Chase Launches Free Checking Account For Kids, Teens

A new checking account from Chase will aid children in getting a head start on banking, a press release says.

With Chase First Banking, built in collaboration with Greenlight, parents and kids will be able to work on managing allowances, check off chores and look at spending, the release says. Greenlight says its mission is to help parents raise fiscally-intelligent children.

The app comes absent of any monthly fees and will hopefully help parents educate children on the importance of money management.

To keep things simple, the application comes with parental controls for how much the children can spend and for which completed chores will cause allowance to be distributed. It will let parents determine how much kids can spend and at what sorts of stores, and control the movement of funds.

And kids will be able to use their own personal debit cards based on the controls set by their parents, allowing them to know what spending controls are applied and what chores they still have left to do. The application lets them know how much they have and when they can make purchases, and allows them to work toward a financial goal and let parents know when it’s been achieved.

Allison Beer, Head of Digital for Consumer & Community Banking at J.P. Morgan Chase, said the idea was to aid parents in helping children manage finances.

“Families are juggling so many more responsibilities today than ever before,” she said in the release. “To help, we’ve made it easy for parents to manage kids’ allowances, keep track of chores and teach important financial skills from within the Chase Mobile app.”

Financial literacy has historically not been a strong point for Americans, with just 41 out of 2,001 respondents to a recent survey indicating an overwhelming passing grade to a financial test. Their financial situations could be connected, with six out of 10 consumers saying they were living paycheck-to-paycheck.