PayPal Gets Into Student Banking

Gotta say, the timing on this is pretty spectacular. PayPal is introducing student banking accounts - at a time when everyone's still gazing aghast at Wall Street and pretty much every conventional bank, and new limits have been enacted on college students' ability to get credit cards. Now PayPal - which so many college students and young adults (and their parents) use to buy video games and such on eBay and downloads on indie sites - is launching a new type of account with a debit card. It lets parents deposit cash in the kid's account and set limits on online purchases. And it allows both parents and teens to check transactions and transfer money with a few clicks of the iPhone. Best of all, there are no overdraft fees ... because overdrafts don't happen. Unlike a conventional debit card, which doesn't necessarily ding your child's account until days after a transaction - by which time your kid's not only in the red, he's also in hock for $25 to $50 per overdrawn transaction - when the PayPal card hits a limit, it stops at the cash register. Definitely worth checking out.