Bank account for tweens/teens

[globalnomad25]

I’m looking for a good bank account for my children that they can access and mainly run themselves. It’s mainly for birthday and Christmas money from their grandparents so it’s not a long term savings account. My daughter is also keen that her pocket money/allowance is paid in there, as she wants to manage her own money (which I am keen to encourage). They are tweens/teens.

It would be great to have an account that helps them save too and ideally has a reasonable rate of interest , but ease of use is even more important.

How old are the children? The accounts available to them depend on their ages.

Ours had Santander accounts with debit/cash dispenser cards.

Worked well including in machines outside UK.

Im not sure what the current rate of interest is but dc2 and 3 both have a nationwide account with a linked savings account at 5% (opened last year when their santander account was hardly paying anything). They set it up all online was very simple. You can go paperless but I encouraged them to get a monthly statement at first to see it all infront of them which helped.
I'd definitely recommend it. We all think the app isn't as good as some banks but it does everything they need.

DS had a Nationwide account which was very easy to convert to s Student account and then a Graduate account.

Mine all have a nationwide account. My youngest is 11. My older children have all been lucky to get the bonus every year.x

Nationwide have some good deals. Plus it changes to the next account automatically

Any current account should be fine from age 11 - I thought that was the age you could get a debit card. Mine has one at Lloyds, but not for any special reason.

We used Revolut Junior for DC. It's worked very well and I liked the ease of controls

Monzo is great for teens. The kids accounts are free. The kids get their own debit cards, they can manage it all on their phone, you can set it up on Apple Pay too, and there's an inbuilt savings account, where they can create savings pots and goals. One of my DCs has a savings pot for shoes! We tried Starling, but it didn't support Apple Pay and there was no savings account attached.

A tween and a teen

Specific ages are needed as tween to some people can be anything from about 8. Banks have specific age range accounts so without knowing what age they are it is difficult to advise. Eg if your tween is actually only 9 or 10 then that means any of the 11+ accounts are out. If your teen is 17 then the account may be different than if they are 13.

We use hyperjar. At first i have my kids tegular bak accounts but they misused them (buying inappropriate stuff online) and with a regular bak account as a parent you have no rights. Now they all have hyperjar and i can see where themomey goes.

We use HyperJar too, happy with it but we’re only talking relatively small sums in there.

My DD has a Nationwide account.

Monzo id grand, they can make themselves little savings pots, and you can linknit your card so you have oversight of what they are up to. They get a choice of 4 different colour cards too, huge hit in my house!

DC has Santander mini 123 account which pays tiered interest up to 3%. HSBC accounts offer interest up to 3.75%. There will be a minimum age to get a debit card so your tween may not be old enough. Halifax do an account for 11-15s which allows some parental oversight but you need a Halifax account yourself. Also consider if a branch would be useful to them as that could limit the options.

Nationwide

I opened Nationwide accounts for my kids.

Mine have 2 hsbc accounts that they manage on their phones. A savings account and a current account they can transfer between.

We’re not in the UK, so DS has a Revolut account (part of my Revolut account). Works really well, and he has a card, and Apple Pay for when he’s >15. I can check his spending, add funds when needed, and no foreign transaction fees (great for his recent school trip to the US). It has a separate savings pocket giving 2% interest.

Mine have Revolut and it's brilliant.

Nationwide's young people accounts also offer no foreign currency use with no fees, just being able to pay for things abroad with the card. DS2 went on a school trip to Berlin, and DS1 was able to use his card like this while travelling around Europe after his A levels.

that should be "offer foreign currency use"

We have a NatWest account and you can get a free Rooster account for kids with it. My son gets a fun card design, the app allows him to manage pot of money eg spending, savings, project etc. you can set limits on it eg no online spending, no cash withdrawals, card payments only. Set a parent checkin every X uses.

We're very happy with it.

Monzo is great. I bank with them too so I can see when DD spends her money, and it’s super easy and quick to send money to her