Members 1st Youth Accounts: Custodial Member Savings & Education

Members 1st youth share savings is the entry product under thirteen.

The Members 1st youth share savings account is a regular member savings share opened in the name of a child under thirteen years old, with a parent or guardian on the share as custodian. The share earns the regular member dividend, accepts deposits from any source — payroll allotments from a working parent, in-branch cash deposits from a relative, mobile-deposited checks from a birthday card — and gives the child early exposure to a real cooperative deposit relationship before any card is involved. The youth share savings is the share most central PA grandparents open at a child's birth and fund quietly over the next decade as a head-start contribution toward a first car, a senior-year trip, or the early stage of a college fund.

What sits inside the youth share at this age band.

Youth share savings holds the par-value membership deposit that confers the child's eventual ownership in the cooperative, accepts inbound transfers from outside accounts, and earns the regular member savings dividend on the entire balance. No debit card is issued at this age band, and outbound transfers run only through the custodian's online banking sign in.

Teen checking covers ages thirteen through seventeen.

The Members 1st teen checking account is the next step up the youth ladder and is available to members ages thirteen through seventeen. The product is structured as a joint share with a parent or guardian as the custodial joint signer. The teen receives a Visa debit card configured with sensible default daily and per-transaction limits, mobile app access tied to a teen-specific username, and the same Members 1st online banking portal access as the rest of the household. The custodian retains visibility on every transaction inside the Members 1st mobile app, can adjust the debit card limits at any time, can freeze the card from the dashboard, and can configure alerts that ping the custodian on every posted transaction over a chosen threshold.

How the debit card permission layer works.

The teen-checking debit card runs on the Visa network with contactless tap, the same as a standard Members 1st checking debit. The difference is the permission layer the custodian configures at opening: a default daily spend cap, an ATM withdrawal cap, optional merchant-category restrictions, and an optional online-purchase confirmation rule that pings the custodian for approval on a transaction above a chosen amount. The teen progressively earns expanded limits as the household decides — a typical pattern is the limits step up at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen as the teen takes on more financial responsibility.

Financial education at every youth age band.

Members 1st bundles age-appropriate financial-education resources alongside the youth and teen account products. Younger members get budgeting workbooks calibrated to allowance-and-chore income flows. Older youth get spend-versus-save lessons keyed to first card use. Teens get a structured first-job sequence covering direct deposit setup, an introductory tax-set-aside share, and the difference between debit and credit cards. In-branch sessions are scheduled at central PA branches across Mechanicsburg, Harrisburg, Camp Hill, Hershey, Lancaster, and Carlisle, and the online lessons are accessible inside the Members 1st online banking portal. Free general consumer-finance education is also published at mymoney.gov.

Members 1st youth account age-band table.

The four age bands and the structural product mapping. The custodian column describes who has approval rights on the share. The debit column describes whether a debit card is issued at the age band.

Age Band	Account	Parental Control	Debit Card
0 – 12	Youth share savings	Custodian fully controls	None
13 – 15	Teen checking + savings	Joint custodial, capped limits	Visa debit, low limits
16 – 17	Teen checking + savings	Joint custodial, expanded limits	Visa debit, expanded limits
18+	Standard membership	Member-only, optional joint	Visa debit, full limits

How the transition at age eighteen works.

At age eighteen the Members 1st youth or teen account transitions into the standard adult membership product. The teen-checking share converts to free member checking, the youth share savings becomes a regular adult member savings share, the debit card converts to a standard-limit Members 1st debit card without requiring a card replacement, and the parent custodian role steps back unless both members elect to keep the share joint into adulthood. The new adult member is mailed a confirmation kit, gains direct access to apply for a Members 1st auto loan or credit card, and can layer on additional shares — a holiday club, a vacation club, a Members 1st CD — using the same single online banking sign in.

Related references

Where this youth accounts page sits inside the Members 1st reference set.

A parent opening a Members 1st youth account often arrives via the broader Members 1st FCU member hub, then bounces between youth accounts, the companion Members 1st checking accounts reference, the Members 1st savings accounts reference covering custodial UTMA shares, the Members 1st money market tier table for household reserves, and the Members 1st CD rates reference for longer-horizon balances such as a college-fund layer. Digital readers continue to the Members 1st online banking walkthrough or the Members 1st mobile app install guide. Members verifying ABA detail jump straight to the Members 1st routing number reference.