Last week, challenger bank Revolut introduced Revolut Junior, a product targeting young people aged 7-17.
What is Junior: Junior is intended to give children and adolescents the freedom to build essential financial skills and to manage their money.
- Junior requires adult supervision and can only be set up by a parent with a Revolut account.
- Parents or guardian's retain control over a Junior account holder’s security features
- Parents can also get notifications to alert them of their child’s spending
- A kid's account is funded from a parent's Revolut account
"Helping kids develop financial skills is what is driving us," said Aurelien Guichard, product owner for Revolut Junior. "Conversations about money typically start at home and we believe these skills are gained little by little, through experience and with help of parents and guardians. Revolut Junior ‘grows’ with kids until they are eligible for a standard 18+ account so that once they are independent, they have the financial skills and literacy to avoid potentially costly mistakes."
Junior card: Junior account holders get a Junior card that parents can load money on to using their Revolut app.
- The Junior Card is a Visa debit card that kids can use to spend money online and offline.
- Kids have an optional Revolut Junior app they can download to learn and interact with the card and their money.
"It is important to teach children good financial habits from an early age including how to pay, save and spend wisely," said Jill Docherty, executive director, business development, UK and Ireland at Visa. "Visa is proud to support Revolut with the launch of ‘Revolut Junior’ working together to create products that help the younger generation learn about money management."
Future functionality: Revolut plans to rollout additional features throughout the year.
- Future features on the product roadmap include the ability to set a regular allowance, financial tasks and goals, savings options, insightful spending reports, spending limits and eventually financial guidance for kids to help develop their financial skills.
- Each feature is designed to involve the parents and their child to facilitate a constant dialogue in the family around money.
- Revolut makes its accounts stickier the more family finances are connected to its service.
- The challenger bank is probably also betting on the success of lifecycle marketing -- if it can get children as early customers, it's likely they will open adult accounts as they mature.
- In the first stage of the rollout, Revolut Junior will be available to UK Premium and Metal Revolut customers, with expansion planned to additional regions in Europe in the coming months.
Kids getting more banking options: Revolut Junior joins an increasing number of banking options for parents and their children.
- Junior joins Greenlight, Step, Kard, and Current in offering younger people banking products and services.
- Greenlight has nearly 1 million users on the back of strong growth. It employs a monthly subscription model.