If you’re feeling adventurous I gather that you can add kids onto your Amex account from age 13. They get their own card, but you get to pay the bills.
You don’t need to pay any tax on their accounts. They get their own tax free allowance and you can open accounts in their name at most bank/building societies as soon as they’re born. There’s also the option of a junior ISA but that’s best as a shares one rather than a cash one.
Good advice (although they don’t need to pay tax)
WTF? advice
It’s not as nutty as it seems. You can set their own limit. I gather that it can help them build a credit history too, though I imagine that doesn’t appear until they hit 18. More useful as they tootle off to uni as flights and whatnot can get cancelled.
Definitely YMMV for sure
Agreed if you pay off the monthly balance in full.
But the financial education premise of spending via credit card, for kids, leaves me a bit
The Starling Kite offer is very meh, just a glorified second card
My point was that while Monzo don’t offer children’s accounts, if my children’s savings are in a savings pot in Monzo it’s in my name so I have to pay tax on the interest. So I want Monzo to offer child savings accounts so that I can keep the money in Monzo but not have to pay tax on their interest.
I realise I can go elsewhere for children’s savings accounts that would be in their name but this conversation is about wanting Monzo to offer children’s accounts and why.
Source? As this seems highly dubious.
We’ve recently migrated our main account from Monzo to Starling, mainly for the convenience of having the kids cards under the same bank / app as our day to day finances. Previously our kids accounts were with Hyperjar. So far we’re pretty happy, although one slight oddity is if the kids spend online with their cards and it requires authorisation, it appears on the adults’ phones rather than the kids ones. Personally I’d happy for the kids to do it themselves.
On the Amex site. I suspect this will work similarly to being able to transfer your Amex to another country i.e. Amex will keep the information and when Junior eventually applies for their own Amex, they’ll use their payment history for the new card.
So it’ll build a history with AMEX but nobody else?
Are they allowed to create a file and store information about a minor without prior agreement?
Seems crazy to me.
Sort of. They would keep the information. However, presumably when Junior applies for their own card at 18, their credit record would come up as having a card from X years prior. I’m just assuming that though.
If you move country, they also say your credit record goes with you. Again, in that case the credit file in your new country would presumably show your Amex card with X years of history.
Haven’t tried either yet.
They can create the file, they just can’t use it until they hit 18.
They never delete stuff either. My card says member since 04 even though I didn’t have Amex for over 10 years and only got It again earlier this year.
I don’t think they’d have a credit file, though. Isn’t it illegal for under 18s to have credit? They’d have a spending profile, I guess, but the main card holder would have the credit record as they are the person responsible for making the repayments.
Absolutely this. I’ve never held an Amex but I’ve had additional card holders on Visa and MasterCard. Your debt. Your problem.
V and MC aren’t the same. Amex stated somewhere on their site that having a child as an additional card holder helps build up their credit record. I imagine that this would only actually matter at the point they hit 18 and applied for an Amex card. Mind you, it does seem to leave them open to a bit of manipulation if you used Junior’s card to buy stuff.
For example, their own card would presumably say member since, say, 10 (2010) even though they only got their own card at 18.
Named users on credit accounts aren’t checked or liable for any of the agreement, only the account holder.
Can’t imagine Amex bends those rules.
Yeah, I just don’t find it anywhere as good as the GoHenry experience which we left as the fees got higher. Im intrigued by the Monzo offering when it comes
I have an Amex charge card and last time I checked (within the past month or two) supplementary card holders have to be 18.
Edit. I’ve found a reference to adding 13 year olds on Amex accounts but looks like it’s for the USA.