Maine Bill Considers Parental Consent for Credit Cards

The Great State of Maine is looking to put an age limit on who can hold a credit card. According to a bill recently suggested by Sen. John Nutting, if you’re under 21, you’re going to need parental permission before you can go charging Foo Fighter tickets on the Visa.

The bill is an attempt to help young people help themselves out of early mountains of debts. College freshmen are an enticing market for credit card issuers. Unfortunately, college freshmen, while knowing pretty much everything else possible to know (just ask them — or, rather, don’t; they’ll tell you they know everything without any prompting), aren’t so good, it seems, with the financial management.

Rep. Wesley Richardson asked how the bill would affect people younger than 21 who have no parents or guardians or are financially and otherwise independent. A legitimate question, and one that may re-write Nutting’s original proposal.

Suprising no one, the bank/credit card industry isn’t so fond of the the Pine Tree State’s solution. Mark Walker, a lawyer for the bankers group who also spoke for the community bank association, told the committee that the associations don’t aggressively market credit cards to students. He then went on to suggest that 18-year-olds in Maine have a legal right to enter into business agreements such as obtaining credit cards.