We are headquartered in Georgia with operations in Florida and want to standardize our minor depository acct procedures. Therefore, I am seeking guidance on the following:

Currently, we open accounts for minors (under 18) with a parent or other adult. We make the adult and minor joint owners of the acct. As a result, we are relying on the adult to assume the liability on the acct for the actions of the minor joint owner. Needless to say, our concern comes from what happens if the minor uses the card and then claim that since he is a minor, the adult co-owner would not be liable because the minor can not enter into a contract?

Our checking accts feature a $500 ATM and $1,500 POS daily debit card limit. Can we decrease that to $100/$400 daily limit for accts with minors, without claims of age discrimination? Also, do we have to offer overdraft protection as an option on this account, since it is available on all of our other accts?

If we continue to make checking accts available to minors, what is the "magical age" we can make available with a debit card (10, 12, 14,16)?

Can we put the minors name on the debit card?

We live in Georgia, and for my minor children several large banks were willing to open joint checking accounts (adult/minor) and issue debit cards when they turned 13. The cards were embossed with the children's names. Other banks offer prepaid cards for minors, where the account is owned by the adult but the child has a debit card. These accounts have a lot of parental control features.

Actually, they should check with their card issuer for their rules. While banks may be offering this product, they likely are doing it in violation of their card issuer rules. VISA allows cards to be issued to a minor of at least 13 years of age, but only a prepaid card and one that has an adult sponsor and has other specific requirements. There are no provision to issue a VISA debit card tied to an asset account to a minor of which I am aware.