China's cashless society finally has a payment app for children by Alipay

“Parent–Child Account” is a service launched around the end of 2018 by Alipay, part of the Alibaba Group. Its English name is “Kids Wallet.” It is an app shared by children aged 10–18 and their parents, allowing parents to view and control their child’s allowance usage and balance. Key features include transferring allowance from the parent’s Alipay account to the child, making purchases at stores or via shopping apps, payment history visualization (graphs), setting spending limits, and a function that allows parents to cancel orders if a child attempts to purchase something deemed clearly unnecessary. Through the app, children can also learn how to manage money, including how to spend and save responsibly.

You can also learn how to use and save money through the app.

As cashless payments have advanced over the past few years, parents and grandparents now carry less cash, and even allowances and New Year’s gift money given to children are increasingly becoming cashless. Small shops that children often visit, such as stationery stores and candy shops, have also largely shifted to smartphone payments. However, there have been frequent reports of problems—for example, cases where parents lend their smartphones to their children and end up with unrestricted purchases, or news stories such as “a child accidentally reduced hundreds of thousands of yen in savings on the father’s smartphone to zero.” As a result, the issue of children’s allowances and smartphone payments has been debated for several years. Against this backdrop, the “Parent–Child Account” has emerged and is expected to meet demand as a tool for teaching children how to manage money through smartphones.

This article is co-authored by TNC Lifestyle Researcher (http://lifestyle.tenace.co.jp/) and Intage's Global Researcher.

Translated with AI Translator