Financial literacy in kids

7 min readMar 31, 2022

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

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SDk2MnnUS4WZ5XChQu3TI2qEO-TZt5yKT1J9PCDksCY/edit?usp=sharing

Research paper reference

Other references

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.