Pixpay is a French fintech startup specializing in teen banking. Pixpay provides teenagers with a bank card and an application that is co-managed by parents. For two years, I was also responsible for finding the best solutions to help parents manage their teenagers' accounts.
Project scope
Team
At Pixpay, it is the parent who must initiate the account creation for the teenager, becoming the primary manager of the account.
Every family is different and has unique needs based on their circumstances. During interviews, we observed that our customers included divorced couples, grandparents involved in their grandchildren's financial education, parents living far away, and more.
I spent a lot of time with families to understand how we could grant autonomy to other members (besides the primary parent) without giving them access to subscription settings or private data.
In blended families, more customization is needed, such as determining which teenager each member can access. We used methods like card sorting and family tree diagrams to better understand permission management and make it easily manageable in the app.
Through all these workshops, we were able to identify three types of permissions on a single account:
The primary parent (the one who created the account and has full management rights)
The co-parents, who have almost the same rights (managing pocket money, blocking the card, accessing the tracking, etc.), except for managing the subscription and can only access the accounts the primary parent has granted them access to
The "regular giver," a family member who can only send money through the app and view the teenager's balance.
User feedback highlighted two key pain points for parents regarding teen allowances:
Forgetting regular payments: Many parents often forget to give allowances on a regular basis, leading to frustration and inconsistency.
Lack of budget control: Without a predefined monthly amount, parents tend to give money on a case-by-case basis, often exceeding what they originally intended without realizing it.
To dig deeper, we conducted workshops with parents to identify specific friction points:
Amount: What is the right or fair sum?
Timing: What is the ideal date or frequency for allowances?
Consistency: How can the process be simplified and automated?
Together with parents, we designed a journey that automates allowance payments in just a few clicks. This ensures payments are never forgotten while maintaining full control over the process.
Parents simply set:
The amount
The frequency
The preferred payment day
The feature is fully flexible, allowing for one-click modifications or temporary suspension when needed.
Teenagers are not an easy target to engage; I’ve learned to be both creative and patient, especially during workshops. It’s quite interesting to see how money isn’t a taboo for them and to find the right balance between teaching them how to manage it responsibly, giving them autonomy, and rewarding their efforts.
These two years at Pixpay have been incredibly enriching, particularly in developing my ability to empathize and conduct interviews with such a unique audience.
