Virtual Piggy was developed to provide a secure mechanism for children to shop online in a parent approved, controlled and monitored environment. Virtual Piggy is the first and only technology that allows merchants to sell to children in a COPPA environment. Virtual Piggy has also achieved TRUSTe certification ensuring compliance with privacy laws.

COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a US federal law enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It is designed to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13 on the Internet by limiting the amount and type of information Web sites can collect from them without first obtaining parental consent.
TRUSTe is a nonprofit organization that operates the world’s largest privacy seal program, certifying websites including leading online portals and brands like Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple Inc., IBM, Oracle Corporation, Intuit and eBay.

Parents set up a Virtual Piggy account to manage their children’s spending and saving. Parents set the parameters for each child’s spending and choose how they would like to be alerted of their purchases and whether or not they would like to approve each transaction.

Virtual Piggy’s parental dashboard pulls your child’s spending into easy to read pie charts and graphs. This makes it easy to talk about budgets and can lead to conversations about priorities and savings.

Yes, parents can set up personalized accounts for each of their children tailoring each child’s profile to their needs, interests and independence levels.
Parents can then manage all their family’s profiles from one easy to use dashboard.

Virtual Piggy’s flexible system allows parents to chose how much independence to give their children. Parents can put in place parameters of how money can be spent in what categories or at what retailers and then let Virtual Piggy do the rest. Or parents can choose to be notified and asked for verification before each transaction is completed.

Children can only spend the funds their parents give them access to, protecting your credit card from unauthorized purchases.

Virtual Piggy doesn’t store funds like a bank, the platform enables kids to budget, spend and track their online purchases. Virtual Piggy’s technology acts as a safety net for their parent’s credit card so that only approved purchases can be made.

As soon as you feel that you would give your child a small amount of money to spend on an item of their choice they are ready to use Virtual Piggy. The safeguards that are put in place mean that they will not be able to overspend and you’ll be able to track where the money is spent. Your kids are never too old for Virtual Piggy; it’s ideal for teenagers and college students to help them manage their money responsibly as they begin to be responsible for larger amounts of money.

No, Virtual Piggy does not store funds. Virtual Piggy acts like a safety net for your credit card. If a requested purchase complies with the rules set up on that account and receives parent approval, Virtual Piggy’s technology allows the purchase to go through on the credit card associated with that account.

If a child reaches their spending limit for the day, week or month their requested purchases will not go through. A note will be sent to their parent who can decide if they want to authorize additional funds or not.

Virtual Piggy’s pie charts and graphs make it easy to discuss budgets, spending and saving as a family. Kids can easily look at how much funds they have available for different spending categories.

Family and friends can view a child’s wishlist and buy these items for them.

Unlike gift cards, parents can track what items are purchased on Virtual Piggy. Parents can also allocate funds for different categories and since the money is not spent upfront there’s never any leftover funds to go to waste.

Kids and parents both have access to the Child’s charts and graphs that allow them to see what funds have been used and what is remaining. Visualizing their spending in this way helps kids learn valuable budgeting skills.

No, since Virtual Piggy does not store funds there is no minimum amount needed to keep the account active.

The kids who have seen Virtual Piggy in action can’t wait to have their parents set up an account for them. They are eager to be able to use their allowance for online purchases as well as being able to see how much money they have left in a certain category.