Money games in class, tied to each pupil's own bank account at a partner bank
TL;DR Coinclass runs a weekly money-skills period for Classes 6 to 9, built as team games a teacher can run without a screen. Each pupil also holds a real minor savings account at a partner bank, so a lesson ends in an actual deposit and not just a quiz score. Banks and schools share the cost.
Only 27% of Indian adults counted as financially literate in the NCFE's 2019 national survey, and the share falls to 9–11% in Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and Odisha[1]. Most of those adults never had a single lesson on interest, budgeting or fraud at school.
A free option does exist. NCFE and CBSE wrote five financial education workbooks for Classes 6 to 10, and schools can opt in to NCFE's Money Smart School Program[2]. Its own dashboard shows 100 schools and 400 students though[2].
So the material is there. What's missing is someone who runs it every week and gives children something real to practise on.
What it does, in regulatory terms: education plus referral to a regulated bank. Coinclass never holds, moves or pays out money and runs no wallet, so it needs no payment licence. All deposits sit in the partner bank's own minor accounts under RBI rules[3].
The product is a year-long kit for one class - 30 game sessions mapped to the NCFE–CBSE workbooks, teacher scripts, printed play money and a simple dashboard for the school. Games cover pocket-money budgets, compound interest, UPI fraud and the cost of borrowing from a shop. Once a month the partner bank's agent visits for a "bank day", and pupils who want to can deposit into their own account.
The seed pitched an app with gamified lessons and savings rewards, so I reframed it. Paying children to save means handling money, which drags in prepaid-instrument rules, and a phone app leaves out a lot of pupils. Badges and class targets do the job of cash rewards here.
Pupils use it and parents consent, but two other parties pay. The partner bank pays a fee per active minor account, because it gets young customers early (the fee level is an assumption to test). Private schools pay a per-pupil fee for the kit and teacher training, which I'd test at ₹300–600 a year. For comparison, Junio charges up to ₹99 for a student card and nothing annually[4].
In April 2025 the RBI told banks that children aged 10 and over may run their own savings accounts, with banks setting limits and able to issue debit cards, effective from July 2025[3]. That makes a pupil's own account possible inside one school year. The DPDP Rules of November 2025 also spell out how to get a parent's verifiable consent[5].
There's no public figure for spending on school financial education in India that I could find. The nearest proof of interest comes from teen payment apps - one says it has more than 2 crore users[6] and another more than 40 lakh[4]. Those are spending products bought by families, so treat them as adjacent demand and not your market.
Teen payment apps give teenagers cards that parents top up, with allowance, task and savings features[6][4]. They are apps that families pick at home. NCFE offers free workbooks and teacher training but leaves delivery to each school[2]. Banks have minor accounts but no reason to visit Class 7. Nobody I found combines a weekly lesson in school with a real account.
| Difficulty | Moderate (40/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹55 L–1.1 Cr |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The games are the easy part. Getting a bank to commit to monthly visits and an account-opening flow for minors with parent consent takes months of compliance review, and no amount of hustle speeds that up. Schools buy once a year, so a missed admission cycle costs you twelve months.
No payment licence, as long as Coinclass never holds or moves money. The partner bank carries the regulated part.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Keep AI away from pupils' personal data and away from anything that talks to children directly without a teacher. Parental consent rules make that a real risk.
Want to work out the AI layer for Coinclass? Talk to Yash →
I like this one for a founder who has sold to schools or worked in a bank's financial inclusion team. If you want a consumer app with viral growth then look elsewhere. Prove two things first - that one bank will pay per active account, and that at least 40% of accounts opened in a pilot get a second deposit within three months.
Plan for about ₹55 L–1.1 Cr, mostly the kits, trainers and a bank partnership.
Not for teaching. If you ever hold children's money or pay cash rewards, you move into RBI's prepaid instrument rules, so keep deposits with the partner bank.
Yes, the class kit travels well. Check local rules on children's bank accounts and children's data before you sign schools.
The free Coinclass validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the banking and child-data checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for schools, banks and parents, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Coinclass or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting one bank to sign on and send agents into classrooms every month, and that's the kind of thing I help founders with. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.