Astra and Till Financial Partner to Enhance Family Banking Solutions

Astra, an infrastructure provider for faster payments, partnered with Till Financial, a company focused on collaborative family banking.

The partnership aims to offer financial solutions designed for families, enhancing “Till’s mission of empowering kids and teens to become smarter spenders,” the companies said in a Thursday (Oct. 12) press release.

Till Financial helps parents teach their children how to manage money, according to the release. The company partners with family-oriented organizations and offers features like savings goals, chores and allowance. It also gives parents control over spending activity.

Astra’s expertise in FinTech infrastructure aligns with Till’s mission, the release said. Through the partnership, Till users can make secure and instant fund transfers, eliminating the delays associated with traditional banking systems.

The immediate focus of the partnership is integrating Astra’s technology into Till’s platform, ensuring a smooth user transition, according to the release. In the coming months, the companies plan to introduce “additional features and enhancements.”

Family banking is gaining popularity as more families recognize the benefits of collaborative financial management, per the release. In addition, more macro and regional banks are starting to think about how they can better support their depositors.

PYMNTS Intelligence found that members of Generation Z have the lowest confidence in their financial knowledge of all generations surveyed. One of the largest causes of this deficit of financial understanding is an educational system that fails to provide this knowledge, as 41% of high school students reported that their schools have no financial literacy classes, according to the “Digital-First Banking Tracker,” a PYMNTS and NCR collaboration.

It’s the job — and even the ethical responsibility — of financial institutions (FIs) to provide informed advice from professionals who can impart financial knowledge to less-experienced people entering the financial mainstream, NCR Digital Banking President Doug Brown told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in an interview posted in July 2022.

“The FIs need to reach out and meet these customers where they are, where they want to be met,” Brown said at the time. “That does involve an education curriculum model that they can extend out, usually through digital format.”