Little Wallet secures pre-seed funding of $1.6 million

The company's primary focus is to promote smart-money habits and improve financial wellbeing for entire families. This is particularly important in Southeast Asia (SEA), where financial literacy rates are among the lowest in the world, according to the S&P Global FinLit Survey.

Cyrus Daruwala, managing director of Global Financial Services at IDC cited, “Traditional banks do a great job tailoring their services towards financially established adults, but none have done well building services for families and younger pre-collegiate consumers. These digital natives are a part of the multi-billion-dollar addressable market. Contrary to belief, most customers often stay with their first bank, so it is important to introduce them to banking while they are young.”

Little Wallet is pioneering the concept of family banking in Southeast Asia, which has not been introduced in the region before. The company's founder Rahul Sharma and co-founder Phoebe Tran, both INSEAD global executive MBA classmates, have developed an all-in-one money management platform designed for families.

It offers a comprehensive suite of services focused on earning, saving, budgeting, spending, and giving. It comes equipped with a debit card, a companion app, a wearable device for tap and pay transactions, and an educational resource for teaching critical financial skills to younger people.

Little Wallet aims to differentiate itself from traditional banking brands by creating a gamified, youthful, and modern brand image that appeals to users aged 13-18 and even as young as 6-12 years old. Little Wallet seeks to strike a balance between being super cool and appealing to younger users, while also being a reliable and accessible resource for financial education.

Sharma said, “Our customers' data safety and security is our utmost priority. Our top focus is to embrace zero personal data knowledge, implement strong encryption techniques, adhere to industry standards, carefully select our technology partners, regularly test and monitor our security measures, and educate our customers on best security practices.”

Tran added, “We recognise the opportunity in SEA and plan to invest our first round of funding in scaling up our operations, engineering teams, marketing, and strategic partnerships. With partners like Visa in place, we are prepared for big launches in selected SEA markets.”

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Little Wallet aims to enhance financial literacy among children Little Wallet, a Singapore-based fintech, with the mission to promote financial literacy among children, has signed a partnership with Visa.