gohenry — a revolutionary pocket money app or just an expensive substitute?
What is gohenry?
gohenry is a prepaid VISA debit card (Mastercard in the US) service created in 2012 by a group of inspired parents who realized there wasn't anything to teach their own kids how to manage money in the digital world. As a result, gohenry was born. gohenry was created for parents with children aged 6 to 18; this app teaches young children how to manage their finances and create healthy money habits from a young age.
KPMG and H2 Ventures dubbed the company one of the world's Leading 100 Fintech Innovators. As a result, the digital bank's future appears to be bright, and its products seem to be in high demand.
Is gohenry safe?
Yes, although gohenry is not a bank, the platform it provides is safe. To issue debit cards under a VISA Europe license, the company has partnered with IDT Financial Service. IDT is an FSCS-protected bank, which means that if gohenry fails, consumers will be insured. Parents concerned about their children's data can rest assured that the digital bank will keep it safe. However, if you want to learn more about how they intend to use your and your children's personal data, please read the blog post on data privacy.
gohenry Services
The gohenry's payment system is comprised of three components:
Accounts for children
This account allows kids to monitor their funds and make purchases using their gohenry prepaid Visa debit card. Kids can also set savings goals, earn from tasks, give to charity and see exactly what they’ve spent, where they’ve spent it and what money they have left.
A Parent's account
This account lets parents keep an eye on and transfer funds to their child's account using the gohenry app on their Android or IOS device. Some of the other features that the parent account has included:
- Notifications of real-time payment;
- Place caps on expenditure;
- Issue task awards and follow-up promotions;
- Set up an age-restricted transaction safeguard to prevent charges in pubs or casinos;
- Limits on spending;
- Issue job awards and follow-up promotions.
VISA prepaid card
This debit card allows children to purchase items online, in supermarkets, and make cash withdrawals from ATMs. There is no fee to obtain the card; instead, there is a monthly service charge of £2.99. Kids can also get a custom card for the low price of £4.99.
Pros
- Implement spending caps daily, weekly or monthly.
- Try out the service free of charge for one month.
- Real-time payment notifications
- Fully integrated configurable incentive system
- Members of the family can receive and send funds.
- Handle up to four children's accounts from a single account.
- Co-parent feature allowing both parents to join in with the money management tasks.
Cons
- Even though the monthly charges are just £2.99 a month, they can add up if you have several children.
- There is one free top-up per month, after which it costs 50p.
Conclusion
The concept of gohenry is fantastic; it is never too early to start learning about financial security. Parents can also track and oversee their kid's finances, making it easy to see how and where their money is being spent.
Obtaining a card and opening an account are both accessible and straightforward processes. If parents can afford the monthly payments, gohenry is unquestionably a practical investment for their offspring. If you cannot do so, we recommend that you continue to give your children pocket money in cash and teach them about financial security.
FAQ
Auto top-up will instantaneously refill your account with a sum of your choosing if the balance falls below £5. The charge can be as little as £10 and deducted from your debit card.
To delete your account, call Member Services at 0330 100 7676 or send an email to help@gohenry.co.uk. Any day of the week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Gohenry performs many of the same roles as a conventional bank account. However, there are some distinctions, such as the fact that gohenry allows you to:
- From the age of six, you may obtain a debit for your kid (as opposed to being at least 11 years)
- A companion smartphone app allows parents to monitor their children's accounts and receive real-time alerts.
- Teaching kids to be financial literate
To top-up via debit card:
- Sign in
- Click the "Top-up" icon
- Enter the sum
- Click the "make payment" button
Note: Users can make one free deposit per month, and all subsequent top-ups would cost 50p.
Questions & answers
Ibrahim Busari
Is there still a referral bonus program for gohenry customers?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
Yes. Currently, all customers get a one month free trial so they can try before they buy and ensure gohenry works for them and their children. If you refer a friend, you and the person referred both get an additional £10 when the account is activated.
Ibrahim Busari
Are gohenry services going to be available in any other countries apart from the US and UK?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
We want to ultimately make millions of kids good with money!
Our immediate aim is to raise awareness for gohenry’s financial education mission and expand our app and debit card to improve the financial fitness of even more kids across the UK and the US.
Ibrahim Busari
Is there any plan in the future to make gohenry services free or lower the fees as they can add up to a lot for parents with multiple children?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
Our subscription price has been well received by our customers.
For the price of a coffee a month, our 1.5 million plus community gets access to a range of features and exclusive content all designed to empower kids to interact with money in the way they will as adults.
This includes teaching the key pillars of earning, saving, spending and giving, setting tasks, enabling cash withdrawals from ATMs, allowing employees to pay wages direct to teen customer accounts and our popular personalised card range.
We don’t have any pricing changes to currently announce, but we’re always reviewing our services and working with our community to offer features and a service that meets their changing needs. Some of our most popular features have been built this way.
Ibrahim Busari
What is gohenry target audience?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- We have two core audiences - parents and children aged between 6-18
- Within the 6-18-year-old age bracket we obviously have more than one audience too as a 6-year-old’s financial needs are very different to those of a 16-year-olds!
