Greenlight offers a debit card for kids that you fully manage as a parent through a convenient mobile app. Apart from the debit card, you can upgrade your Greenlight account to include an investment account that your children can use to make investments after you approve trades. The highest plan, Greenlight Max, gives you the debit card and tools to teach your children financial education, the investment account designed to introduce kids to investing with parental controls and identity theft, phone and purchase protection, all managed through an app.
Since Greenlight is not a bank, the Community Federal Savings Bank, member FDIC, and pursuant to license by Mastercard International, issues your Greenlight card. This means Community Federal Savings Bank holds and manages your deposits and your debit card, giving you FDIC insurance up to $250,000.
How Greenlight Debit Card Works
Greenlight is a debit card for kids that comes with a mobile app. It gives you the flexibility of letting your kids manage their finances while staying under control.
Through the app, you create a parent’s wallet where you transfer money from your bank account that you can then distribute to your kids’ debit cards. With robust parental controls, you can then manage everything about the debit card, from spending to withdrawal limits.
The Greenlight prepaid debit card is a helpful tool to teach your kids good spending and savings habits and financial lessons like how your money grows depending on interest rates on different accounts that will serve them to be money smart in the future.
The Greenlight debit card also comes with a savings account for your kids’ money to earn interest and teach them about compound growth.
After using Greenlight, 89% of parents stated that the app has helped them teach their kids financial responsibility.
How Much Does Greenlight Cost?
Depending on the plan your choose, Greenlight costs $4.99, $7.98, or $9.98 per month, and the first month after you sign up is free. You can choose and change plans at any time, and since there is no monthly contract, you can cancel anytime. You can also get a cash bonus when you refer someone to Greenlight from your account.
The Greenlight Mobile App
The Greenlight mobile app comes with tools that give you more flexible controls than other debit cards, like parental controls to manage precisely where and how much your kids can spend or the ability to create chores and pay allowances. Your kids can also use the mobile app with a different experience to yours to access money management and financial, educational tools, like their chore lists to earn money. However, your kids can still use the debit card without the mobile app if, for example, they don’t have access to a smartphone.
Let’s review the different plans Greenlight offers through their app:
Greenlight Debit Card at $4.99/month
Access core tools for your kids to earn, save, spend and give money, with a debit card managed by you that is FDIC-insured up to $250,000. Some of the features you can access through the mobile app to help your kids become financially independent and responsible include:
- Set up to five children under your parent account.
- Assign chores and create chore lists tied to monetary perks for your kids to “earn” their cash.
- Set up automatic transfers to automatically pay allowances that your kids can divide between their Spend, Save and Give accounts.
- Make instant transfers from your bank account to your child’s card.
- Get real-time alerts when your child’s Greenlight card is used.
- Select specific spending limits, locations, and stores where your kids can spend money with their debit cards.
- Track balances and transactions of your child’s account at any time.
- Freeze the debit card in case of theft or misuse. You can turn it on and off from the app.
- Your kids can round up purchases to the next dollar to automatically add the change to their savings.
- Your kids can set savings goals and track progress to teach them about the importance of saving.
- Decide if you want your kids to use the debit card at an ATM or not and how much money they can withdraw.
- If you have a teen who is old enough to have a job, set up a direct deposit to get paychecks paid directly into their account.
- Choose if your kids can use their debit card to pay through Google Pay or Apple Pay, as long as they meet the minimum age required to use these apps.
- Have complete visibility on your kids’ spending, saving goals, transactions, and more.
Greenlight Debit Card + Greenlight Invest at $7.98/month
When you upgrade your plan to this one, you get all the core tools and debit card features explained above as well as a platform where your kids can invest in real-time with your permission. Greenlight opens a brokerage account in your name that your kids can use to make investments with your approval. There are no fees on the trades you make, only the cost of upgrading to this plan. The extra investment features on this plan include:
- Buy companies’ shares.
- Start investing with as little as $1.
- Pay no trading fees.
- Approve every trade right from the app.
Greenlight Max at $9.98/month
Access all the features on the Greenlight app, the Greenlight debit card, the managed investment platform for your kids, PLUS identity theft, phone, and purchase protection. Get all the features of the plan above and these extra ones:
- Access priority customer support to reach their customer service team faster.
- Get alerts, monitoring, and restoration for your whole family in case of identity theft.
- Cover damaged, lost, or stolen cell phones up to five kids.
- Repair or replace items you purchase that are damaged or stolen.
Is Greenlight Safe?
Greenlight takes your security and safety seriously, protecting your data and money with the extra benefits included in every plan:
- All accounts are FDIC insured. Greenlight financial technology partners with Community Federal Savings Bank, member FDIC that holds and manage all your deposit and debit card.
- They protect your data using encryption.
- They block spend categories identified as unsafe.
- Your kids can’t get cash back at the register with their cards.
- The Greenlight card has an EMV chip that needs to be entered whenever your kid makes a purchase.
- Your debit card is protected by Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection
- You can activate fingerprint or face recognition to open the Greenlight app.
- You can get the first replacement card for free if your card is stolen or lost.
How To Get Started
Getting started with the Greenlight card could not be any easier. Go to Google Play for Android devices or Apple Store for iPhones and download the Greenlight app. Follow the steps to sign up for an account and choose a plan to start getting the debit cards for your kids to set them for a more responsible financial future.
