A pocket money app dreamt up by three parents at the school gates has been sold to one of Britain’s biggest banks, in a deal understood to be worth around £180 million.
Barclays confirmed on Friday that it is acquiring the UK arm of GoHenry, the digital platform and prepaid debit card provider that teaches children aged six to 18 how to manage their money.
More than 500,000 British children use the app, which also offers junior ISAs and was founded in 2012 by Louise Hill and two fathers whose children attended the same school. The idea was born when the trio noticed their children racking up sizeable bills on services such as iTunes, spending that only surfaced on their parents’ bank statements. The business is named after the first child to trial its debit card.
While her co-founders have since moved on, Hill has stayed the course. GoHenry was acquired by Californian fintech Acorns three years ago in an all-share deal, a far cry from its crowdfunding days, when it repeatedly smashed targets on Crowdcube. Acorns is now selling the UK business to Barclays while retaining GoHenry’s US operation and its European arm, Pixpay.
Neither side disclosed the price, but Barclays said the transaction would shave around five basis points off its core capital ratio, which, by UBS analysts’ reckoning, points to a consideration of roughly £180 million. The official announcement from Barclays confirmed the deal is expected to complete in the final quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval.
Hill said she was “thrilled” with the transaction. “I think together with Barclays it means we can reach a lot more kids, which has always been our aim,” she said, declining to comment on whether she stands to profit personally from the sale.
The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by Barclays, which has been bulking up its UK operations under chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan, known in the City as Venkat, as part of the turnaround plan he has pursued since taking the helm in November 2021.
The bank struck a £2.3 billion deal for Kensington Mortgages in 2022, bought most of Tesco’s banking business for around £600 million two years later, and last October agreed to acquire Best Egg, an American personal loans provider, for $800 million.
Venkat has chased bigger game, too. Barclays is understood to have bid for TSB last year, losing out to Santander UK, which bought the high street lender from Sabadell for £2.65 billion. It was also pipped by NatWest in this year’s auction for wealth manager Evelyn Partners, sold by its private equity owners for £2.7 billion.
GoHenry UK is not yet profitable. Its latest Companies House accounts show pre-tax losses narrowed to £21.9 million in 2024, from £48 million a year earlier. The company says more than two million children have used its services to learn about money since launch.
The strategic logic is plain enough. Vim Maru, who runs Barclays’ UK division, said the acquisition “will turbocharge our offering for households and families”.
“GoHenry supports our vision to offer a deep and seamless banking experience to customers through all of life’s big moments, whether opening a very first account, saving for retirement, and everything in between,” he said. The bank will retain the GoHenry brand and its standalone app.
There is a well-thumbed playbook here. Rooster, a GoHenry rival, was bought by NatWest in 2021, a deal UBS analysts this week described approvingly, noting: “Management there report a pleasing post-acquisition performance, now serving 15 times more customers than when it was acquired.” More striking still, NatWest discloses a 97 per cent retention rate of younger customers as they move into adulthood.
For the high street banks, children’s money apps are less about pocket money and more about pipeline, capturing customers years before they open their first current account. It is a logic that chimes with long-standing consumer demand for banks to do more on financial education, with half of young Britons saying it is the initiative they most want lenders to invest in.
Hill, for her part, frames it as mission rather than acquisition arithmetic. The sale to Barclays, she said, “enables us to offer GoHenry members a pathway to continue their money journey when they hit 18, because financial education shouldn’t have a start or end date.”
The transaction is expected to complete in the final quarter of this year, Bloomberg reported, subject to the customary regulatory sign-off.
