Emergency Account for 2 Teens with contact less card?

Mum1000

I have 2 teen children.  They both have pocket money bank accounts with contactless cards.  Now we seem to be heading towards a cashless society I want to give them a bus fare/emergency card each.  Idea being I hold the account and will top up to £10 as and when required.  They will both have a contactless card that they can use for this account - if it gets lost etc no big deal it will have minimum money on it.  I ideally don't want to pay a fee for this.  Does anything like this exist or will I need to open them both a new bank account for this purpose?  Or how do other people manage a scenario like this?

colsten

I was going to say Starling Connected Card but you can only have 1 Connected Card per account, and only 1 Starling account. It could work if the other parent also has a Starling account with a Connected Card. This would be your free of charge option and is easy to operate through an app - but again, I think the app is linked to the account holder and I am not sure you could manage both accounts from a single device. Worth having a natter with Starling, I reckon. There's online chat on their website.

Other than that I think you'd be stuck with the chargeable pre-load cards https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/cards-for-under-18s/ but perhaps somebody else will come along with better info.

colsten

I just remembered Pockit, which I think you can have for free, too, allows up to 4 cards in total - but they would all draw on the same balance, I think No, seems they can draw on separate balances. Still, might be another option to pursue. Looks rather promising, actually. The minimum age for additional cardholders is 13 years and over. Whilst the account is free, each(?) card costs £0.99 a month.

Roger.Wilco

Mum1000 said:

I have 2 teen children.  ...  They will both have a contactless card that they can use for this account - if it gets lost etc no big deal it will have minimum money on it.  ...  Does anything like this exist or will I need to open them both a new bank account for this purpose?  Or how do other people manage a scenario like this?

Prior to Lock-down I would squirrel away spare cash notes hidden in various places in the car, motorbike, travel backpack to get me in or out of trouble for the occasions that the banks had blocked my main cards or had been eaten by an ATM or my main cards were not accepted by the shop, or I had been mugged while travelling etc...  Although, now with Lock-down I've noticed many shops and even vendors on the roadside refuse to take cash now - only contactless card payments.

What I have done - is that my main banks do allow multiple fully functional current accounts with their own separate cards.  So now have emergency cards squirreled away in the car and another on the motorbike.

• Opening another account was rather painless - done online (though, required proof of ID at branch; they didn't even ask why I was wanting additional current accounts).
• Opening the additional accounts did generate credit checks...
  
• Be aware though that contactless usually requires the inputting of a pin from time-to-time which is dictated by the banks policy - so your teen children will need to know the pin(s) if the system demands it.
• Also be aware that some bank T&Cs forbid the use of cards by anyone other than the named account holder - though, others do allow in the T&Cs the use of cards by others via agreement.

Just found that a similar discussion can be found here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5814457/can-i-use-family-members-card-for-them

DCFC79

Pockit might be the best option.

There's also Monzo if there is a second parent to install the app and top it up. Revolut and Monese too I guess.

sassy_one

GoHenry.

Suits what you seek.

Roger.Wilco

sassy-one said:

GoHenry.

Suits what you seek.

Just noticed a write-up on BBC this afternoon regarding GoHenry (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53333347).

Though the BBC write-up does say that there is a fee per child but the article mentions and lists other alternatives.