> In basically all of the western world minors can enter into debt contracts, but are generally not seen as particularly creditworthy.

No, that's not legally permitted in many places. I was under impression that minors can't enter into debt contracts anywhere in EU, but that, too, was an incorrect assumption.

https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/mapping-minimum-ag...

I grew up in one of these "not under 18 even with parental consent" countries, so that coloured my view of the matter.