Collaboration enables banks and credit unions with a powerful way to offer families lifelong money skills, and grow loyalty for generations
ATLANTA, GA / ACCESS Newswire / February 4, 2026 / Today, Candescent, the leading cloud-native Intelligent Banking platform for banks and credit unions, and Greenlight® Financial Technology, Inc. (“Greenlight”), the fintech company behind the award-winning family finance solution, announced their strategic partnership to deliver a fully embedded youth banking experience that empowers parents and children to learn, save, and thrive together.
Through this new integration, financial institutions can offer Greenlight’s core tools – including a debit card for kids, goal-based savings, spending controls, and investing features – directly within their digital banking experience. The experience is designed to help institutions inspire loyalty, reduce family financial stress, and strengthen their role in generational wealth building, while giving families a way to teach financial literacy at home and build money confidence early.
“This collaboration isn’t just a game-changer for our digital strategy,” said Angela McEachran, SVP of Operations at First Citizens Bank. “It’s the opportunity to offer families in our community a powerful, branded youth banking experience right inside our solution, that allows us to empower families to build financial literacy together early and support financial wellness across generations.”
Money is no longer an adult conversation behind closed doors. Kids are joining the conversation earlier than ever, with families looking to instill life skills tied to independence, opportunity, and resilience. According to Greenlight’s 2025 Annual Family Trends Report, this early engagement is shaping long-term expectations as 93% of parents say children copy their money habits, and 67% of kids now believe they’ll be as well off or better off than their parents. Plus, 35% of younger parents are opening accounts for their children before age six, reflecting a growing expectation that financial education should start early.
Financial institutions are taking notice; Greenlight’s study shows 88% report growing demand for youth-focused solutions, and 71% now consider family financial wellness a long-term strategic priority.
“Partnering with Candescent supports our mission of collaborating with financial institutions to help families raise financially confident kids,” said Matt Wolf, Chief Commercial Officer at Greenlight. “We’re excited to continue to grow the number of financial institutions that are providing families the tools they need to actually make a difference.”
“Greenlight is consistently recognized as a top banking tool for promoting financial literacy among kids and teens; but it’s more than just that,” said Gareth Gaston, Chief Product Officer, Candescent. “When delivered through Candescent’s Intelligent Banking platform, it becomes a powerful engagement engine that helps institutions attract new customers, deepen relationships, and deliver lifelong value starting at an earlier age.”
About Greenlight
Greenlight offers an award-winning banking app for families that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest, while offering seniors protections against digital and financial threats. Using Greenlight’s newest plan, Family Shield, busy parents who manage their kids’ finances and teach them financial literacy through Greenlight can now use the same app to extend protection to their own parents.
Greenlight partners with more than 187 leading banks, credit unions, and employers to bring its family finance solution to more families through the Greenlight for Banks, Greenlight for Credit Unions, and Greenlight for Work programs.
Greenlight is a financial technology company, not a bank. The Greenlight app facilitates banking services through Community Federal Savings Bank (CFSB), Member FDIC.
About Candescent
Atlanta, Ga.-based Candescent is the leading cloud-native Intelligent Banking platform for banks and credit unions. We enable clients to differentiate and grow by securely delivering innovative experiences in consumer and business banking, onboarding and sales, payments, servicing, and marketing and data. Candescent serves 1,300 banks and credit unions representing 30 million registered users. For more information visit http://www.candescent.com.
Web site: http://www.candescent.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/candescent-tech/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@Candescent-tech/videos
Media contact:
Kristina LeBlanc – [email protected] – 508-930-5636
SOURCE: Candescent
