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The Graubündner Kantonalbank follows the trend that even small children can pay with a bank card.
What used to be the five-franc money in the cash register is now often a deposit into a bank account. The Graubündner Kantonalbank recommends that children between the ages of seven and fifteen learn how to handle money with a special children’s bank card. Experts, for example from Pro Juventute, find that the offer meets a need. However, they also recommend practicing handling cash.
We find cash better at the beginning, it’s more tangible.
“Arithmetic comes with school and interest in numbers increases,” says Lulzana Musliu from the Pro Juventute Foundation. It is therefore the right time to start with pocket money. But: “We find cash better at the beginning, it’s more tangible”. The children would only learn to understand the number space in school. And a Fränkler pocket money is physically there – and then physically gone again when you have spent it.
Customer loyalty or learning effect?
For Martin Brown, Associate Professor of Banking at the University of St. Gallen, it is clear: “It is certainly also about customer loyalty”. In this way, families could be kept or newly acquired. It is important with such offers that you always know exactly what you have spent and how much money is still left. This means that the banks send push messages when they spend, for example. Lulzana Musliu doubles: “It is important that you know that you have income and you have expenses and you cannot fulfill every wish immediately”.
Consumers tend to spend more money when making digital payments.
Martin Brown mentions studies in this context. “These show that when making digital payments, consumers tend to spend more money and lose track more quickly.” Studies that would show that this is increasingly the case in children and adolescents are not yet available, says Brown.
Alternative to the youth account
With the youth account, which can be opened at banks from the age of 12, the young people have the sole say from the start. Also via functions such as Twint or e-banking. With the children’s menu, the children should be able to practice handling better under the supervision of their parents.
Lulzana Musliu, from the Pro Juventute Foundation, agrees that practicing is key, even when dealing with pocket money. Schools also have a role to play here. Topics such as dealing with money or cryptocurrencies should be dealt with in school.
Product seems to work
Six months ago, the St. Galler Kantonalbank launched a similar product for children aged six to thirteen. “We were surprised by the demand,” says Jolanda Meyer, media spokeswoman for SGKB. In a short time they could have opened 1,500 such children’s accounts and thus gained new customers.