Bank account for kids

Banks, Insurances & Third Pillar
1

Dear mustachians

My daughters are 14 and 12 and after both having a Bitcoin LN wallet and used until now only cash. I think it’s time for them to have a more traditional bank account and probably plastic/twint to pay stuff. I already tried to show the how to track the money in libreoffice calc, but understandably they’re not that interested as I am.

After few minutes looking on this forum I couldn’t find any recent wisdom in that regard or please point me to it.

We live in Ticino near the border and are often in Italy, so paying abroad shouldn’t be expensive. I think a savings account should be “included”. I would love to give them neon, but it’s not for that age.

What did I find so far?

Raiffeisen has a good Young Member Plus offer (link). pros are cool free stuff like museum access etc (we are not a sporty family)

Quite new offering from WIR. Not specifically for youth, but free and from age of 11. (link). Downside Twint from autumn on, but good for foreign payments. And a big plus a good savings account.

PostFinance (link): free, but I moved my main account to neon to avoid the high fees abroad.

I hadn’t take a look at the offerings from the other banks like UBS or the Kantonalbanken (up until now they were quite expensive for me). Revolut marketed me for the youth accounts, but it feels quite “unswissy”.

So, what’s your wisdom or experience for your kids? Any hints?

Thanks a lot in advance.

cheers
sto

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2

Why don’t you stick with Raiffeisen (benefits) or Postfinance/Cantonal bank for CHF and Revolut <18 for abroad? You will need a premium Revolut, though (unless you really don’t want and your wife can take over for one child).

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3

Yes, for our two kids we are using Revolut junior. You can have only one junior card per free card. This is not an issue for us and it’s working smoothly since I think 3 or 4 years

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4

So, are your children using one card together or each parent is maintaining a free Revolut under 18 for one child?

5

I wanted to keep it simple. I’d need to open a Raiffeisen account and Revolut. And the kids have to deal with two accounts. Possible, yes.

Revolut only, would not be best as I heard Twint is a must among teenagers. And because no savings account.

6

Premium for 11chf per month is too much… and my wife doesn’t want to have yet another account to take care of.

7

This

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My CHF 7 Valiant family package includes also current and saving accounts for 2 kids, including Twint and debit card. Good customer service.

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9

This is an interesting offering - basically now WIR is at least as good as Neon and cheaper than Wise (and potentially also Revolut) for foreign transactions.

As for kids accounts, unfortunately not helping you in the Ticino, but for anyone in Zurich, the offering from ZKB isn’t bad either. Free, with card, Twint, savings account, possible from age 10 and from age 14 they get free public transport Friday and Saturday night (not sure that I’m loving that from a father’s perspective, but it is a benefit).

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I suppose I can even open one from Ticino. Yep I can add ZKB also to the list.

11

… is worth mentioning. The youth account is free including the “Welt” module which gives free transactions and atm withdrawals abroad (I just couldn’t find the rates). Twint & credit card included. There is 0.6% interest on cash holdings (not savings account) up to 20k, 0.25% above.
The youth savings account has 1% up to 20k, 0.25% above.

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The forex transactions at 1% (probably falsly advertised). See WIR Bank TOP Package post.

13

all good “wrong card configuration” lol

see WIR Bank TOP package - #22 by dr.coffee

WIR in play again.

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