Digital children banking continues to grow as fintechs and neobanks globally recognise the potential of engaging young users early. The market is driven by financial literacy initiatives, parental controls, and gamified banking experiences designed to
- Teach kids and teens about money management,
- Engage their families around a value point and
- Build customers for life.
Moroku first launched its white label children banking application, Chore Scout, in 2016, taking 6 Australian credit unions to market. Since then, more parents are opting for digital banking solutions for their children, with apps offering allowance management, savings goals, and spending insights.
As they do, several fintechs and neobanks are leading the charge:
- Revolut <18 – A broad consumer digital bank offering youth accounts.
- Greenlight – A U.S.-based fintech valued at $2.3 billion, focusing on parent-controlled debit cards.
- GoHenry (Acorns) – A UK-based platform specialising in financial education for kids.
- Step – A teen-focused banking app with $491 million in funding.
- FamZoo & Busykid – Smaller players offering family finance management tools.
Banks are increasingly launching children’s banking apps to build early financial literacy, foster brand loyalty, and capture future customers. Engaging young users builds long-term relationships with them as well as the broader family, increasing the likelihood that the children will stay with the bank into adulthood and fostering deeper trust and loyalty with their parents and grandparents. In addition to long term stickiness, subscription models and transaction fees are also appearing to provide near term returns as they demonstrate strong demand for premium products.
CHore
Scout
Chore
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Chore Scout is Moroku’s white label digital children’s banking app
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) Analysis
Because the cost of acquiring young customers is relatively low compared with their potential value as mature, long-term clients, the LTV model often shows a very attractive ROI. When banks successfully convert young users into lifelong customers, the cumulative benefits (ranging from daily transaction fees to later premium product uptake) can multiply the initial investment many times, even by a factor of 10 or more in the long term.
Once an individual comes to rely on a bank’s services in childhood, they’re more likely to adopt additional products, such as teen banking, personal loans, or investment products, as they grow older. CBA’s Dollarmites program has a reputed 60% retention rate from transacting as a preschooler to taking out a home loan. As such, many banks consider a children’s banking app as a kind of “loss leader” that secures a long-term relationship with customers. As these customers transition through life’s financial stages, the initial bonuses (or even slight losses) are offset by substantial gains from cross-sell opportunities.
Greenlight (in the US) and GoHenry (in the UK) have both demonstrated robust LTV and engagement metrics by combining intuitive financial education with low-cost customer acquisition strategies.
Founded in 2011, GoHenry, has built its reputation on a pre-paid card and accompanying app, enhanced by unique parental controls. Raising over $100 million over the course of 7 rounds, and valued at over $500 million , GoHenry was acquired in 2023 by Acorns in an all-equity deal, demonstrating robust investor confidence and a promising outlook for the digital children’s banking segment.
Greenlight’s subscription plans start at approximately $5.99 per month for a family account. This recurring revenue stream is augmented by interchange fees from the debit card transactions made by its young users. Recent collaborations, such as the partnership with Community Bank reported in early 2025, enhance market penetration along with additional revenue opportunities through licensing or co-branded initiatives. Greenlight’s ability to deeply engage both children and their parents (through educational content and strong parental controls) is translating into impressive customer acquisition and retention rates.
As the children banking segment grows, banks can leverage the Moroku whitelable platform, ChoreScout to get started . The platform is brandable, supports the powerful game engine of Moroku Odyssey as well as contemporary software and data architectures for integration with banking and card systems to engage children and their parents around money systems and financial products.