- We recently launched our Teen account to cater for these different needs. Aged 13, our customers transition to our Teen account where they will experience exclusive features such as the ability to have a wage paid into their account, the option to send or receive money from friends and family, as well as access to a bespoke range of personalised cards.
Ibrahim Busari
What is the idea behind gohenry?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- On starting up gohenry in 2012, we pioneered a new category and are still the market leaders today
- gohenry was founded by a group of friends and parents after realising that there was nothing in society that could teach their own children about how to be good with money in the digital world.
- Our first transaction was by a British boy named Henry, in November 2012 - hence the name!
- gohenry’s mission is to make young people aged 6-18 good with money by providing them with the opportunity to gain experience with managing money from a young age, in a safe environment in a way that builds confidence and helps them develop a crucial life skill
Our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds
- Some tell us they use gohenry as they struggled with financial problems and didn’t want their kids to make the same mistakes.
- Others have more resources and want their children to understand the value of money and that it has to be earned as well as how it can help others.
Ibrahim Busari
What makes gohenry a preferred payment solution for users? What is your unique selling proposition?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- Today, the vast majority of parents are still using cash to manage allowance, however cash is being used less and less and children are being left behind in the increasingly digital world.
- According to a Cambridge University Study, financial habits are formed by the age of seven.
- At gohenry we’ve long been advocates for the need to teach financial education from a young age to ensure a level playing field later in life.
Some of the key ways we do this are:
- Education - arming kids with the money skills they need for life is key to the financial equality of the next generation.
- Fun - finance isn’t often associated with fun but when you’re dealing with 6-18-year-olds, you need to find ways to make sure it is.
- We do this through our child app which empowers kids to learn by doing in a safe environment and our personalised prepaid debit cards - unique to us in the UK
- Children and Teens can choose from one of our many designs, personalise their card to say goEmma or goHarvey and even choose a card made from field corn vs plastic (our Eco Card)
- Allow mistakes in a safe environment with no danger of going overdrawn - we all learn from our mistakes and it’s no different with money. As our CEO says: a £20 mistake aged 7 is better than a £2,000 one aged 27.
- Empowerment - our child app empowers children to take responsibility for their own money, giving them the opportunity to see how much they have available to spend, where they’ve spent it (in real time), set savings goals for that must-have item, earn extra money from tasks, and learn how money helps others around them through our giving feature, which allows children to automatically donate a small percentage of their pocket money to our charity partner, the NSPCC.
Our parent app empowers parents to talk to their children about areas like:
- Earning - and that money doesn’t grow on trees!
- Savings - the importance of having your own pot of money to fall back on (in most kids’ cases that’s when they see a must-buy toy or a want a meal out with friends)
- Spending - encouraging financial independence by teaching them to keep an eye on their outgoings;
- Giving - how money can help others in life. An area we saw a huge uplift in during Covid-19
Ultimately, our mission is to make every kid good with money by providing them with the opportunity to gain experience with managing money from a young age, in a safe environment in a way that builds confidence and independence.
Ibrahim Busari
Is gohenry safe? Please tell us How do you ensure security for your customers?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- Yes! This is one of our biggest priorities - after all, we’re looking after two of the things people are most protective over: children and money.
- As a prepaid Visa card designed specifically for children, we block merchants who are classified as adult retailers. These include businesses listed as gambling or betting shops and sites; alcohol establishments such as bars or pubs; dating or escort services; off-licenses; inbound teleservices; automated fuel dispensers; and pornography.
- We have enhanced security features in place to help safeguard our customers and their accounts. These include:
- Transaction and risk monitoring systems which we continuously monitor for unusual activity.
- Educational content to help parents and children navigate safeguarding issues such as data privacy (https://blog.gohenry.com/uk/gohenry-news/data-privacy-explained-to-children/) and account security (https://blog.gohenry.com/uk/financial-education/the-gohenry-guide-to-secure-accounts/ ).
- Additionally, our parent app is designed specifically to give parents peace of mind with the ability to set spending limits, receive real-time spending notifications to their phone and block a card instantly in-app or online if it’s lost or stolen.
Ibrahim Busari
Are there any upcoming features or updates?
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- We are always co-creating with our community to bring new products and features that will help increase their financial knowledge and independence.
- We have lots coming up but none we can currently talk about. We’ll keep you posted!
Ibrahim Busari
Name top 3 killer features on gohenry
Louise Hill, Co-founder and COO
- Personalised card range - unique to gohenry, kids and teens can choose from a range of different themed cards to add their own personality to payments. They can personalise them with their name - e.g. goAli or goKieran - or even choose a card made from field corn vs plastic (our Eco card)
- Personalised financial education - recognising that the needs and financial needs of a child are different from those of a teen, gohenry members are automatically transitioned to a Teen account when they hit 13. Here teens can have a wage paid direct to their account, request or send money to friends, and take advantage of an exclusive range of card designs.
- Giftlinks - this feature has come into its own during lockdown allowing parents to invite relatives and friends to contribute to their child’s earnings via giftlinks which can be set up to appear in the child’s account on a particular day (e.g. their birthday) with a personal note; kids can even send a personal thank you note back via the app.