Greenlight Launches Gamified Financial Literacy Curriculum for Kids

Greenlight Financial Technology has launched a gamified financial literacy curriculum for kids and teens.

Accessible through the Greenlight banking app, the new Level Up financial literacy game aims to close the gap between the 93% of teens who say they need financial knowledge and skills and the 64% average score that teens earn on the National Financial Literacy Test, Greenlight said in a Friday (Jan. 6) press release.

“Greenlight’s mission has always been focused on empowering kids and teens to learn about money,” Jennifer Seitz, certified financial education instructor and director of education at Greenlight, said in the release. “Level Up advances our mission even further with an engaging, gamified curriculum that teaches financial literacy in a fun and relatable way.”

PYMNTS research has found that digital financial services are particularly appealing to younger generations — and the reasons do not all have to do with their greater tech-savviness.

One of the primary reasons for young people’s affinity for digital banking is their lack of financial literacy compared to their older peers, according to the “Digital-First Banking Tracker,” a PYMNTS and NCR collaboration.

While delivering its financial literacy curriculum, Greenlight’s Level Up keeps kids and teens engaged with challenges and rewards and enables parents to monitor their progress, according to the press release.

The game features a curriculum that develops both real-life financial skills and core knowledge, multimedia content that creates a rich learning experience, story-driven gameplay that brings the lessons to life and rewards that encourage players to aim to reach the next level, the release said.

The Greenlight banking app is designed to be a mass market product that helps evolve the thinking and spending for the financially uninformed of any age, Greenlight Co-founder and CEO Timothy Sheehan told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview posted in June 2022.

“The product itself is solving this problem [of], what parent doesn’t want their child to be smart about money and personal finance,” Sheehan said. “We all want that, no matter what your income is or what you were taught by your parents. Even if the parent doesn’t necessarily feel like they’re an expert on personal finance, they know enough that they want their child to be.”