Savings

Bitpanda, froots, Scalable: Fintechs Welcome Austria’s Planned Child Investment Account

co-produced by AI10. November 2026, 10:29

Rising price lines on a stock chart displayed on a monitor — Symbolic image: price charts on a trading screen. © Nicholas Cappello / Unsplash

The loudest applause for Austria’s planned child investment account comes from the companies that want to sell it: Bitpanda, froots and Scalable Capital all welcome the government’s draft for the “Zukunftsdepot,” a tax-advantaged securities account for children that is set to start in 2027 with a €500 state-funded opening balance. In their submissions to the public consultation that has just closed, however, the fintechs call for substantial changes. Their wish list ranges from tax-free dividends to individual stocks and crypto assets.

What the Draft Provides

The ministerial draft amends Austria’s income tax law and creates a separate law for the opening balance. The key points:

Opening balance: €500 from the state for every child born in 2027 or 2028, financed from the family benefits fund and capped at €40 million a year.
Contributions: Up to €5,000 a year, but only from the child’s legal guardians.
Products: Funds and E.T.F.s in risk classes 1 to 5 with ongoing costs of no more than 1 percent a year, or alternatively federal bonds through a dedicated government savings account, the Bundesschatz-Zukunftskonto. Individual stocks and crypto assets are not included.
Tax: Realized capital gains are tax-free. Ongoing income like dividends and interest is not generally exempt.
Lockup: The money is locked until the child’s 18th birthday, and account and custody fees are prohibited during that period.
Start: July 2027, though the government can postpone the date until December 2027.

The impact assessment accompanying the draft anticipates about 900,000 such accounts by 2031, according to Bitpanda.

Bitpanda: Ten Points, Crypto Included

In its submission, the Vienna-based fintech unicorn backs the goal of giving children tax-advantaged access to capital markets from birth. But the target of 900,000 accounts is achievable, Bitpanda writes, only if the account is “simple, digital and available on equal terms from all regulated providers.” The company puts forward 10 points. The most important:

Digital and open to all providers: Disclosure, account opening and reporting should be possible fully digitally. The group of eligible providers should explicitly include investment firms, and e-money accounts should be permitted as settlement accounts.
Tax-free income: Ongoing income should also remain tax-free, as it does in the government savings account.
More contributors: Third parties like grandparents should be allowed to pay in, with the parents’ approval.
A broader product range: Individual stocks should be permitted within limits, and fractional and tokenized fund shares should be treated equally. A narrowly limited admission of crypto assets should be examined when the program is evaluated in 2031.
Costs: Switching providers should be free, and front-end fees on savings plans should be ruled out.
Longer and further: The opening balance should continue beyond 2028, and at 18 a tax-neutral transfer into a retirement account should be possible.

froots: Keep Saving Until 25

The Vienna wealth-tech company froots says it expressly welcomes the Zukunftsdepot. The account gives young people early access to capital markets and encourages long-term wealth building, the company writes about its submission. The digital wealth manager proposes four adjustments:

Voluntary continuation until 25: The need for capital usually arises only with university, a first apartment or a first job. A flexible date also makes more sense from an investment perspective than a fixed cutoff that applies regardless of market conditions.
A flexible contribution limit: Unused amounts should be allowed to be made up in later years.
Ongoing income: Interest and dividends should be tax-free or the tax should be deferred, so that compounding takes full effect.
Extending the opening balance: Siblings should not be treated differently depending on their year of birth.

The company also asks for clarifications on its own behalf. For the account to work with professional wealth management, management fees should not count as custody fees, and deducting them should not count as a withdrawal that triggers tax. The management contract should not require approval by a guardianship court, and the mandatory disclosure should also be possible digitally through the investment firm in charge.

Scalable: Expressly in Favor

Scalable Capital, which only recently opened a bank branch in Vienna, also expressly welcomes the draft in its submission. The proposal sends an important signal for Austria’s capital markets culture, the neobroker says, and makes it easier for families to build wealth for their children early and over the long term.

The association Bitcoin Austria goes a step further. It, too, welcomes the account, but wants parents to be able to choose Bitcoin as well, either as a fully backed exchange-traded product or directly. The list of permitted investments should be expandable by ordinance, it argues, because a child born in 2027 will be saving until 2045.

Tailwind From the Financial Industry

The fintechs are not alone with their wishes. According to the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, the Austrian Economic Chamber is also calling for ongoing income to remain tax-free alongside capital gains. The Vienna Stock Exchange is lobbying for an exemption for dividends, arguing that it would make investments in Austrian stocks more attractive. An investors’ association, the IVA, considers the product selection too narrow and wants listed individual stocks as well as a tax-neutral transfer into a retirement account for adults.

The Critics: Little Benefit for Those Who Cannot Save

Labor representatives, the Greens and the charity Caritas see things very differently. The Austrian Trade Union Federation, the ÖGB, considers the €5,000 cap far too high, saying only about 2 percent of households with children could set aside that much. By its calculation, the €500 opening balance yields a tax advantage of €304 after 18 years, while fully using the cap yields more than €24,000. In the long run, it says, the model could cost several hundred million euros. Nina Tomaselli, a Green member of Parliament, calls the account socially unjust at its core and objects that the opening balance comes out of the family benefits fund while the inflation adjustment of family benefits is suspended. Caritas criticizes that millions are flowing into an instrument that mainly benefits people with the means to save.

Then there are technical objections. The Chamber of Labor welcomes the ban on fees but warns that front-end fees, order costs and transaction costs are not ruled out. The Austrian central bank objects that only parents may pay in, which makes use of the account dependent on the family a child is born into. And the constitutional service of the Federal Chancellery has reservations about the rule that a child must be registered with a main residence in Austria within 62 days of birth to receive the opening balance.