Investment app for teenagers and children represent a global trend not yet represented widely. This gap provides banks and fintechs with the opportunity to be the first in the local market to develop a high-quality digital service, occupy a niche, and capture a significant audience segment.
One of the major banks in Eastern Europe decided to be the first in its region to launch an investment app specifically for teenagers aged 14-17, featuring educational materials and investment tools. The challenge of the project was not only to organize access to global services but also to deliver fresh practices, updated every few weeks.
We know from experience that leveraging international practices that have proven effective and are not publicly available can significantly accelerate the launch. If our expertise could be of use to you, we would be delighted to help - just contact us now.
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Before Markswebb joined the project, the bank had already conducted a GAP analysis with competitors in the market of Eastern Europe and explored the positioning of international competitors through publicly available resources. However, there was insufficient data to form a backlog to ensure the first release of the app perfectly met the audience's needs and the image of the bank as a digital leader.
A unique feature of a digital financial service for teenagers is that it must not only meet the needs of direct users but also align with the goals of parents who want to protect their children from risks by providing tips, approving transactions, and creating a safe learning environment. Therefore, we looked for solutions for both user groups in international markets.
The client's task was accomplished in just three weeks thanks to our access to many services, plus a significant database of practices from international fintech services.
It is worth noting that we always keep updated resources on hand: the Banking Growth Features Navigator and the Best Mobile Banking Apps Database provide comprehensive insights into successful strategies and innovative solutions from leading mobile banking applications across Europe. If you need tailored solutions or custom data collection for your digital service, the Markswebb Scout team is ready to assist. Additionally, the Global UI Search service allows access to digital services in any country worldwide, enabling you to benchmark and adopt best practices from global leaders.
This makes research for the client faster, avoids extra costs, and provides a broad view even on a niche innovative product.
We expertly defined the research perimeter. Services for investing by teenagers are a rare tool even for global fintech, distinguishing innovative companies in local markets. We selected six services in Europe and the USA, offering various degrees of investment immersion for teenagers and different levels of money management freedom.
We included ten groups of user scenarios that collectively cover all tasks by a teenager and help the bank educate a new audience, engage them, and encourage active investing.
Through resident agents, we accessed and studied how international services propose money management. Some of the services studied have separate app versions for this age group, such as Revolut <18 and Fidelity Youth. In other services, like BIRDWINGO and Greenlight, teenagers use the same apps as adults but with restrictions or separate accounts. Based on this data, we divided the scenarios into two groups: from the parent's side and from the teenager's side.
The next stage was to search for the best practices affecting the quality of the digital experience, which we also divided into two blocks based on the audience.
All best practices gathered, complete with descriptions of their benefits and mechanisms, have been compiled into a single database. At the presentation, we prepared an overview for the client that showcases solutions for engaging teenagers in investing under parental control, mechanisms that increase trust in the service, and implementations that make financial management both convenient and understandable. The concentrated experience of international services saves time and money in the search for backlog ideas and allows reliance on ready scenarios with a high-quality user experience.
For the top management of the financial company, we package the research results into a concise presentation that includes strategic findings and describes key best practices for each scenario.
Delving into the existing concepts of teenage apps identified during the research helps us understand how teen investment services are structured, what ready solutions and approaches should be reused, and what opportunities for further development and scaling should be included in the backlog.
A disclaimer for each service studied, detailing its sections and capabilities, helps envision what the app could look like, taking ideas from various services to meet specific business goals.
For example, we discovered that in Birdwingo, both teenagers and parents invest in stocks and mutual funds from the same app, but with different account credentials. The parent's account is almost identical to the child's except that parents can top up the child's account and set restrictions, such as a withdrawal ban. The child can top up their account, invest in stocks and mutual funds, while simultaneously learning the basics of investing.
Along with the presentation, teams gain access to a Notion database of use cases with textual descriptions of solutions to user tasks, complete with screencasts and screenshots of individual digital services. This part of the results can help quickly and efficiently move from planning to implementation, provide users with the best experience, and avoid the pitfalls that teams in international markets have already navigated.
When forming the database, we maintained the division of practices by user, splitting the database into two segments - solutions for parent scenarios and teenager scenarios.
Inside each section is a list of scenarios, and a level below are individual tasks and the best implementations found for them.
Being an innovator does not necessarily mean creating from scratch, but rather relying on experience beyond the usual boundaries.
International experience saves the resources and time of your own team and provides a clear idea of what an effective and quality digital service could be, even if nothing similar has yet been created in the local market or even in neighboring countries.
Our expertise and in-depth research provided the client with insights for developing a new service strategy in the European market and a concrete solutions database for the backlog. We can do the same for any task of finding international practices and seeing opportunities in any services and industries around the world. Research allows for the implementation of new features with fewer risks and costs - understanding existing mechanics, reusing the best solutions, and creating a user-friendly and understandable product without unnecessary barriers.
Based on international examples, preliminary hypotheses can be formulated about which features and product characteristics might be in demand among Eastern European users.
A review of ready solutions of varying completeness provides an understanding of scalability opportunities - if the product is successful at the initial stage, knowing global trends and practices will better plan development.
Contact us in any convenient way to discuss how Markswebb's experience can be beneficial to your digital service!
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Every year we conduct up to 15 studies of digital services. These are industry benchmarks that reflect the state of the market and trends.
