Venmo Debuts Digital Account and Debit Card Aimed at Teens

The quest to tap into teen spending took a step forward with the launch of the Venmo Teen Account, which also comes with a Venmo Teen Debit Card.

The new Venmo Teen Account gives “parents and legal guardians the ability to open a Venmo account for their teenagers between the ages of 13 to 17-years-old so they can send and receive money,” according to a Monday (May 22) press release.

“Venmo is a natural place for teens to learn how to engage with money responsibly, especially considering 86% of Gen Z are interested in using an app to learn about personal finance,” Venmo Vice President and General Manager Erika Sanchez said in the release.

“For parents or legal guardians, the Venmo Teen Account allows them to give some financial flexibility to their teens, while giving them parental controls and visibility into their teen’s spending habits,” Sanchez said. Venmo parent PayPal is still off-limits to minors.

Venmo isn’t the first to the party. In November 2021, Square opened its P2P Cash App to users starting at age 13, again with the Family Account proviso — what Cash App calls Sponsored Accounts and gives parents or guardians full visibility into transfers and transactions made.

As part of Apple Pay, Apple Cash Family allows adults with Apple Pay to “set up Apple Cash for members in your Family Sharing group who are under age 18. Once it’s set up, they can send, spend, and receive money using Apple Cash. You can receive notifications when they make a transaction, limit the people they can send money to, and even lock their account.”

PYMNTS and others first reported on the Venmo debit card for kids in 2020, in what was a prototype at the time. The new Venmo Teen Account goes beyond those early “digital allowance” use cases, although parental supervision is very much a part of the arrangement.

In a blog post, Venmo owner PayPal said: “Each Venmo Teen Account will be connected to and primarily managed by their parent’s personal Venmo account, giving parents control over and visibility into their Teen Account and activity on the app. There are several essential controls that Venmo has in place for parents to leverage, including settings that only parents can change.”

Per the announcement, The Venmo Teen Account “is rolling out to select customers from June 2023 and will be widely available in the coming weeks. Those who qualify will see the option to create a Venmo Teen Account within the app.”

Training Wheels Come Off Teen Digital Spending

While still controlled by parents or guardians, the new Venmo Teen Account “has a separate balance from the parent’s personal Venmo account” which coupled with the debit card gives those between 13 and 17 more control than they’ve ever had in using Venmo.

Finding ways to expand digital wallet use to younger consumers is part of a broader trend of rising digital wallet usage. According to the “Quarterly Payments Report: Mobile Wallets Gain Ground,” a PYMNTS study based on surveys of nearly 2,600 U.S. consumers in March, Apple Pay for mobile device non-grocery retail purchases, for example, stood at 5.1% of non-grocery purchases using Apple Pay in March, up from 3.3% in September.

Non-grocery retail spend is where teens will be found, as well as on game platforms making in-game purchases, and across e-commerce and social media broadly. The Venmo Teen Account shows that the push to give teens more financial freedom is likely to continue.

Moreover, “The Mobile Wallet Challenge: Replacing Physical With Digital,” a PYMNTS and ACI Worldwide collaboration, finds younger demographic groups are drawn to the ease of digital wallets, noting that “While 51% of Gen Z consumers believe mobile wallets can supplant most or all features of a physical wallet, just 27% of baby boomers or seniors agree.”