The smart money is on kids going cashless for this Malaysian firm

Malaysia is full of fintech firms – more than 300 of them – that offer just about every kind of solution under the sun, from e-wallets to complex financial services.

But there’s only one that provides an end-to-end service for children: Vircle.

“The world is going cashless, but kids still face high friction when it comes to going cashless because of the limitations on their banking access,” Vircle founder Gokula Krishnan Subramaniam tells Tech in Asia.

Vircle is pioneering a child-safe Visa debit card that allows parents to control spending. / Photo credit: Vircle

Vircle is also the first licensed Malaysian fintech startup in the country to deploy solutions for public schools and is eyeing an overseas expansion next year.

In essence, Vircle directly works with schools to provide a prepaid card that pupils use to purchase various items from their school’s online store. Parents can upload or top up any amount from a dedicated app.

“Vircle’s concept revolves around ‘purpose-bound money,’ where parents allocate funds to their kids with specific rules about how and where the money can be spent. This way, children can learn how to manage money within safe parameters,” Gokula says.

Today, Vircle’s users can do a variety of financial tasks, from purchasing books and school uniforms to planning their savings and even monitoring their food intake.

In 2022, the company upped its game by introducing the Vircle Visa card, a child-safe debit card that comes with programmable parental controls.

Gokula shares that parents can block specific merchant categories, disable online purchases to harmful websites (the list is regularly updated in the Vircle system), or even turn off ATM withdrawals.

By adding that with tight controls, children can safely manage their finances while parents continually maintain oversight, Gokula explains.

Vircle currently services 70 schools, with another 15 in the process of being onboarded.

With transaction volumes growing by 8% to 10% per month and new schools coming onboard, Gokula hopes to break even by 2025.

Selling the car to keep the light on

Founded in 2019, Vircle was born out of two experiences. One involved Gokula’s daughter, who was bullied into spending her weekly pocket money to buy items for others instead of her lunch. Gokula also saw a gap in personal finance education among children.

Winning over public schools

Acquisitions and expansions