These apps offer a simple money management service for children, often for a monthlysubscription fee paid by the parents. Parents can add money to children's accounts, set limitsand monitor transactions, while children can choose to save their money or spend it using aprepaid card that works like a debit card. The apps suggest minimum ages ranging from six tonine for the prepaid card.
Two thirds of adults globally are financially illiterate, according to Standard & Poor'sGlobal Financial Literacy Survey, and one in four teenagers are unable to make even simpledecisions on everyday spending.
For instance, the Swedish app Gimi -— with 1.2 million users globally — has virtual savings jarswhere children can deposit money; parents can pay children interest as they save; and there isa chores feature, where parents can pay children for completing household tasks.
The account is attached to a prepaid card that is currently available in Sweden only, butexpected to launch elsewhere in Europe in 2020.
該賬戶(hù)附帶一張預付卡，目前只能在瑞典使用，但預計將于2020年在歐洲其他國家和地區推出。
"Cash was the best way to teach financial literacy because it's so tangible and so easy tograsp," Philip Haglund, CEO of Gimi, tells CNN Business. "Now money is being transferredthrough some kind of cyberspace, which is really abstract and hard for anyone tounderstand."
"You don't become better at money management just because you have a degree in economics. It's more about the attitude and the relationship you have with parents' money when you're sixto 12 years old," he says.
But Catherine Winter, managing director of financial capability at The London Institute ofBanking and Finance, warns that while digital tools can help there needs to be a morestructured approach to financial education.
The area should "have regular, dedicated, classroom time and ideally should be taught as astandalone subject," she said. "Children would then have the right context and foundation toget the most out of both the apps and their money."
The growth of digital banking has affected how parents doll out pocket money, with one inthree parents in the United Kingdom doing it digitally, according to a recent report by thefinancial comparison website Money.co.uk.
As a whole, kids aged 13-19, are estimated to contribute 1.7 billion pounds into the UKeconomy each year, according to the Teenage Finance Report from financial services providersOneFamily.
This could translate to customers for life, as according to the UK's Competition and MarketsAuthority only 3% of personal customers switch to a different bank in any year.
"If children don't have a good foundation in financial capability, there's a risk that moneyapps could be seen as just another game," says Winter. "There's a risk that they won't learnabout the real value of money and might develop bad money habits."
However, Haglund says children are protected from this as parents can monitor their spendinghabits and none of the services offer an overdraft so children cannot go into debt.
Plus, it is important for kids to learn and make mistakes, says Guichard.
此外，吉查德說(shuō)，對孩子來(lái)說(shuō)，學(xué)習和犯錯都很重要。
"We want to help kids and teenagers gain financial skills for life, and the earlier you do that thebetter, because if you're going to make a mistake of 10 pounds at eight, it's better than makinga mistake of 1,000 pounds when you're 28," he says.
