- Plenty of content
Cons
- Fee to download
- For a limited age range
- Only available on Apple devices
FamZoo
Pros
- Easy to use
- Accounts for both parents and kids
- Teaches kids financial concepts
- Prepaid debit card option
Cons
- Subscription fee
- No parental control over prepaid cards
Fampay
- Parents can deposit money into a prepaid account for their children.
- Control payment limitations and keep track of your child’s spending.
- Make a free account with no obligations.
- An account with a service that is completely free.
- Through hands-on experience plus gamified challenges within the app.
Pros
- For parents, the most convenient payment app.
- FamPay is the safest app for teens to use to make payments, so it adheres to strict criteria, which is why you or your child must both complete KYC verification before you can use the service fully.
- For its users, FamPay offers the highest level of security.
Cons
- There are no UPI options.
Features
- Money in wallet
- Lock, unlock, pause the card
- Encrypted payment
- Transaction history
- Parents can opt for different features (based on their requirements)
— Incentives for daily activity
— Pocket money
— Other sources of receiving money
— Occasional gift
— Set for periodic and occasional transfer
Ideas
- Onboarding by parents
— multiple profiles
— — — Parent logging in, and creating profiles for multiple/single kid
— — — Questions to teach the system, of how much the kid knows about different concepts
— Account link by parents
— Login with your mobile number and OTP
— Profile avatar in a funny piggy way
— — — Click a picture
— — — Choose a picture
- Kid’s profile
— Wallet (named piggy bank)
— — — Transactions will happen from the wallet
— — — — — Interactions to notify
— Interactions
— — — Piggybank
— — — Money (cash display)
— Goal
— — — Progress bar
— Payment
— — — Limit decided by parents
— — — Permission request
— — — At one tap
— Messaging
— — — Working towards the goal
— — — balance
— Notification
— — — Debit
— — — Credit
— — — Payment processing
— — — Gratitude
- Parent’s profile
Select features in use based on the requirement
— Learning
— — — Youtube integrations
— — Option to add any other application for learning concepts
— — — — — Applications used in schools
— — — — — Parents use any application to define budget
— — Games can be given the option to parents to add
— Goal setup
— — — Set priority
— — — Add image
— — — Value
— Settings for money transaction
— — — periodic
— — — Occasional
— Incentives on performing daily task
— Incentive on saving
— Kid’s payment
— — — Restrict value
— — — Permission to allow before the complete transaction
— — — Pre-approval
- Ask parents if they know about these concepts
Future possibilities
- Rewards
- Bonus
- Integrations of saving apps- mutual funds, share, crypto, etc
- Integration to open a bank account
- Gifting money
- Subscription-based features
- Integrations to send and receive money through different modes of transfer
- Integration of banking services
- Enhancing security
- Learning
— Youtube integrations
— Option to add any other application for learning concepts
— — — Applications used in schools
— — — Parents use any application to define budget
- Web-based platform, for easy access (can be accessed from smart tv)
- Step by step process (to understand the idea of money in the piggy bank)
— Kids know about money
— About budgeting
— About transactions
— Onboarding process
— — — Ask if the kid knows these concepts
— — — — — If not, redirect them to learning videos first and if parents can help practice them and then explore the dress
— — — — — Ask questions to kids, like a quiz to know if they have the basic understanding (more visually)
— — — — — If the questions are answered, they can get started on the app and the app will reward few money if the questions are passed but 70- 80%
Additional research points
Research paper reference
- https://mascdn.azureedge.net/cms/the-money-advice-service-habit-formation-and-learning-in-young-children-may2013.pdf
- https://www.microfinanceopportunities.org/download.php?download=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubWljcm9maW5hbmNlb3Bwb3J0dW5pdGllcy5vcmcvd3AtY29udGVudC91cGxvYWRzLzIwMTMvMTIvTWFya2V0LVJlc2VhcmNoLWZvci1GaW5hbmNpYWwtRWR1Y2F0aW9uLnBkZg==
Other references
- https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/teaching-kids-money-finances-age-by-age/
- https://www.verywellfamily.com/8-year-old-developmental-milestones-620729
Wireframes
Parent
Onboarding
Main screens
Settings
Additional features
Kid
Onboarding
Main screens
Interaction idea 1- with a piggy bank
Interaction idea 2- with cash
Messages
With different expressions representing different cases like debit of money/ credit of money/ low balance/ not spent a big amount in quite some time. Suggestions to reach the goal can be provided based on the earlier saving and spending habits.
UI
Goal setup screen in parent's profile
Goal tracking in kid's profile
Home screen for kid's profile
Home screen for parent's profile
