On 2007-05-05 09:41:11 +0100, Frank Erskine
said:

On Sat, 5 May 2007 08:53:31 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

Apart from the money given, there are several educational experiences
as well, which make the whole exercise much better than sending a
fiver. This is all before one considers the security risk of sending
cash in the post:

- During the lifetime of most under 18s today, use of cash will
continue to decline and may even disappear so learning about the use of
card transactions will be essential and the earlier the better

- The local shop may not be accepting card payments today. The child
consumer can learn about market choice and buy from those that do. If
it encourages the local shop to take steps towards being cashless, all
to the good.

- Visiting a building society, queuing for half an hour because they
pretend to be banks but have no clue about customer service and
deciding early in life not to deal with them in later life

- Visiting a bank branch, discovering that they are almost as bad as
building societies, getting the cash from a machine anyway and
wondering what the purpose for the branch is anyway. During their
lifetime, they will visit mockup ones in theme parks just like the
Victorian sweetie shops are there today.

... all reducing the 'personal choice' element...

Different personal choice. I found dozens of different products with
different offerings and brandings:

- Pink ones with unicorns

- Engerland ones with flags and footballers

- Sir Richard Branson's offering (he never misses opportunities)

- Even one called Johnny Cash (I suppose that older teenagers might
like to use these for condom purchase).