Kids believe a lot of fun things about economics. “Mom’s wallet always has money in it.” “Everybody can live in a nice house.” “New clothes appear whenever I need them.” But in reality, even young children need to learn how the financial world works.
“The earlier that kids can start learning about financing, it just prepares them for everyday life,” says Marci Knight, chief marketing officer/business development for Park State Bank in Duluth, Minnesota. “When they’re little, they think, ‘Oh, money just grows on trees, and Mom and Dad are always going to just take it out of their wallet.’ But it’s good for young kids to just start thinking about how our economy works, how our cities [and businesses] work, how money just kind of crosses everything.”
The $1.47 billion-asset community bank has several programs that help children learn about finances. It is one among many ICBA members that recognize the value—both in terms of increasing financial literacy and building community relations—of these programs.
“You want to set up young people for success,” says Amanda Pierce, vice president of marketing at $502 million-asset Solutions Bank in Forreston, Illinois, which also has programs for teaching young people about money and fraud. “Some of the information you give them may not click at first, but as they start having life experiences, they put it all together. You’re giving them a chance to succeed.”
Bank-school partnerships bring financial education to the classroom
Naturally, many youth financial education programs take place in schools. For example, a key educational program at Park State Bank helps local third graders learn about the fundamental financial concepts of a community, Knight explains. The program, called Our City, was developed by Junior Achievement and includes five weekly one-hour sessions.
The core of the program is a three-dimensional model of a city that the third graders build and engage with.
“In session one, they’re decorating three-dimensional buildings and placing them on this map, so they get to explore the various businesses and organizations and workers needed in a city,” Knight says. “And in session two, they work in pairs to redesign underused areas in the city and provide space for additional services and community activities.”
In subsequent sessions, the students learn about money and banking, how money flows through an economy, and career choices. Every session includes fun, hands-on activities or games that keep their young minds focused.
“What this really does is teach them about financial literacy,” Knight says. “They work individually and in small groups, so it kind of also helps them with their socialization. In the beginning, they’re a little bit shy, but once they get into it, they get really savvy about how they want to spend their money or save it. It’s fun to watch them grow and learn throughout the whole process.”
Park State Bank runs the program once a year at three local elementary schools.
Financial literacy after-school programs
After-school programs present another opportunity for community banks to reach young children. For example, $225 million-asset Community Spirit Bank in Red Bay, Alabama, participates in after-school programs organized by the Franklin County Extension Service.
“They have come to know the bank as a community partner,” says Emily Mays, vice president, chief administrative officer and senior marketing director of Community Spirit Bank. “They reach out to us when it’s time to do a financial literacy lesson for the after-school programs across the county.”
Mays says the community bank focuses on a hands-on concept for the after-school programs, because kids are often at the end of their attention span at that time of the day. One example was building a piggy bank, which ties in with basic money education.
“The after-school programs have been a lot of fun, because they reach all the schools eventually during the year,” Mays says. “We rotate different employees from the bank to attend the different schools and do the financial literacy lesson.”
Fraud should be a lesson for kids, too
Fraud affects people of all ages, and one aspect of the youth financial education offered by Solutions Bank in Forreston, Illinois, helps children recognize potential fraud situations.
In particular, the community bank tries to teach them that fraudsters can easily record their voice on the phone and then use artificial intelligence to mimic their voice in phony distress calls to grandparents or other family members.
“Sometimes we hear that [the kids] know a call is fraud, but they want to answer it anyways just to ‘mess with’ the caller,” says Amanda Pierce, vice president of marketing at Solutions Bank. “They don’t realize the fraudster could be capturing their voice.”
Solutions Bank taught sessions during 13 days last year, sometimes multiple times a day.
“They understand fire drills—here are the exits, here is where we’ll meet—and we feel fraud education should be the same way,” Pierce explains. “You should mentally rehearse before the situation happens.”
Teaching about money at the bank
Education doesn’t just happen in schools, of course. Students often visit the banks themselves to learn about financial topics.
Community Spirit Bank regularly hosts children on field trips, sometimes even preschoolers.
“We have a lot of preschools that like to hit the fire station, the police station, then they hit the bank,” Mays says. “We take them behind the teller line and let them see into the vault and things like that. It’s about understanding that this is the place that keeps their money safe.”
She adds that the bank tours become more in-depth when older school groups visit. There is a preschool and elementary school version, a middle school version and a business-class version for high school students.
The bank tours are just one of several financial education programs Community Spirit Bank offers, but they are an important starting point.
“Our biggest goal with our programs is just to make more financially competent adults one day, so they can feel confident in financial decisions and also know that there are people like community bankers out there to ask questions,” Mays explains. “We also just want them to be familiar with the bank, because there are a lot of [unbanked] families … that are using check advances and check cashing places and things like that.”
Youth savings accounts build early banking habits
2,680
Number of students engaged in the Banzai financial literacy program in 2025/26 through Community Spirit Bank
6,092
hours of education in 2025/26
15%
increase in pre-test and post-test scores
Source: Community Spirit Bank
Another way some community banks teach financial literacy to children is by offering special accounts.
BayCoast Bank in Swansea, Massachusetts, offers RightStart Accounts designed for children ages 6 to 17. The young account holders get their own debit card and online and mobile banking access, and they can earn cash rewards by completing financial literacy modules on the banking app.
