Monzo and Revolut take banking battle to the playground
Banks are turning their attention to the younger generation and in this week’s column Samuel Norman takes a look at the money to be made with Gen Alpha.
The Tooth Fairy is losing her magic touch.
After centuries of cultural dominance in the under-the-pillow money market, the primary dealer of calcium-for-cash faces a hostile takeover.
In the playgrounds of 2026, a 50p coin under the pillow – if that is still the going rate for a tooth – is just a piece of scrap metal for a generation that may never enter a bank branch.
Instead, today’s kids await a push notification – and banks are standing ready to make sure those as young as six can get exactly that.
The classroom has become the new frontier for the British banking battle and one firm is set on painting it hot pink. Monzo revealed in the last week it had topped 15m customers in a major milestone for the UK fintech darling. But one key detail showed 1m of those Monzonauts, as the bank calls them, came from under-16s.
This feat alone amounts to Monzo banking around one in eight of Britain’s Gen Alpha’s – those born between 2010 and 2024.
The numbers come after the firm locked its focus on the demographic with the launch of a ‘Savings Sidekick,’ an AI mascot that gamifies fiscal responsibility. Monzo said it aimed to curb a generation of “piggy bankers” missing out on earned interest of £162m every month by letting their pennies languish in a swine-shaped money box.
While Monzo plays the friendly sidekick, Revolut has positioned itself as the “ticket to independence.”
The Canary Wharf-based financial powerhouse aiming to create the all-in-one app has brought its lifestyle ecosystem to children as young as six. Revolut has offered its younger cohort access to a curated selection of premium apps, including photo-editing software, Uber for Teens and interactive lessons.
And it’s not just the fintechs. Natwest, having the foresight to snap up Rooster Money back in 2021, is now using that division to offer prepaid debit cards to children as young as six. According to the Natwest Rooster Money Pocket Money Index, the average weekly allowance for a six-year-old is now £2.81, while 17-year-olds are pulling in wages of £23.97 once side-hustles and household chores are factored in.
Banks fight for Gen Alpha’s pocket money
So why are billion-pound institutions fighting tooth and nail over the scraps of a ten-year-old’s birthday money?
Because every week fresh data reminds us that switching current accounts is a horror Brits move heaven and earth to avoid.
Media group 3Gem showed nearly half have never switched accounts and rewards platform Dragonpass revealed 64 per cent of UK adults have been with their bank for a decade despite knowing other services were better suited.
Banks, of course, know this and if they can get a thin piece of plastic into a child’s hand at age six, the odds they hold the same plastic age sixty are stacked in their favour. And by the time the customer applies for their first car loan, the bank is likely to have around a decade of spending data on them.
And should the retaining game pay off, customer acquisition costs tumble. Whilst an adult customer can demand a switching sweetener of up to £200, a bank’s whizzy app can be all it takes to lure in a customer still learning their times tables who will one day take out a mortgage.
Fintechs like Monzo and Revolut are playing the long game, but it could mark the first generation where these firms can act as the incumbents rather than the disruptors. But the game is far different.
For digitally-savvy Gen Alpha the perks of an innovative fintech may not impress. This is a cohort that will have little memory of the time before ChatGPT, effectively making them the first to find the tech magic boring.
The goalposts have completely shifted and the swipe-natives have sharpened their understanding of money from their early days. According to a PwC survey this month, this is an age-group where 97 per cent already make purchasing decisions independently.
As banks battle to lock in these digital natives, the traditional rites of passage continue to face the digital reckoning. So maybe the Tooth Fairy is hanging up her wings and switching to a business model where kids leave their smartphones under the pillow.