Imagining a new financial experience for parents and their children.

Visa was looking at different opportunities that would enhance their offering to financial institutions. The innovation team recognised an opportunity to connect with potential customers at a much earlier age and allow their customers to position Visa as the lifetime bank of choice. To do this, Visa wanted to understand the motivations behind opening a child’s first transactional bank account.

We were engaged to explore the introduction of youth (12-17yo) to transactional banking. Over a period of 4 weeks, we applied our human centred design process to uncover needs, desires and motivations from the youth audience and their guardians, and developed them into a product concept.

What We Did

Research
Ideation
Concept Validation
Design
Prototyping
User Testing

Research

We ran a series of in-depth interviews that allowed us to design then validate a product that met the needs and desires of children and their parents alike. This generational bank account offered clear, market-leading advantages over others.

We began by speaking to parents and their teenage children to understand the triggers that led to the decision to opening an account, while also exploring features that would make the product highly desirable.

Our research uncovered that children saw opening an account as a rite of passage when gaining financial independence, but parents had concern over their fiscal responsibility.

Co-design

A concept that tested really well on both sides was to educate about the power of saving by opening an account for the child at a much earlier age, with parents maintaining full control at the start but with diminishing oversight as the child grew older.  

We designed a new type of account that parents could use as a financial education tool for their children. This stayed with the child all the way through to adulthood, transitioning through features and giving parents oversight until they felt it was no longer needed.