SberKids
Creating the first banking experience for kids.
1,000,000
Issued cards
4.6
★
Rating in stores
Creating the first banking experience for kids.
According to bank's research, 72% of kids want their own bank card for spending and saving money. Before SberKids, they relied on piggy banks or their parents' cards, lacking visibility and opportunities to earn on savings. One of Europe's largest banks decided to issue a card for kids aged 6–14 to gain potential loyal clients and help kids learn financial literacy.
Preteens, aged 6 to 14, see themselves as independent individuals with specific goals and financial needs. To better understand this audience, we visited schools weekly and conducted interviews with children from grades 1 to 7. These interactions provided valuable insights into their interests and needs, guiding us in developing solutions tailored to them.
I have started by developing the app's brand identity. My initial hypothesis questioned the need to display the card, so our first concepts used money-related metaphors, like a pirate's chest.
I quickly realized that a card symbolizes status for children and makes them feel more grown-up. Additionally, game mechanics with crystals, coins, and other currencies felt too childish and didn’t convey the same sense of prestige.
Therefore, SberKids was designed as an adult financial product in a kid-friendly package, ensuring it is cheerful, dynamic, graphic-rich, game-like, responsive, reassuring, and high in contrast.
Children can legally have a limited amount in their savings account. I explored various ways to visualize savings and limits. After talking to engineers and stakeholders, we chose a concept where an image fills up based on the user's savings amount. This variant significantly reduced engineering effort and allowed potential customizations.
Despite the decline piggy banks IRL, children still associate them with saving money. After testing with kids, I chose the piggy bank as the default option.
Kids showed a mix of preferences: some wanted bold themes, while others preferred bright, playful designs. To cater tao these tastes, we added theme selection to the app. I designed themes above, and others were created by external illustrators. Interestingly, the most popular theme was a pink unicorn, which even went viral on social media.
The outcome is a comprehensive banking experience for kids, meticulously tailored based on their feedback. The project achieved significant success: over 1 million cards were issued, the app went viral among kids, leading to hundreds of YouTube and TikTok videos created by them, and it received strong user ratings in app stores.
From a business standpoint, this project fostered a large, loyal client base, many of whom are likely to choose this bank when they reach legal age.
SberKids won the Branded Games and Mobile Applications category at the G8 Creative Awards. The G8 Creative Awards focuses on recognizing and rewarding outstanding work and achievements in fields such as design, advertising, marketing, print
