New Current Account(s) ... Credit Rating

Boomhauer69 · 6 June 2012 at 6:58PM

Good evening folks!

HSBC were my original Bank and current account.

I have recently opened a fair few additional bank accounts

Halifax (for £5.00 per month)

Lloyds (for Vantage Account)

As well as applied for a Santander account (for £50.00 cashback(QUIDCO), as well as Cashback on Bills / Credit Balance)

I am also looking at a First Direct account for the nifty £125.00 bonus from MSE, as well as the 8.00% Regular Saver.

Because it certainly seems to get the most bang for my buck, I need to utilise all the different options / banks for bonuses and rates etc.

For instance, I will be keeping my HSBC account, as It offers the 2nd best Regular saving amount. 6%

Now for the questions please kind folk ....

1. Will opening this many new current accounts affect my credit rating drastically ?

2. With the Santander 123 account paying cashback on balances up to £20,000 as opposed to £5,00 compared to the vantage, Is the Vantage rendered useless nowadays ?

3. Would there be any point in me closing down any of these accounts ?

Thanks very much fior your answers guys and girls.

Cheers

MoneySaverLog · 6 June 2012 at 7:20PM

1) No, so long as you don't have a OD it should in no way affect your credit rating other than having a bank account search.

2) Certainly not. I'd prefer Lloyds Vantage over Santander any day.

3) I closed down some old accounts that were no longer needed or used just to tidy things up.

Boomhauer69 · 6 June 2012 at 7:42PM

Awesome Stuff - Thanks very much Moneysaverlog!!

I was just a little concerned, and just for the record - there is no overdraft available, so no worries whatsoever there!

I can see from your sig, your like of these vantage accounts;

Can I just check, is it merely Santander's awful Repuation which would dissuade you from signing up to Santander, or is there something else I am missing here mate ?

innovate · 6 June 2012 at 8:21PM

I have all of these accounts (and more!), with no adverse impact visible on my CRA files. One of the accounts is an offset mortgage which is in credit but obviously I could use the facility (several tens of £K) if I wanted to. A couple of the others (FD, Santander) seem to insist on giving you an unsolicited overdraft facility, but I never use them and therefore can't get any negative markers on them.

It's a long time since I applied for a new credit card so can't say for sure they would accept me - but the ones I have regularly increase my credit limits, and Nationwide, Santander and Halifax keep trying to sell me credit cards. That suggests they are all quite happy with my risk profile.

I checked my Experian and CallCredit files only last week and they both look as good as I could possibly hope for.

One of the things I feel is critical if you have many accounts is good management. I use an ancient copy of Microsoft Money which is perfect for my needs, but a spreadsheet or a notebook might be equally acceptable. Also, tell your partner, or some other person you trust, where you got your fortunes - just in case something happens to you, god forbid.

Regarding Santander: my experience with all those banks is that there is 6 in one, and half a dozen in the other. IMO, all of them have good and bad points, and all of them sometimes give you better or worse service. What I look out for is that they are FSA-regulated, have the FSCS guarantee and that I don't get anywhere near £85K with any one financial group sharing the same FSA licence. Oh, and [relatively] decent interest rates. I also much prefer accounts that can be managed online - going into a Branch seems such an unneccessary burden.

New Current Account(s) ... Credit Rating

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