Lunar, the Copenhagen-headquartered neobank and chief challenger to Google Wallet in Northern Europe, has rolled out the new Lunar Youth banking app aimed at “new customers” in Scandinavia, the 7- to 17-year-old age group. The app is available to the children of existing customers banking at Lunar and linked to parents’ accounts. Lunar’s target market is the 2.5 million children and teenagers across Scandinavia.
In contrast to Lunar, the Google Wallet tap-to-pay launched in March is currently confined to users in the United States, Britain, Spain, Australia, and Poland. Google Wallet, which also requires parental consent and supervision, can run on Android telephones.
Akin to Google Wallet, Lunar Youth uses a multi-layered security platform that offers various parental control tools. These tools enable parents to set spending limits, monitor transactions and block purchases in high-risk or restricted categories such as cryptocurrencies and gaming.
The Lunar Youth account comes with a Visa debit card and digital tools to assist with money management and budgeting. The youth accounts can be customized, enabling children in the 13-17 age range to design their own debit cards and app themes and attach the card account to Apple or Google Pay.
“Kids today grow up in a world where money is mostly digital—whether tap-to-pay, in-app purchases, or subscriptions. Lunar Youth is the natural next step in Lunar’s journey to becoming the go-to digital bank for all life stages. It’s giving kids and teens a safe, fun, and practical way to engage with money—together with their parents,” said Lunar’s founder and CEO, Ken Villum Klausen, in a prepared statement.
Lunar’s youth offering represents the Danish challenger’s latest step to “building a digital bank for a digital generation,” he added. The CEO views the neobank as a leading catalyst for change to transform the Nordic banking landscape. Lunar’s push to expand its customer base in the Nordic digital finance space achieved a milestone in March when its bank app in Denmark, Sweden and Norway reached 1 million users.
