Banks are ever-aware of the need to attract new customers at a young age, so it’s perhaps not surprising that Standard Bank has announced plans to launch a Kidz Banking App aimed at youngsters aged between 6 and 11.
The app, which will be available for Android smartphones and tablets as well as Apple’s iPhone and iPad in the next few weeks, is meant to help parents educate their children about earning, saving and spending money.
“It needs to start young,” Standard Bank’s CEO for personal and business banking Peter Schlebusch said at a media briefing in Sandton on Thursday.
The app will be linked to a parent’s smartphone app, allowing parents to keep a close eye on what their kids are using the app to do. The app will use a range of colourful animal characters — themed on South Africa’s “big five” — to teach children about money management.
“Financial education starts in the home,” Schlebusch said. “The app is designed to guide and entertain children, but it will help parents explain earning, saving and spending.”
The bank worked with a range of children in developing the app, determining how they’d be most engaged with it.
Schlebusch said Standard Bank hopes the app helps to improve the culture of saving in South Africa, which he said is poor.
The bank said that today’s children will be the fully digital-savvy consumers of the future.
“The customer experience in the future will be worlds apart from what it was just a few years ago,” it said in a statement.
“Where customers pressed ten buttons before to conduct a simple banking transaction, the intelligence of the future will better understand and anticipate their behaviour in advance and only one click will be needed to set in motion multiple responses and outcomes. These future digital capabilities will not only be more convenient and engaging for customers, but can also be expected to reduce costs.” — © 2016 NewsCentral Media
