NatWest Rooster Money Review

Rooster Money app

The app is completely free and allows you to set up an account for as many children as needed. You need to be aware that with the free account, you won’t be dealing with any ‘real money. However, it is a good starting point to teach younger children about earning and rewards, and then, once they are ready, upgrade to the Rooster Card that allows you to pay in their pocket money.

Rooster Card

Probably best saved for older children, the Rooster Card allows children to spend their pocket money online, and contactless in-store, anywhere that accepts VISA. It’s a prepaid card that comes with parental controls, including spending limits and where the card can be used. You will receive instant notifications each time your child uses their card, and there is no risk of your child going overdrawn.

Top-ups are instant, and the card can be fully managed from within the Rooster App. Parents can freeze and unfreeze the card from within the parent account.

Rooster Money features

Automatic allowance: automatically schedule your child’s allowance to be paid at regular intervals and boost this manually at any time.

Saving pots and goals: encourage your child to save in an organised way with predetermined savings pots to help them achieve their goals.

Chore management: teach your child about work and rewards by paying them their allowance only when they have completed their chores.

Education: Use the provided educational content to help teach your child invaluable money management skills.

Set interest rates: teach your child about the benefits of compounding and the importance of sourcing the best interest rates by setting your own interest rates on their money. This is a feature that I have not come across in any other children’s finance app and is a useful tool to encourage saving and not spending.

Star chart: Reward younger children for good behaviour with the virtual star chart that you can both access from within the app.

Recurrent payments: allow your children to set up regular payments (i.e., a game subscription) so they can learn how this works.

Add multiple parents and guardians: Add multiple parents and guardians to help manage your child’s finances.

There are two plans available at Rooster Money, depending on your unique requirements as a family. They include

Virtual Tracker – FREE

This free plan is perfect for much smaller children who are just getting started and would benefit from a reward system or a basic pocket money allowance. There is no actual cash in this account as it is purely virtual; however, children can access the goals pots to encourage saving money as well as the educational content. This can also be used to see how much pocket money your child has saved and update it when they spend it.

These are fairly basic features that wouldn’t be suitable for older children. However, having the free virtual tracker does set Rooster apart from other pocket money apps and can help young people save money.

• Free
• Suitable for children aged 3 years and over
• Virtual pocket money tracker
• Reward chart
• Child login
• Spending and saving pots
• Up to two parent logins

Rooster Card – £19.99 /yr or £1.99 a month

In order to access the pre-paid debit card so your child can spend online and in shops, you will need to upgrade to the Rooster Card. Your child will have an account number and sort code. This plan provides access to all the app’s features, and the app sets a new one-time CVV each time the card is used to pay online for more secure online purchasing. There are no charges for making card payments or withdrawing cash from ATMs up to £50 a month, and anything beyond that will incur a charge of 3% per transaction.

• Designed for children aged 6-18
• Virtual pocket money tracker
• Reward chart
• Spending and savings pots
• Child login
• Unlimited parent logins
• Chore tracker
• Ability to set an interest rate on your children’s pocket money
• Recurring payments
• Prepaid contactless Visa debit card
• Spending limits
• Instant notifications
• Ability to freeze and unfreeze the card in-app
• Secure online card details for one-time transactions

Account comparison table

Rooster Money fees

Even with the highest subscription plan, there are some other costs to be aware of with Rooster Money that include:

Rooster offers customer service via an online contact form as well as email and telephone support. Generally, customers seem happy with the level of service they receive, and certainly, my own queries were answered in a timely fashion.

To open your Rooster Money account, simply follow these steps:

• Download the Rooster Money app for iOS or Android
• Enter your full name
• Enter your email address
• Create a password
• Provide the name your children refer to you by.
• Select your country and currency
• Select which aspect of Rooster Money is most valuable for you, eg Rooster Card

You will automatically be assigned the Virtual Money Tracker account, which is, of course, free; however, there is always the option to upgrade to Rooster Card.

Once you have opened your account, you can add the details of your children, including their name, date of birth, gender, and details of any pocket money allowance.

Since its acquisition by Natwest Bank, Rooster has benefited from bank levels of protection. All client money held in a Rooster account is ring-fenced in an account with Natwest.

The other advantage of having client funds held with Natwest is that, whilst Rooster is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, they do state on their website that ‘If Rooster Money went bust, our creditors would not be able to access your safeguarded money due to it being held in a ring-fenced account. All of the safeguarded funds would be returned to our users.’