Visa Electron still exists
I had a Switch card (and indeed a chequebook) from the age of 13, presumably due to a tame bank manager bending the rules or something.
My brother, who went to a different secondary school, had an account with a different bank (for branch accessibility reasons) and got Visa Electron. This turned out to be useful for buying underage smoking materials from the kiosk at the local Budgens, and....well, that's it really.
Not entirely dissimilar, the cashless purchasing scheme run by UKC Hostitlity was heavily marketed to parents in the paperwork received by freshers before arriving at uni. Naturally, they jumped at the chance to send Little Johnny to university with plenty of credit so they'd be able to buy food and biros in the campus shop even if they squandered the rest of their student loan on ...well, tuition fees or accommodation or something, presumably.
Imagine Little Johnny's reaction on discovering that the campus shop was run by the Stupid Union and therefore not part of the scheme, and the card was therefore only useful for purchasing Rubberfood lunches and drinks in the assorted college bars.
I'm sure there's a lesson here, but I can't quite put my finger on it...