Ethical aspects of offering bank products and services to children, youths and young adults

Children, youths and young adults are becoming a group of clients increasingly served by banks. Due to the lack of regular incomes and an unstable financial situation, these people are not the key customer segment for the banks. Nonetheless, they are treated as prospective clients that are expected to bring profits in the future. An offering of products and services to customers with low financial knowledge and poor experience in finance is a serious ethical concern. Such offerings may bring vital social, economic and financial benefits but also may generate substantial risks. The goal of this paper is to characterise and evaluate ethical aspects of the offering of bank products to young people. For the purpose of the work we reviewed literature and used SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to the offering of bank products and services to children, youths, and young adults and considered them in an ethical context. We also conducted a survey using CAWI technique on a group of 209 young people. Research shows that young people perceive banks and their offers as safe, and this positively affects their financial knowledge.