In the digital era where teenagers might keep their bank accounts for the next 80 years, it’s important to offer services that encourage kids to sign up for a bank account. There are some cool ideas around financial education, money management, and gamification which we explored in our Online Banking Report earlier this year (note 3).
But what’s the one issue that really drives parents’ behavior towards their kids? Fear. Fear for their physical safety on the way to school, fear of bad influences at school, and fear of the idiots kids will encounter online. The list goes on and on.
You may not be able to protect kids from Facebook bullies, but you can help on the money side. Financial institutions can offer services that help protect children from online scams, ID thieves, and so on. You can offer prepaid cards with controlled access. You can keep parents apprised of their child’s spending so they can recognize early-warning signs of dangerous behavior.
It’s win-win product development. Parents will pay for it through fees and/or loyalty. You’ll lock in more youth accounts, and everyone will get a bit more peace of mind.
Bottom line: While family financial security is a promising area, it’s no small project. Most banks will need partners to provide at least some of the services (credit-reporting specialists, account-aggregation providers, data analytics, and so on). But once the data feeds are available, they can be bundled together into different packages for various segments.
And mobile delivery will be crucial. For inspiration, look at Life360, a fast-growing mobile service whose core offering is GPS tracking for family members (see screenshot below, note 2). Life360 is free, but offers an optional identity-theft protection family-plan at $14.95/$19.95 per month. Since going free, the company has mushroomed to 6 million families.
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Life360 is a fast-growing startup offering “mobile family safety” (13 Dec 2011)
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Notes:
1. Graphic: From the FTC-sponsored one-day seminar on childhood identity theft this summer (link).
2. For more info on Life360, read the series of Techcrunch posts on the company.
3. For more on family/youth banking, see our recent Online Banking Report (subscription).
