Standard Bank has announced its 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. 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. The bank had worked with a range of children in developing the app before determining how they’d be most engaged with it. The bank said 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. Standard Bank personal and business banking CEO Peter Schlebusch said the app is designed to guide and entertain children, but it will help parents explain earning, saving and spending.
