Audrey Tan & Lee Min Xuan, founders of PlayMoolah. Photo courtesy asianentrepreneur

 

PlayMoolah is a fun online platform for kids aged 5 to 11 to save, manage, and earn an allowance. PlayMoolah’s interactive financial literacy games keep it real by teaching children to manage real money, not virtual currency. By involving parents in the process, they are able to influence their children’s behaviour and values. Children are therefore empowered to make decisions about their own money.

 

The concept behind PlayMoolah was born when both founders, Lee Min Xuan and Audrey Tan, were interning in Silicon Valley under the NUS Overseas College programme. The 2008 financial crisis was at its height in the US and it struck them both just how ill equipped parents were with the knowledge and practice of money management to adequately empower their children. Noting the effectiveness of cultivating good money management skills at an early age, they decided to design PlayMoolah to target children of ages 6 to 12. Their idea was subsequently voted the most investable business plan during their stint at Stanford University.

 

PlayMoohlah recently partnered with DBS Bank (DBS Remix), to launch the app WhyMoolah. The app helps young Singaporeans to visualize their future financial situation, by allowing then to map out their financial and life decisions, and explore the consequences as a result of their choices.Play Moolah has also partnered with another local bank, OCBC Bank, to provide an online platform to allow children to understand the value of money and at an early age.

Min Xuan Lee (left) and Audrey Tan (center), co-founders of PlayMoolah, with Jeremy Soo, head of DBS’ consumer banking group, and Sharon Tan (far right), DBS’s head of customer service management in Singapore. Photo courtesy Yahoo Finance Singapore

  With the success of building an international innovation company based out of Singapore, the co-founders were awarded the Young Women Innovators Award at the 2013 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Women and the Economy Forum (WEF) in September 2013. Come join us on 8th May to get inspired from PlayMoolah’s success story and network with other fellow entrepreneurs in the Singapore startup scene.