PayPal has long dominated the market for online payments, but the company has just announced a new initiative that it’s calling ‘PayPal Student Account’. It lets you add up to four sub-accounts to your PayPal account and allocate money to those accounts as you wish – in a single chunk or as a recurring transfer.

There are no fees to pay, and the parent can also give their kid a real-world debit card, linked to the account, which the kid can use to buy stuff in bricks-and-mortar shops. Parents can sign up for alerts for unwanted spending – asking them to approve any transaction over $100, for example. Also, if the kid needs cash unexpectedly, they can text PayPal, who’ll notify the parent and ask them to approve or deny the request.

At the moment, the feature is in an invite-only beta period, and there’s no word when it’ll open up wider. I suspect it might be a little while before we see it in the UK too, so for the moment, you’ll have to stick with the old ‘hand-them-cash’ approach. Sorry.

How much pocket money did you get as a kid? Let us know in the comments. I got £3.50 a week in the mid-90s. Paltry compared to my friends.

Paypal (via New York Times)

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