![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If young people can build digital capability, the chances are they’ll be better prepared for future financial challenges that life may throw at them However, access to digital payment platforms is usually restricted to over-18s, meaning children have to piggyback on their parents’ accounts, or risk accounts being frozen if providers find out they are under 18. As a judge of the National Entrepreneur of the Year awards, Hill has been amazed at how teens make money with side hustles, using apps such as Etsy, Vinted and Depop to sell their wares. Linking adult credit cards to children’s online gaming accounts is one area where many parents have come a cropper, as children don’t know (or don’t care) that all those in-app purchases will run up big bills.Īnother important aspect of digital literacy is being able to earn money online. “If you’re not enabling these skills at an early age, the risk is they get launched into the adult world of easy credit and easy access to funds, and end up in a bad place.” “Children need to be able to operate confidently in today’s increasingly cashless society,” she says. (This could prevent a future run on pains aux raisins in the Tooting area.) “This is the way children are going to have to use money as they move into adulthood,” says Louise Hill, co-founder of GoHenry, by far the biggest “pocket money app” in the UK, with more than 1.5m accounts.įor £2.99 per month, parents can load a monthly allowance on to their child’s contactless card, see real-time notifications about what’s been spent, how much is left, and even restrict where they can spend the money. So how do we prepare them? If parents are willing and able to pay, there are an array of services offering apps, and pre-paid contactless cards for children as young as six. They also knew an awful lot about crypto - as FT columnist-turned-teacher Lucy Kellaway has also found with her students - not to mention gambling and “ buy now pay later”, even though you have to be over 18 (legally) to do any of these. When I visited a school in Manchester this summer, an alarmingly high number of 14-year-olds said they had received requests to be a “money mule” via social media platforms. Equally, young people need a “safe space” in which to try it out. ![]() Online banking hands young people the keys to a digital kingdom they may simply not be prepared for. It’s understandable that parents want oversight. Yet Stuart Haire, head of retail banking and wealth management for HSBC UK, recently told me he gets way more requests from parents asking to disable the contactless feature on their child’s card rather than lower the age limit. When you consider all the other things much younger children are already doing online by then, these age limits seem increasingly out of step.Ĭlaer Barrett’s two-year-old niece gets to grips with a pain aux raisins - after having tapped Claer’s bank card to pay for it Some restrict contactless cards and online banking to over-13s or over-16s. You have to be at least 11 years old to open a current account at the great majority of UK banks. The future of finance is clearly digital - but younger children cannot learn how to manage the dangers or opportunities if they don’t have access to digital tools. Today, there are very few places (in central London, at least) where children can spend small amounts of their own money.Īll of this has got me thinking about financial literacy and the role that digital literacy plays within this. When my brother and I were their age, we hoarded coins to buy penny sweets in the local post office. Likewise, the piggy banks I bought for her five-year-old twin brothers are gathering dust on the shelf. Since Covid-19, plenty of businesses have gone cashless, and I buy nearly everything online. Even if I gave my niece some coins to help her learn the value of money, there’s another problem. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |