Well as a parent i wanted to drop this one here, it is now actually quite difficult to get a child under 10 a proper savings account with a bank. Now i dont know if this is due to regulations, laws rules or just that they dont make the banks enough money but the offerings are pityfull to say the least.
Like most children my youngster gets a bit of money, christmas, birthdays and a few pound here and there from family and friends. Now this isnt allow but enough so we can start to teach them the importance of saving for things they want and keeping money safe. For instance my daughter thinks the bank just gives out money, when you tell her you have none she points to a cash machine and says go get bank will give. She needs to learn, so her own account might be the answer.
After only a few minutes online one thing is clear, banks are not geared to winning customers young, looking at the major banks firstly, the main thing is that most of the big banks are linked. Santander, natwest, royal bank of scotland the whole group only have one account that gives the kid a piggy bank for free, and their terms are standard and dont look atractive. Plus as they are all the same it makes you think they cant be bothered with them the website layout of these pages is identical as well. So onto the others, the co-op has an account but its all completely old school, you need an actual paper application form (yes they still exist) and you will then get a passbook for the child to use in the branch, only issue, they are slowly closing all their branches.
then there are the online banks, first direct, smile dont offer specifics for children...so a non started.
so how do these banks think the next generation of children will become their customers if they cant teach them young and hold onto them.
back in the day when i was young it was not like this, the banks recognised the importance of early teaching, hell the griffin bank (bought many moons ago by hsbc) used to set up banks inside schools giving out free gifts to new account holders. The halifax had special beginer accounts with card withdrawal and others...and then (and i actually still have my book for this) there was the post office, when i was 2 my parents got me a postoffice savings book and you HAD to deposit birthday money in it, it teaches importance of saving and back then there were post offices in every village in the land so you never had any problem...
My plea therefore is simple, come on banks help us parents stem the tide of borrowing in later life, the dependency on loans and bad debts, give us the tools to properly educate our children on the art of banking and budgeting and get yourself a new generation of customers that you can teach and earn money from from a very young age....oh and from the looks its either Natwest, or Co-op bank for our kid, natwest as its the best of the santander group these days and co-op is still local to our areaEOL
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