Greenlight, a financial platform for families, launches investing tools for parents

Greenlight, a fintech firm that offers a debit card and personal finance tools for kids, is launching a new offering to help parents learn how to invest and set up portfolios.

Why should we care?
Greenlight is part of a group of fintechs focusing on the personal finance needs of kids and families, including Gimi, Wingocard, Step, and Current. Greenlight’s financial education offering for parents is aimed at helping them set up brokerage accounts that can be used for college tuition and unexpected expenses. Using the Greenlight app, parents will be able to research stocks and exchange-traded funds, and create investment portfolios with fund recommendations based on their goals. Educational content from Morningstar will be embedded into the app. “Beyond helping their kids become smart about personal finance, in working closely with our families who are using Greenlight, one big thing that became clear was that saving for college is a big challenge,” Greenlight CEO and co-founder Tim Sheehan said in an interview. “Other things pop up during the course of life for a family that might cause them to need the money for different purposes.” The company will absorb trading fees paid to brokerage technology firm DriveWealth – which will execute the trades – and Greenlight will not earn revenue from payment for order flow, the company said.