Beyond pocket money: the start-up with prepaid for kids arrives in Italy

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Pocket money still remains the main way in Italy to introduce kids to money management. A fifth of Italian parents use it in a country that today has about five million adolescents, all digital natives and which sees a strong expansion of digital payment methods. It is therefore a system that denounces all its limits.

Especially since almost all parents – 86% to be precise, according to the Doxa research – believe it is essential to educate their children from a financial point of view, but then only 15% believe they have the necessary skills to do so. Also because adults themselves are often unaware of economic phenomena and the consequences on their assets.

Financial education for minors is the goal of Pixpay, a French start-up that gives kids aged ten and up a prepaid card to load pocket money, tips for chores and grandparents’ gifts, learning how to manage money by doing it directly. Always under strict control real-time of parents through a parallel app.

Born in 2019, Pixpay has reached 250,000 users in France and Spain in two years and is now continuing its international expansion by landing in Italy, with ambitious goals: 25,000 users in the first year, as indicated by the country manager Matilde Bille. On the other hand, the start-up is part of GoHenry, an English group dedicated to awareness education in money and investment management which currently has two million users in the United Kingdom. Nexi also participated in the last round of financing, whose participation is currently financial, but which in the future could also become an industrial partner.

Pixpay revolves around a prepaid account card, for now Mastercard, which can be used anywhere and co-managed in real time with two apps, one for children and one for parents, which allows children aged ten and over to pay independently anywhere, save and learn to manage a defined budget, gradually gaining more and more independence in monitoring your expenses.