How clever is this?
Three teenagers from Co Louth are the masterminds behind a new credit card service for students.
16-year olds Eva Barnett, Leah Keogh and Louisa Woods are students at Sacred Heart Secondary School in Drogheda and say the card offers financial independence and is safer than carrying cash.
The 'Makes Cents' card is designed for eight to 18-year-olds and over 3,000 people have signed up to it since it was created last March.
Since then, Irish teenagers have spent over €100,000 via the service in 14,000 online and in-store purchases.
Eva and Leah joined Louise on The Hub this week to chat about how they came up with the idea:
When we were in second year, our business teacher Miss Horn handed out this leaflet which had a competition on it for PSS Innovation Award" they explained.
"There was a prize of forty thousand euro investments, an iPhone 8, and ten thousand euro worth of equipment for school. So we saw that, and we were like, “Let's go for it!”"
"A lot of work went into it. We were handing out surveys, asking people what they thought they needed, and we finally found a gap in the market, which was the Makes Cents Card".
There's a different Makes Cents app for both the parent and the child. Similar to Revolut, the parents download the Makes Cents Parent App, add in their card details and the Makes Cents card for the child will arrive at their door within 10-12 working days.
After that it works like any prepaid card where the money is uploaded and then spent like a debit card, so kids can do their own shopping. However, the parents can still track all of their child's spending via an app which shows them the balance and transaction history.
