Bank accounts for children

We have got a raboplus account for Tom.  At the time I opened it they had a special going where they gave you a bonus $50 but that was last year.  Its a bit of a hassle to open but they do seem to have the best interest rates most of the time.

 

He also has an ASB account (his main account where money goes in....and then straight to raboplus).

James' is with ASB just because thats who I bank with.

We're with Kiwibank and so DD's account is the same - and we have $20 going in fortnightly I think, she's not doing too badly for a nearly 2 and a half year old !!

Susiec wrote: also am after more of a savings account type as the idea is to save the money for her to use when she is 18 for uni / car / OE whatever she fancies at the time (wish someone had done this for me )

This is something that hubby and I are thinking of doing as well. Whilst it's all good and well to say "Oh, you'll get X amount when we die" but chances are, they'll already be established hopefully with homes and families of their own. We'd much rather help set them up instead/also so we're probably going to set up something up which is conditional on being used as a deposit for a house or for tertiary education.

The question is: Do you open an account in their name or do you just open another savings account? (and reality check: What if they turn out to be pr!cks of kids* and you don't want to do anything for them but you're stuck with this account that they know all about and is in their name??)

*Sorry but I read that story about the son who ripped off his elderly parents to the sum of about $20k - money that they were going to use for their last holiday before they passed away. He got sent to prison and they consider him to be dead to them now - gosh, the news has made me a cynic!!

my boys have a bank account which there grandparents have set up, my daughters hasent been set up yet..

We are with Credit Union though
My parents put $5 a week into kaylins account and hes got around $1100 in it now and every 3 months he gets 7% interest as it gets reinvested. His has a freeze on it so he cant touch it until hes 18.

Spencers is the same but he only has $500 or $600 so far (cant remember exactly how much)

But both there accounts are for uni or whatever, once they are 18 though..

We set up an account at ANZ for Leah when we opened our business accounts there. We bank $10 a week into her account and at this point she has more money than us. Its set up so we have to prove that we are using the money for her we can't just take some out if we wanted to. We haven't done this yet but were thinking of education etc way down the track. We are setting Joel up in a couple of weeks as well.

with both our ASB and Raboplus accounts they are in mine and Toms name.  MrsH....just dont tell them the account exists

 

If you are after a pure savings account I would seriously look at www.raboplus.co.nz  They have no fees, consistently high interest and its not too easy to get the funds out
(but not hard either).

thanks everyone. Think i will look into setting up the kids account with ASB and transferring it into the saver thing

ps. like the idea about not telling her about the account until i know she will be sensible enough not to blow the money!

We are with ASB and both of our kids have HeadStart accounts

Nic01 wrote: If you're not worried about having it in her name, I would just set up a fast saver account in your name seeing you already bank with ASB. Otherwise if you set up a kids account & a fast saver account for her, you're paying base fees on the kids account which you won't really be using. The bank will just be making money off you.....

Interesting, I didn't even think of that, as we haven't paid any fees on Natalie's account, even though there is a supposed $2 monthly fee.....I don't know if that is because there is no money in it (it's in the fastsaver account), or whether it's because we got a personal banker to set it up for us, and only wanted a savings account for Nat (and the kids account was a means to an end, so maybe they didn't put any fees on it).

Also, if you do set up an account in your child's name, make sure you get an IRD number for them, as otherwise you will end up paying resident withholding tax on the interest, which is much higher.

Edited by blondy