Bank accounts for children

[AnonymousBird]

I have savers accounts for my two children but they are hard to access and other than standing in line for ages, you can't pay in/withdraw or even check the balance. In other words, they don't get used and any money they get just sits in their piggy banks.

I would like to have accessible accounts, possibly via the internet, and perhaps with a cash card, which we can actively use and save with for them on a regular basis as we are now starting pocket money and will be mentioning to family that they are actively saving and taking notice of money and so on in a more formal way.

Any recommendations please? My son is nearly 11, daughter nearly 10. They are both very aware of money, and are sensible and do not take money they are given for holidays and so on for granted, we just want to formalise it a bit as it is vital they understand about saving, budgeting and so on and now seems like a good time to have them a bit more independent with it, albeit with our supervision/control over all.

Thanks.

I've just opened Santander Mini 123 accounts for my DS's. They are trustee accounts at the moment but when they are old enough they can automatically convert to regular current accounts in their own names. We can access them online so the boys can see for themselves the amounts building up - their pocket money goes in weekly by standing order as I never have enough loose change. As I bank with Santander too then the accounts are all linked to mine and I can move funds in and out as required, so could withdraw via cash machine from my account if needed. I believe that a cashcard is available from age 11 but you might want to check on that.

That's brilliant, I hadn't spotted that one in my trawl earlier - exactly what I need and we have a branch just opened in town as well. I may need to open an account, is the only thing, so assuming that they let me do that, then we are good to go.

Thanks so much. And I see that if they have £300 they get 3% interest, so it's not a bad rate either.

I'll be in there tomorrow to see what they say!

LLoyds account with cash card available from 11 years old. 2.5% interest.
I've just been looking into it today as Ds is getting one as he has a p/t job now.