Greenlight And Google Team Up on a Spending App for Kids

Greenlight Financial Technology Inc. has partnered with Google Wallet to enable its debit card to be loaded into the Google Fitbit Ace LTE smart watch.

The partnership is expected to help parents teach their children how to manage their spending and finances through Greenlight’s banking app, the company says. The Greenlight Debit Card is a Mastercard branded card issued by Community Federal Savings Bank.

With the Greenlight banking app, parents can fund their children’s debit card, set spending controls for the card, track spending, automate allowance payments, block unsafe spending categories, and manage their children’s chores.

Parents can set-up allowance payments using several criteria, such as weekly or monthly payments, and tie those payments to chores completed.

The Greenlight debit card offers cash-back rewards of up to 1% of total spending, which are automatically deposited in a savings account. Savings accounts pay interest rates of 2%, 3%, or 5% depending on the subscription plan for the Greenlight app. Subscriptions start at $5.99 per month. New users receive a free one-month trial.

Greenlight users can also choose to round up their purchases and have the change from their transactions deposited into their savings account. In addition, teens with jobs can also set up direct deposit through the app.

Aside from providing financial-management tools, the Greenlight app allows families to share their location, send and receive SOS alerts, and receive crash-detection notices with 911 dispatch, as well as driving scores, reports, and real-time trip alerts.

A fintech specializing in teaching children and teens to be financially responsible, Greenlight partners with more than 75 banks, credit unions, and employers for its Greenlight for Banks, Greenlight for Credit Unions, and Greenlight for Work programs. More than 6 million parents and kids use the Greenlight app, according to the company.

In addition to enabling purchases and teaching money management, the app includes games that teach children fiscal responsibility. For example, Greenlight’s Level Up game enables users to research more than 4,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds, as well as read investing insights from financial-services firm Morningstar Inc.

All investing portfolios created with the app are standard brokerage accounts held in the primary parent’s name, the company says.