To tie in with World Savings Day (Weltspartag), the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) has decided to inform young people and their guardians about the issue of youth accounts in the latest edition of its consumer information series “Let’s talk about money”.<\/p>
What should a youth account be able to do? From what age is a youth account offered? Is a youth account free of charge? How can the various youth accounts on offer be compared with one another, and what else should you look out for? The FMA asks these five questions about the functions, conditions and comparability of different youth accounts and also explains from which age children and young people are considered to be of having full legal capacity.<\/p>
“Choosing a first bank account is the first step on the road to financial independence for many young people, and therefore is an important decision,” remarked the FMA’s Executive Directors, Helmut Ettl and Eduard Müller. The FMA has therefore chosen World Savings Day (Weltspartag) as a suitable opportunity to inform young people and their guardians about this topic, and to provide them with an objective source of information. <\/p>
On the whole, youth accounts are offered from the age of 14, while some already offer accounts from the age of 10. Around 40,000 people aged between 10 and 13 and around 380,000 14-20 year olds in Austria make use of this possibility.<\/p>