I am not sure if this is already said but under 18 savings and chequing accounts with a parent added on the account would be beneficial as there you can get users into the ecosystem at a young age and once they grow they can just upgrade the account to a regular one once they are 18+. That way you can get young users in and since they have used the services they are willing to stay with Neo.
I am pretty sure there are some parents on here who would like to get their children to start using accounts under 18 with supervision.
I also really like this idea - I know there are youth accounts for 13+ but my understanding is that there’s no parent oversight on those. It would be great to have an option with parental controls/oversight
Agree there are some banks which do provide the bare minimum there is a real oppurtunity for Neo to capture a huge chunk of this market by providing good features and making overall good product
I’m in full support and expanding household banking is very much on the roadmap! Start thinking about what PERFECT looks like for this feature.
I am sure you can get parents who use Neo on here to test the features before rolling it out. Having options like RESP,CESG makes sense. Weekly reports of how much money spent and saved sent to parents,spending limits option to be set by parents. I am sure there are a lot more features that parents would like to have on the app.
Have contributed to this idea in the past but thought more about it now:
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would love to have oversight into their accounts (be able to see balances, transactions, set limits, have restrictions on certain purchases/categories, approval for purchases over a set limit, be able to move money in and out and within their accounts, get notifications on certain spending patterns as set by parents, monthly summaries by spending categories, spending insights, notifications of unusual spending, etc. )
- Could have tiered control: guided - approval for most things; balance - limits and occasional approval; independent - limited intervention
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Investments / savings - would love a way to encourage investing with my kids. Thinking this could either happen through savings accounts or investment accounts. Would love for a way to match their investments or savings - every time they save or invest, I automatically (or approve) transfer a matching amount on that or a % of that amount. Obviously there would need to be restrictions for how long the money needs to stay before its accessible and caps on how much can be matched but I would love to teach them the value of investing, saving, compound interest, etc. Along these lines I wonder if there could be some educational components built in - just simple tutorials and learning materials on investing, ETF’s, compound interest charts, credit, etc.
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Savings accounts - keep with the named savings accounts and visible progress bars so kids could have visual ques. could create shared savings goals with parents that each can contribute to within their own accounts.
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Visibility into their RESP. From what I understand an RESP is typically managed by the parents but would be cool if there was a way to link this account to the kids NEO account so they could see the balance grow. I realize there may be some complications with this depending if its individual or family RESP but could be a cool feature.
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Allowance - for those who do allowance, it could be cool to integrate a system for that here - not sure how much of a business case there is for this but you could almost build a to do list or integrate a 3rd party one, so that when tasks are complete kids can submit it to parents for approval and an automatic transfer is made to kids
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gamification - badges, rewards, streaks, etc. all things to help them promote financial literacy and responsibility
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Notifications - would be interesting to build in notifications for kids as they make spending decisions that promote financial literacy and responsibility - ex “you have spent 80% of your monthly food spending”, “if you save an extra $5/week you will hit your savings goal ‘bicycle’ 3 weeks faster”
Sounds like you have the foundation for your own fintech startup here haha if you go fast we can acquire you!
Jokes aside, I think these are a great mix of features. Some are table stakes, some are quality of life and others are gamification related, which is an interesting idea.
Fully support this idea, and I think it’s strategically important for Neo long-term.
As someone who works with newcomers to Canada, I see firsthand that many immigrant families arrive with strong financial values but no tools to pass them on in this new context. A parent-supervised account that lets families teach kids about saving, budgeting, and responsible spending within the Neo ecosystem would be enormously valuable — especially for families who are building their financial lives in Canada from scratch.
The approach of gradually upgrading the account from youth to adult at 18+ makes a lot of sense. That kind of continuity builds loyalty that no acquisition campaign can match.
I’d add that even basic financial literacy features within the youth account — simple savings goals, a visual “money jar” for kids, spending categories — would differentiate Neo significantly from what the Big 5 banks offer for youth accounts, which is mostly just a stripped-down adult account with no educational layer.
Grant mentioned this is on the roadmap — excited to see it come to life.