This newspaper (chinatimesnet.CN) reporter Feng Yingzi reports from Beijing.
I just applied for a bank card for my child, and I can handle it with a birth certificate and household registration book. On January 31, Mr. Chen, who lives in Beijing, told the "China Times" reporter that the child was born in October 2023, and now that the Spring Festival is approaching, he plans to deposit the New Year's money into the child's exclusive bank card.
Nowadays, the New Year's money of the Spring Festival every year has become a lot of wealth for children, and with the improvement of children's sense of autonomy, the custom of traditional parents to keep the New Year's money has gradually become history.
Su Xiaorui, a senior observer of the banking industry, told the "China Times" reporter that some banks have begun to target children's New Year's money marketing "baby cards" to provide financial services for children, on the one hand, it shows that banks are trying to enhance market competitiveness through customer segmentation and refined operation capabilities in the fierce market environment, on the other hand, it also reflects the bank's optimism about children's financial prospects, and is willing to invest manpower, financial resources and other resources to enrich their own product and service systems, so as to lay a good foundation for consolidating its financial ecology.
Banks are aiming for "New Year's money".
In recent years, many banks have launched children's exclusive bank cards to attract the attention of parents and children with services such as personalized card faces.
On January 31, Mr. Chen, who lives in Beijing, told the China Times that he applied for the "Xiaojing Card" at a city commercial bank in Beijing, because the child is young, does not need to be present to apply for the card, and the guardian can handle it with his or her personal and children's ID cards or household registration books, birth certificates and other documents.
The last four digits of the card number chose 68 combinations, and the New Year was auspicious. Mr. Chen said that the "Xiaojing Card" he chose can be customized in addition to the card face of the baby**, and the card number can also be customized, which is very commemorative.
At the same time, the "China Times" reporter learned from the above-mentioned city commercial bank that the "Xiaojing Card" is exempt from card opening fees, and at the same time exempts annual fees, loss reporting fees, ATM inter-bank withdrawal fees, SMS fees, online transfer fees and other fees.
In fact, domestic banks have been involved in children's financial services earlier, and many national banks can provide children's card services. For example, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's "Baby Card", "Growth Card" and "Cute Baby Card", Bank of Communications' Children's Debit Card, and Minsheng Bank's "Home Alone Card".
In addition, in order to promote children's financial brands, some banks offer higher interest rates for children's bank card deposit products.
The account manager of the above-mentioned city commercial bank told the "China Times" reporter that the Xiaojing card can purchase exclusive deposit products, which are slightly higher than the interest rate of ordinary time deposits.
Specifically, the above-mentioned Beijing City Commercial Bank launched the "Spring Festival Edition Xiaojing New Year's Treasure" product, with a term of 60 months, a minimum deposit of 1,000 yuan, and an annualized interest rate of 265%, in addition, the "New Year's Treasure 36-month fixed" product is also a minimum deposit of 1,000 yuan, and the interest rate is 26%。In comparison, the minimum deposit amount of ordinary 36-month fixed deposit products is 10,000 yuan, and the interest rate is 255%。
At the same time, the staff of a branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing also told the "China Times" reporter that the threshold for the same deposit interest rate and the "baby growth card" will be lower. For example, the current one-year term interest rate is 17%, "Baby Growth Card" users need a minimum deposit of 2,000 yuan, and ordinary users need a minimum deposit of 10,000 yuan.
On January 31, a Ms. Liu, who lives in Beijing, told the "China Times" reporter that she applied for the Forbidden City series of "Summer" cards of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for her children in early 2023.
Su Xiaorui told the "China Times" reporter that for parents, they can carry out financial management and financial education for their children through opportunities such as "New Year's money" and "red envelopes", while for banks, they can pay attention to financial management and savings-related content columns, so that children can imperceptibly improve their financial quotient in the process of dealing with banks.
In addition, from the perspective of banking business development, Yu Baicheng, a senior researcher in the financial industry, believes that behind children's finance is parents, and the good development of children's finance is also conducive to improving the recognition and retention of parent customers, and the early layout of children's finance can also reserve future customers for banks in advance, so the greater value of children's finance lies in the future and in improving the stickiness of family customers.
Children's financial services dilemma
In fact, as early as 2000, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the National Working Committee of the China Youth Pioneers issued the first children's bank card, the "Peony Eagle Card".
The card is specially issued for children over the age of 10 nationwide, in addition to the general bank card deposit, withdrawal, shopping, transfer, remittance and other functions, but also set up a cardholder guardianship system. Since then, banks have launched their own bank card services for a wider range of children.
But so far, children's finance has also encountered a dilemma, at present, the bank in the class card opening review and personal account management on the implementation of "strict supervision", among them, 6 months without transaction records of the bank card will be "frozen", but many children's cards after processing, only the New Year deposit New Year's money will be deposited or withdrawn, at this time if the card has been frozen, parents need to go to the bank counter to handle the "unfrozen".
You need to transfer a sum of money to the card every six months, otherwise the card will be frozen. The above-mentioned Ms. Liu told the "China Times" reporter that she is saving New Year's money for her children, and she basically doesn't use it, so she has to transfer a sum of money to the card every six months, so as not to freeze the account because there is no flow for half a year.
In addition, children's bank card products are mainly focused on deposits, while wealth management, insurance and other products are lacking, which is also due to compliance requirements. According to the investor suitability requirements, wealth management, ** and bonds need to be subject to investor risk assessment, and children are minors, and as cardholders, they are not suitable for investment in general products in this regard.
However, as deposit rates have fallen, so has the attractiveness of children's cards, which can only be purchased as "deposit products".
A customer manager of a large state-owned bank told the "China Times" reporter that underage cards cannot buy wealth management, only time deposits, but the current three-year fixed deposit has been reduced to 235%, from the perspective of income, using the parent's account to buy financial or insurance products for the child will have a higher yield.
At the same time, an investor also told the "China Times" reporter that during the Spring Festival last year, the financial income was not good, and the three-year fixed interest rate of the child's money in the exclusive card exceeded 3%, which was more stable than the financial income, but this year to save the New Year's money, and found that the deposit interest rate was reduced by 065%, while the financial income is rising, so the determination to put money into the baby's exclusive card has been shaken.
As for the trend and suggestions of children's financial services in the future, Yu Baicheng believes that children's bank cards are exclusive debit cards for children, and should have some special functions, such as card design, parent-child association, children's savings, financial management, insurance products, etc., so that children can easily understand their own assets through bank cards.
Su Xiaorui also said that in the development of children's financial business, banks should first pay attention to the savings purpose of child customers and their expectations for the future use of funds, and design targeted products and services, followed by focusing on user experience, focusing on refined operations, and setting up corresponding functions with the help of online channels such as mobile banking.
Overall, the industry remains bullish on the children's financial services market. Among them, Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the financial market department of Everbright Bank, pointed out that with the growth of residents' wealth and the enhancement of residents' awareness of investment and financial management, more parents are bound to hope to achieve cross-cycle allocation of resources through financial products, smooth their children's future income and expenditure, and maintain and increase the value of wealth, etc., and there is still a lot of room for the future development of related businesses.
In addition, Yu Baicheng also proposed that banks can also provide value-added services such as financial intelligence knowledge and financial management games to enhance their attractiveness to children, and also help parents solve the problem of children's financial education, making banks a platform for children's financial knowledge acquisition, financial practice and growth.
Editor-in-charge: Meng Junlian Editor-in-chief: Zhang Zhiwei.