Paypal Student Account: pocket money for the 21st century

Paypal, the backbone to the ubiquitous online auction site, eBay, has been the leading authority when it comes to transferring funds across the World Wide Web for ages. Now Paypal is stepping out of the box and has gone and done something that will no doubt only serve to strengthen its web identity when it comes to shifting money from one person to another.

Its new initiative is called Paypal Student Account – think of it as an electronic form of pocket money. This is because the service allows you to add up to four sub-accounts to your Paypal account, allowing you to allocate money to those accounts as and when you choose – on a single payment or recurring payment basis.

It sounds like a great way to top up the kids daily/weekly/monthly pocket money. And you can even opt to give them a real debit card for the account, so they may spend using plastic rather than cash. But if your kids are thinking they can go buck wild and buy things parents would frown upon, they’d be wrong.

Perhaps the more notable feature of the service is that parents can sign up for alerts asking them to approve transactions over $100, for example. And if your youngsters need cash unexpectedly, all they need to do is text Paypal, you’ll be notified and then it’s up to you to deny or approve the request.

It’s currently in an invite only beta period, with no word on expansion to the UK. So for now, pocket money will have to remain in the cash in hand territory.

[via Tech Digest]

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