Joystick

Background

Today, no large bank does Kids banking really well. We didn’t think kids banking today was very fun.

80% of Parents in the UK give their children Pocket Money. If a child does have a bank account we don’t think they are very engaging or personal; and they don’t have many features or functions in their account other than putting cash in. The current mobile banking applications are boring and dull and don’t differentiate much from the applications adult customers use.

When discussing kids and banking we quickly realised that statistics and dashboards don’t make much sense to children; but games and personalisation do! Our idea is unique, fun and we think, pretty cool.

Personas

We decided to focus our solution around two siblings; Tom who is 12 and Kerry who is 7. They both have different tastes and preferences, as siblings would i.e. Tom loves Music and Memes, whereas Kerry is obsessed with love hearts, games, and anything pink.

Solution

We created an application that is fun, allows our users to personalise it and let kids engage with their bank account like a kid rather than an adult. No more numbers, stats and dashboards here!

Kerry and Tom are both able to completely personalise their banking app based on their idea of cool.. Authentication is obviously essential, but a bit boring. We made a unique, secure way to authenticate through a game, which our users can personalise to their tastes.

How did we gamify the authentication process? In our demo Tom ,who loves music, was presented with the option of selecting a piano that- when played in the right order only – signed him into his banking app and then showed him his balance. Kerry, who is a little younger was presented with the option of selecting a mini game authentication method, that allowed her to jump and collect coins in a specific order in her virtual pink and cloudy world which would then present her with her balance.

So, that’s a totally different way to authenticate and also gamify how a kid could access their balance. It doesn’t stop there. We also integrated a social aspect to the application that revolutionizes how kids can transfer money to one another, or between accounts that is more kid approved. We utilised the accelerometer feature in a smart phone and allowed Kerry to transfer her brother two euros for doing her chores by simply just flicking her mobile as a wand- shouting EXPELLIARMUS is optional.

Value

The process of gamifying and personalising banking for kids not only makes it fun for them but teaches them the value of money in a different way that is more age appropriate. There is a huge potential for creating childrens’ bank account today to establish them as customers for the future.

Innovation

We think we’ve built something pretty innovative.

• We have a unique personalised, secure method of authentication for children

• We’ve redefined what an engaging banking experience is for children with the right focus on gamification and personalisation rather than statistics, dashboards and complicated numbers.

• We’ve utilised smartphone features like an accelerometer to create cool ways to transfer money.

Extensions

We’ve built something in two days that is just the tip of the iceberg. We had a quick think of areas we can extend our idea; Please feel free to comment in the comment section below if you have other thoughts.

• Enabling voice recognition with the accelerometer movement for transferring money.

• Extending the accelerometer movement for children to move money from one account to another i.e current to savings.

• Extending a feature for children’s avatars to appear in each others’ world.

• Extending a feature for children to save money together and gamify it.

• Explore further methods and types of authenticating.

• Enabling further ways to interact with all functions of the application i.e Voice and face-recognition.

If you have any other ideas please share with us in the comments section!