Venmo’s Teen Account offers a debit card for kids

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By Webdesk


Venmo is introducing a new service that allows parents to open a Venmo account for children between the ages of 13 and 17 to send and receive money through the app. Venmo Teen accounts also come with a debit card and checks for parents to monitor transactions and manage their child’s privacy settings – important as Venmo has been routinely criticized for its lack of privacy protections in the past.

Parents or legal guardians must sign up for a Venmo Teen account on behalf of their children. Each Venmo Teen account is connected to the parent’s personal Venmo account, which allows guardians to send money to their teen, check their account balance and transactions, and manage their privacy settings. Up to five Venmo Teen accounts can be managed with one personal Venmo account. The parent has sole control over the privacy settings on Venmo Teen accounts, and settings such as payments and friend lists default to private, although the connected parent account can view transactions and their child’s friend list.

Parents can keep an eye on what their kids spend their money on to make sure it’s not being spent on anything malicious.
Image: Venmo

Parental controls also include the ability to lock, unlock, and manage their child’s debit card PIN, authorize if their child can access the Venmo app, and block suspicious users from interacting with the Teen account. There are no monthly fees for the Venmo Teen account, and the Venmo Teen debit card offers free ATM withdrawals at participating ATMs. Balances between the connected child and parent Venmo accounts are kept separate. Venmo also says its teen accounts may be eligible for direct deposit, which allows any wages the child earns through after-school jobs to be deposited directly into the account.

Venmo says its new Teen account will be rolling out to select customers starting June 2023 and “will be generally available in the coming weeks.” When live, parents can sign up their child for a teen account by going to the “Me” section in their own personal Venmo account, tapping their name in the top left corner, and selecting “Create a teen account.”

Kids need secure digital access to money as stores increasingly phase out physical cash, but Venmo has given parents plenty to worry about. The mobile payment service has been widely criticized for privacy concerns, with a 2022 study from the University of Southern California reporting that two in five Venmo users have disclosed their own personal information on the platform.

Update: May 22, 8:13 a.m. ET: The article has been updated to note that parents can also choose to allow or deny their children access to the Venmo app.



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