“The financial literacy lessons change each year with the child’s birthday,” explains Marie Pellegrino, president of the $2.9 billion-asset community bank. “That ensures that they’re being taught age-appropriate money lessons.
“The lessons cover basic topics such as savings, spending and budgeting, and as the child gets older, there are also topics like cybersecurity, starting their own business and planning for college.”
Importantly, parents remain in control of the RightStart Accounts.
“Parents can monitor the transactions, they can control spending, they can make transfers, they can set limits in real time, and they can restrict the time of day that the children can spend,” Pellegrino says.
The program was launched at the beginning of this year, and more than 100 RightStart Accounts had been opened as of mid-September.
Using screen time for learning
The internet is another great way for banks to teach kids about money. BayCoast Bank, for example, offers the free Banzai financial literacy education program through its website, which provides age-appropriate modules for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Pellegrino reports that more than 2,500 students in 22 local schools have access to the program so far this year.
“The program gives students real-world financial situations, such as creating budgets, managing unexpected expenses, understanding credit, setting savings goals,” she says. “And they’re just not simply reading about these lessons—they’re interactive. They can make decisions, they can see outcomes. So, it’s really engaging for anyone that uses it.”
Community Spirit Bank also sponsors Banzai for schools in the communities it serves. Mays explains that teachers sometimes use the program as part of their coursework. The bank even provides earbuds if teachers request them, so that students can silently log into the program in the classroom or learning lab.
At the end of the school year, the bank hosts an award ceremony, if teachers ask for it.
“We bring in T-shirts, give them a pizza party and hand out certificates,” Mays says.
A fair way to teach teens about budgeting
BayCoast Bank in Swansea, Massachusetts, teaches high school students about the financial situations they’re soon to encounter by hosting “Credit for Life Fairs.”
These events, typically set up in high school gymnasiums and operated by bank employees, include stations that help the students learn how to budget for housing, transportation, food, entertainment and other everyday expenses, explains Marie Pellegrino, the bank’s president. “The students choose a career and then receive a corresponding salary with that career,” she says. “Then they’re asked to imagine themselves as a 25-year-old adult, and they visit the different lifestyle stations where they’re required to budget for essentials. It really shows them—whatever career they choose—how far, or how little, their money will go.”
The students learn how every financial decision affects them, and how important getting a good education and making wise career choices are, Pellegrino adds. In the 2025/26 school year, the community bank set up 14 Credit for Life Fairs.
Measuring the ROI of youth financial education programs
Do community banks’ efforts at teaching children pay off? Some of the programs offer data about students’ success in learning particular topics, and many provide information about the number of participants.
“From a quantitative perspective, we track the number of RightStart Accounts opened and deposit balances, and we can track the participation in the learn-to-earn financial literacy activities,” Pellegrino says.
Data from online learning programs, such as Banzai, can also be useful. Mays reports that 2,680 students received 6,092 hours of education through Banzai this past school year, and there was a 15% increase between the pre-test scores and the post-test scores.
But perhaps it’s the less tangible results that indicate the true impact of the programs.
“Some of the most meaningful feedback directly comes from community members,” Pellegrino says. “We hear from customers in the branches when they’re engaging with our employees; we get feedback from teachers and nonprofit organizations. It’s a key indicator of the success that we’ve had.”
Sometimes the impact of teaching the children is not directly related to the participants becoming more financially savvy. Rather, it’s that family members become more aware of the bank.
“A lot of times it truly is just hearing someone mention that program to us or someone saying, ‘Oh, my child’s participating in y’all’s digital education program at school. They came home talking about it,’” Mays says. “It kind of becomes a snowball like that, which we love. The whole point is we want them to know we’re invested in the community, and they might not have been aware of us otherwise.”
3 tips for launching community bank school partnership programs
Community banks that have been teaching children about financial topics for many years have some advice for others who may be new to the concept.
Start small.
You don’t need to create a comprehensive education program at the outset, says Emily Mays, vice president, chief administrative officer and senior marketing director of Community Spirit Bank in Red Bay, Alabama.
“I think the biggest step is just to listen to your schools and the needs that they already have and building that relationship with them from that starting point,” Mays says. “You don’t have to do everything all at once … the long list of things that we do now started because we just made an initial investment in the digital education piece.”
She adds that even with a tiny budget, a community bank can make an impact: “Building out a presentation and getting in front of a classroom, you can essentially do for free. Start small and remain consistent, and the partnership can grow over time.”
Be engaging.
Marie Pellegrino, president of BayCoast Bank in Swansea, Massachusetts, advises that keeping kids engaged in the program is essential. “First and foremost, you have to make financial education practical and engaging,” she says. “The best way for children to learn is making the lessons interactive and relatable to the experience. It will really help make these lessons stick in the children’s minds.”
Teach social skills.
While financial education often deals with numbers and dollars, young children might first need to learn skills that help them work together and ask questions, says Marci Knight, chief marketing officer/business development for Park State Bank in Duluth, Minnesota. The Our City program Park State Bank runs helps third graders develop those skills, she notes.
“Skills like how to talk to people, how you approach a banker and how to ask questions are things we teach as well,” she says.