DALLAS -- PAYjr, a financial education firm and online service that specializes in helping parents teach children about money management and budgeting, has rolled out a prepaid Visa card aimed at teenagers.

The PAYjr Visa Buxx Card is issued by BankFirst, Sioux Falls, S.D., pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. The program is available to parents and teenagers via PAYjr's Web site and through PAYjr's growing number of bank and credit union partners, the firm said.

The new PAYjr Visa Buxx Card provides parents with a valuable tool aimed at teaching teens, ages 13 and older, how to manage money and provide hands-on experience using a card for payments.

Different than a typical prepaid card or debit card, the PAYjr Visa Buxx Card gives parents complete control and visibility into all the spending activity. It provides teens with a level of independence while still giving parents supervision. In addition, the program does not charge NSF fees and will decline transactions if beyond the available prepaid balance.

"Forcing teenagers to learn how to manage money using cash is the equivalent of teaching teenagers to conduct research with a card catalogue at a library," said David Jones, the CEO of PAYjr, "My kids are unlikely to ever write a check or even use cash; we are moving to a cashless society and I believe it is very important to teach young adults how to use these tools while still under parental supervision. Our program does not advocate credit card debt, our program advocates education."

In addition, the firm said the new card can be personalized in a way that other prepaid cards cannot. The firm uses technology from Serverside Graphics, a London based company, to enable teens to upload, enlarge, rotate, move and flip their chosen photos inside the PAYjr Visa Buxx Card template, so teens can get just the card they want.

The firm has also launched a card design competition, encouraging teenagers to show off their design skills for a chance to win an Apple Macbook and the opportunity to earn royalties from their card designs.