Children's First Bank Account(s)

I'd shop around. A lot of banks tempt with the gifts, but just make sure you checkout the interest rates and accounts other features too - such as debit cards and chequebooks. I'd look to open both current and savings accounts, becuase you are almost always going to get more on savings. Most of the benefits of being a "young" customers tend to end at age 16 or 18... it varies, and there are a few exceptions.

HSBC offer fairly good rates to those 15 and under, but only 0.1% on current accounts for 16+, which is not good.

Most banks won't let you have internet banking until you are 16 and over. But Lloyds TSB has a good interest rate on both its under 19 current account, and if you are over 16 you can have its Online savings account too, which would make a good combination. Natwest has a pretty good current account rate, and gives those *under* 16 debit cards.

Its definitely worth checking out the banks which have also remained competitive on rates over the last 3 years - Nationwide BS is a good example in this area. I had a smart account for many years, although you can only open it up to the age 17... they let you keep it until you are 18 years and 6 months. You can open both a nationwide current account and esavings accounts as well when you reach 16, which together are good, but nationwide will not give you a debit card until you are 18 (because they don't issue electronic use only cards)

Norwich and Peterborough BS let you keep their young persons account while you are under the age of 24!

Holding various accounts with banks does make upgrading easier later... I now have a Lloyds student current account, and current accounts with Nationwide and NPBS.

Credit accounts will only appear on a credit file if you are over 18 for obvious reasons. Currents accounts aren't generally included in credit files, as banks only tend to provide information when its "bad" - so they publish the negative information if you default, but not the positive when your account is run well. This isn't true for all current accounts though, some current accounts which have a full debit+cheque guarantee card and no arranged overdraft will add "positive" good information to the file each month - nationwide do - Lloyds doesn't. This is probably something you would only find out from actually opening an account and looking - otherwise a credit or store card would be needed to build up meaningful credit history.