Revolut announced yesterday a new feature for their minor accounts, Revolut Junior: a co-parent supervision function. This feature allows both parents to manage and monitor their child’s account simultaneously. It is also the only feature among global virtual banks (known as “internet-only banks” in Taiwan) that lets parents jointly control and oversee a child’s account.

Regarding pricing, if a Revolut parent is already a paid subscriber (Premium/Metal), they can use this service for free. The account holder can invite another “parent” to jointly help manage the child’s Revolut plan. This parent can be the child’s legal guardian, primary caretaker, or main financial provider. Currently, only two adults are allowed to join.

Revolut Junior offers the following five features to help parents and children build financial management skills and routines:

  1. Monthly financial meetings: Think of it like a department manager conducting a regular review of the month’s spending.
  2. Savings goals: Parents can set up individual savings goals for games, toys, or other items the child requests during financial meetings. Parents can monitor their child’s savings progress and offer allowance incentives based on that progress.
  3. Sharing the “parent’s” financial management plan: This feature allows parents to share their own account management methods, amounts, and budgets with the child as a reference.
  4. Top ten prized possessions: Parents can have children photograph their ten favorite possessions and explain why they chose those ten items. According to Revolut, this helps children truly appreciate what they own and reduces the tendency to compare with others.
  5. Encouraging children to reflect on purchases: This feature helps parents and children sit down together to review whether the child’s spending has been put to good use.

If you examine these five features closely, most of them are actually about parent-child interaction, communication, and education, with relatively little new product development involved. Within the European Economic Area and the UK, Revolut Junior has already registered over 270,000 minors (ages 7-17). With the launch of this feature, even more connections between Revolut Junior and paid accounts are expected. Outside the EU, Revolut Junior has also just launched in Australia and plans to roll out in Singapore and Japan in the near future.

In Taiwan, three banks currently offer digital savings accounts for minors: Taishin Bank (Richart), Cathay United Bank (KOKO), and First Bank (iLEO). Compared to Revolut Junior, Taiwan’s minor digital savings accounts are not standalone apps and have not yet developed products specifically designed for minors. Perhaps Revolut Junior’s design philosophy of emphasizing interaction over product features could serve as a reference point for these banks as they plan ahead.

Related links: Revolut Junior introduces Co-Parent feature: https://pros.is/38vmga Revolut Junior Introduces “Co-Parent” Feature For Parents to Supervise Their Child’s Account: https://pros.is/3adb24 Taishin Richart and Cathay KOKO race to offer online account opening for minors, with digital applications growing several times over: https://pros.is/3apptf First Bank iLEO digital account: children as young as seven can open an account: https://pros.is/3aqzk6