Children may not be stashing coins in piggy banks for much longer; with the move towards acashless society, pocket money is moving digital.
孩子们今后可能不会再把零花钱存在存钱罐里了。随着无现金社会的发展，零花钱也在数字化。
To reflect this trend, a flurry of mobile budgeting apps for children has sprung up worldwide: GoHenry, Osper and Gimi to name a few.
为了紧跟潮流，全球出现了多个儿童移动理财应用程序，比如GoHenry、Osper和Gimi等等。
These apps offer a simple money management service for children, often for a monthlysubscription fee paid by the parents. Parents can add money to children's accounts, set limitsand monitor transactions, while children can choose to save their money or spend it using aprepaid card that works like a debit card. The apps suggest minimum ages ranging from six tonine for the prepaid card.
Two thirds of adults globally are financially illiterate, according to Standard & Poor'sGlobal Financial Literacy Survey, and one in four teenagers are unable to make even simpledecisions on everyday spending.
These apps aim to overcome this, claiming to teach children financial concepts, such asbudgeting, interest rates and income.
这些应用旨在解决这一问题，声称能教会孩子们理财的概念，比如预算、利率和收入。
For instance, the Swedish app Gimi -— with 1.2 million users globally — has virtual savings jarswhere children can deposit money; parents can pay children interest as they save; and there isa chores feature, where parents can pay children for completing household tasks.
The account is attached to a prepaid card that is currently available in Sweden only, butexpected to launch elsewhere in Europe in 2020.
该账户附带一张预付卡，目前只能在瑞典使用，但预计将于2020年在欧洲其他国家和地区推出。
"Cash was the best way to teach financial literacy because it's so tangible and so easy tograsp," Philip Haglund, CEO of Gimi, tells CNN Business. "Now money is being transferredthrough some kind of cyberspace, which is really abstract and hard for anyone tounderstand."
Haglund believes the app can teach responsible spending habits, whereas schools tend to focusmore on economic theory.
哈格伦德认为，这款应用可以教会学生负责任的消费习惯，而学校往往更关注经济理论。
"You don't become better at money management just because you have a degree in economics. It's more about the attitude and the relationship you have with parents' money when you're sixto 12 years old," he says.
But Catherine Winter, managing director of financial capability at The London Institute ofBanking and Finance, warns that while digital tools can help there needs to be a morestructured approach to financial education.
The area should "have regular, dedicated, classroom time and ideally should be taught as astandalone subject," she said. "Children would then have the right context and foundation toget the most out of both the apps and their money."
The growth of digital banking has affected how parents doll out pocket money, with one inthree parents in the United Kingdom doing it digitally, according to a recent report by thefinancial comparison website Money.co.uk.
As a whole, kids aged 13-19, are estimated to contribute 1.7 billion pounds into the UKeconomy each year, according to the Teenage Finance Report from financial services providersOneFamily.
"We have an app for adults ... so we will be able to build a transition from being a RevolutYouth user to becoming a normal user."
“我们有一款针对成年人应用……因此，我们能让儿童用户逐渐过度为成人用户。”
This could translate to customers for life, as according to the UK's Competition and MarketsAuthority only 3% of personal customers switch to a different bank in any year.
One concern is that introducing digital money apps to young children could help to encourageirresponsible spending habits.
有人担忧称，向儿童推出数字货币应用程序可能会鼓励不负责任的消费习惯。
"If children don't have a good foundation in financial capability, there's a risk that moneyapps could be seen as just another game," says Winter. "There's a risk that they won't learnabout the real value of money and might develop bad money habits."
However, Haglund says children are protected from this as parents can monitor their spendinghabits and none of the services offer an overdraft so children cannot go into debt.
Plus, it is important for kids to learn and make mistakes, says Guichard.
此外，吉查德说，对孩子来说，学习和犯错都很重要。
"We want to help kids and teenagers gain financial skills for life, and the earlier you do that thebetter, because if you're going to make a mistake of 10 pounds at eight, it's better than makinga mistake of 1,000 pounds when you're 28," he says.
