Little Wallet™ aims to enhance financial literacy amongst Kids & Teens in Southeast Asia
02/14/2023
Little Wallet, a Singapore based Fintech, with the mission to promote financial literacy amongst kids and teens, has signed a partnership with Visa, under the Visa Fintech Fast Track Program.
With rising inflation and the cost of everyday goods going up, kids and teens need to be aware of the current economic climate and be financially prepared for the future. Financial literacy, which is almost never taught in schools, affects every aspect of our lives. However, very few kids and teens are exposed to this knowhow and brush it aside as “boring, grown-up stuff”. Little Wallet changes all this.
A Huge, Multi-Billion $ Addressable Market
“Kids and teens today live, learn and play on their phones. These digital natives, with the attention span of 20-30 seconds, form a huge and previously unexplored market, for the financial services industry” cites Cyrus Daruwala – MD, Global Financial Services at IDC. “Most customers often stay with their first bank, so it is important to introduce them to banking while they are young. Furthermore, most banking products are siloed and don’t follow the cradle-to-grave lifecycle of a human being. This makes Little Wallet a world’s first, wherein not only are you inducting kids and teens into the world of banking, but you also have their parents (and grandparents) locked into a family wallet – sharing, transacting, monitoring, and educating all at the same time.”
Under Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program, Little Wallet will leverage and access Visa’s network and capabilities to grow card issuance in the region. The program provides fintech start-ups like Little Wallet dedicated expertise and support, faster onboarding and access to a growing partner network.
Ms. Dung Dang, Visa Country Manager of Vietnam and Laos, said: “Visa has always championed financial literacy. Our Financial Literacy Program in Vietnam, which we started a decade ago in cooperation with the Central Committee of the Vietnam Students’ Association (CCVSA), demonstrates that commitment to educate our young people on financial management. Our partnership with Little Wallet to launch in Southeast Asia is timely, given the high interest observed from youngsters to build up their wealth, but seeing the gaps in not knowing where they can go to for reliable financial advice1.”
Little Wallet founder, Rahul Sharma, exclaimed, "We are incredibly excited to be part of the prestigious group of startups selected for the Visa Fintech Fast Track Program. Being accepted into this program is a testament to Visa's endorsement of Little Wallet, further enhancing our customers' confidence in our offerings."
Rahul – an ex-banker himself, with over 25 years of fintech experience, working for DBS, Deutsche Bank, was joined by Phoebe Tran – a tech executive with over 15 years of experience working for Facebook and Google. The two met at the INSEAD Global Executive MBA program. Little Wallet was a finalist at the INSEAD Venture Competition 2021 and emerged as one of the Top 3 winners at TechInAsia Start-up Arena 2022. Being parents to kids and teenagers themselves, the two realised the importance of financial literacy, and understood the huge gap and importance of smart money management.
How can Little Wallet do that?
Little Wallet offers a family banking app with a digital wallet. The smart ecosystem has features that promote healthy money habits to all generations thus fostering financial wellbeing for the entire family. The app guides parents through the basics of money fundamentals and also is one of the firsts to introduce the concept of “Save Now, Buy Later” to teach kids the importance of saving.
Little Wallet - unlike the unintuitive banking apps of today – gamifies and visualises all aspects of banking to make it fun and engaging. All this, whilst enabling full parenting oversight and controls in place.
“We want to give the kids and teens who use our products a great experience and also give parents the right tools to bring kids into becoming really savvy, financially literate consumers.” said Phoebe Tran, Co-founder of Little Wallet.
 Photo: Phoebe & Rahul at INSEAD San Francisco Hub for Business Innovation |
 https://www.littlewallet.co/en |
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https://www.freiheit.org/southeast-and-east-asia/smart-finance-fnfs-financial-education-initiative-young-vietnamese.
About Visa
Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.