Opinion: Debate - Are pre-payment cards for young people a badidea?

YES - Claire Whyley, deputy director of policy, National ConsumerCouncil.

First of all, they are expensive, and secondly, developing a plastichabit early on in life could predispose young people to using creditcards later on without understanding they will have to pay back whatthey spend. By marketing such cards through magazines like this, youngpeople's love of brands and trendy new things is being exploited.Decisions about whether to use plastic in this way should be takenindependently of whether there is "street cred" attached.

NO - Mark Kennedy, chief executive, Bluecorner, a card issuer

Before we developed Splash cards, children only had a couple of optionswhen it came to pre-payment cards and they were outrageously expensive.They can get Solo cards but these carry the risk of going overdrawn,which happened to my daughter, because they allow you to carry outoff-line transactions. You cannot perform off-line transactions withSplash cards, they are safer than carrying cash and can be topped up byparents wherever their children are in the world. The cards also teachyoung people to deal with plastic.