under 18 students

lellie

HSBC do solo cards.. I had that - then when you're 18 it automatically gets upgraded to a proper student account

juno

terri wrote:

Thanks for your replies - I hadn't thought of a joint account - will look into it. His course is at a small dance college with other students of a similar age, so hopefully not too much drinking involved!

Could you ask the college for suggestions? Presumably they'd have ideas if all of the students are the same age and need a good bank account.

Savvy_Sue

terri wrote:

My son will be starting a degree course in September. He is 16 (17 in December). All the student bank accounts that we have looked at are for 18+ year olds only. He will be living away from home and will be looking after his own finances, so will need a decent debit card as well. Anybody advice out there please?

I know it's not quite soon enough, but have just been looking at the Smile student account and it says it can be opened from 17.5 years.

CrispyUK

fragster wrote:

i'm pretty sure you can only get solo until you are 18 because switch includes a cheque guarantee, and this could theoretically be used as credit, if each cheque is guaranteed to £50 and a book is 40 cheques thats £2,000. and debts cannot be enforced against under 18's, so he's going to have a tough time getting anything other than solo i think. big responsibility for a 16 year old to be living away from home and taking care of everything too... also all student activities in the first week are based around drinking, i'm sure he wont mind though... wish him luck!

The HSBC RightTrack into Study account would probably be a good bet, I've been on it since I was 16. It comes with a Solo card as standard but this can be upgraded to a Switch card with £100 cheque guarantee. If I remember correctly the main condition is £300+ a month coming into the account. I got the option to upgrade when I logged onto internet banking one day and had my Switch card pretty soon, couldn't live without it now!

I'm sure I received it while I was still 16, it's been ages now and I've just turned 18 today. There's a big lists of loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc. in online banking that I can apply for now.

magoogy

my 16yr olds have been with hsbc since tots and have just had their accounts upgraded - i would definitely recommend them...

Darksun

megsykins wrote:

As a 16-year-old, your daughter reaches that lovely age when she but can't yet get an NUS card, so doesn't yet get student discounts, but she isn't a child anymore, so has to pay adult costs (cinema, swimming, etc) Some colleges will give NUS cards, but these seem to be declining.

Although a lot of colleges now provide a Connexions Card, which can be used in a lot of the same places an NUS card can be used, and also run a reward points scheme, with points being earned for attendance at college, and various other schemes. I got £15 of Amazon vouchers, a couple of PC games and a copy of Microsoft Office with my reward points, so it's well worth looking into it, and seeing if your college is part of the scheme.

troshy

I am only just 16 and have the Natwest current account with the solo card and my withdraw limit is £250. Yet my RBS account is only £30.