Today, most banking innovation typically builds off of existing systems, either making legacy platforms slightly more user-friendly or adding modern features to legacy architecture.

However, the problem with these existing platforms is that they are technical, text-heavy, and assume a level of financial sophistication that most adults don’t even possess. For a generation raised on Instagram and TikTok, these interfaces feel like using a calculator to edit photos.

Rather than building on top of existing banking infrastructure, BUUT needed to create something new: An experience built from the ground up to meet the actual needs of today’s families.

As we quickly learned, every family handles money differently, and those differences become magnified in the digital realm.
Conversations with real-life Dutch families informed every step of our design process. It was thanks to the input of these teens and parents that we uncovered the following key realisations, each of which challenged many assumptions about how money works in modern households.

• Teenagers aren’t financially irresponsible. They’re financially invisible. Most teens we interviewed were trying to be thoughtful about spending, but they lacked tools to make that financial thinking clear to themselves or their parents. As a result, even if a teenager had a loose idea for a savings plan, most parents remained sceptical of their child’s sense of financial responsibility.
• Parents want to help, but they don’t know how. Many parents felt completely out of their depth when it came to digital money management. They remembered learning about money through physical handling—counting coins, seeing bills disappear, and feeling the weight of their wallet. They wanted to pass on financial wisdom but didn’t know how to translate analogue lessons to digital reality.
• Visual thinking trumps numerical analysis. When we asked teenagers to describe their ideal money management tool, they didn’t talk about spreadsheets or transaction logs. They drew pictures. They wanted to see their money, not just track it

These insights helped us finalise our vision for BUUT as not just a banking app, but a financial education platform that happens to include banking features.

Where traditional approaches to financial education rely on a ‘learning by reading’ approach, we designed BUUT’s user experience to focus on ‘learning by doing‘.

Instead of relying on articles or long-form videos (which teenagers largely ignore), we sought to create a financial planning experience for teenagers and their parents that emphasised visual money management and collaborative oversight. Every financial concept, from budgeting to saving goals, needed to be immediately understandable through visual design rather than text explanation.

We helped create a visual language within a flexible and modular design system full of dynamic content, energetic motion, and interactive elements. The app and website are designed with the same principles and goals in mind, which results in a consistent digital presence. 

Additionally, our mobile-only development approach ensured that every one of the following key features worked perfectly on the devices teenagers actually use, as opposed to, for instance, a desktop interface.

The heart of BUUT is the ‘potjes’ system, virtual pots that make budgeting visual and intuitive. Teenagers can create ‘spaarpotjes’ (savings pots) for goals they’re working towards and ‘betaalpotjes’ (spending pots) for regular expenses.

But this isn’t just digital envelope budgeting. Each pot is visually distinct, with custom colours and names that reflect the teenager’s personality and goals. Want to save for concert tickets? Create a music-themed pot and watch it grow. Need to budget for lunch money? Set up a weekly spending pot with automatic refills.

The genius of the system: It makes abstract financial concepts concrete without requiring advanced maths or planning skills.

One of our biggest insights was that most family financial conflicts stem from unclear expectations rather than irresponsible spending. Parents and teenagers often have completely different assumptions about what money can be spent on and when.

BUUT’s Agreements feature transforms these nebulous expectations into clear, mutual understandings. Using Agreements, teenagers and their parents can work together to make arrangements for how much pocket money or clothing allowance they’ll get and when. If the teen feels as though they have a valid reason for the Agreement to be adjusted, they can raise the issue with a parent in person and ask them to modify it in the app.

The emphasis on collaboration demonstrates how Agreements function as learning frameworks, not punitive controls.

Parents get enough visibility into their teenager’s financial activity to feel at ease without feeling like they’re invading their privacy. 

BUUT provides them with an overview of their child’s pots and how much money is in them. Should they feel the need, they can look inside a pot to see how their child is spending the allocated money. Additionally, if they want, parents can choose to be informed of important milestones—like creating new pots or reaching savings goals—via notifications or messages. 

In short, BUUT is designed to make parents feel comfortable enough to let their child ‘learn by doing’. While parents can set up what they consider a safe environment for their child (i.e. by setting transaction limits or restricting certain payment methods), the app also gives them the tools and tips they need to decide what fits well within their parenting style and relationship with their child.

BUUT comes with built-in advice and benchmarks for parents, to help ensure that they’re setting their children up for success with appropriate allowances and limitations. 

For teens, BUUT provides helpful financial insights and age-relevant tips in the feed on their dashboard. 

Looking ahead, the goal is to embed more personalised guidance for teenage users based on their actual spending patterns and savings goals, as opposed to generic financial literacy content.

While our main focus on this project was on designing the entire digital experience of the app, we were also proud to play a role in helping introduce BUUT to the world by creating a modular, playful website packed with articles, videos, and interactive elements—carrying the eclectic BUUT style across every touchpoint.

Within 24 hours of release, BUUT reached #3 in the App Store’s Finance category, beating established competitors and landing just behind Revolut and Tikkie. Pretty exciting for a completely new product targeting a specific age demographic.

BUUT’s launch exceeded every expectation, but the real measure of success came from user feedback and behavioural data showing that teenagers were actually engaging with financial planning tools. Something that traditional financial education has never quite managed to achieve.