Declined Natwest Step account, can someone help?

Faye&Mark

Hi, this is my first time posting so hope I'm not too bad

My partner and I applied for a Natwest step account last week and we received a telephone call this morning to say that we had been declined.
Now my partner and I are in debt but we are making regular payments every month through Payplan.
Also payed for a credit check with experian and that looks fine.
But what I cannot understand is why we have been declined when it is a basic bank account?
We also phoned up Natwest a few days ago and found out that they did a credit check on us when we specifically said that we would like a basic, no frills account.
Just somewhere where we can pay our wages in and do direct debits and also use a Solo card.

I'm a bit confused.

Also looked at the banking code but cannot find if Natwest have subscibed to them.

Can anyone help

Thankyou

Faye xxxxx

file_wizzard

Natwest mainly check with Equifax so it may be worth while getting a copy of your file from Equifax also.

With regards to reasons for decline, for a step account this would only normally be declined if you were non traceable on the elector roll, or if you have CIFAS fraud flags against your address.

It is worth noting that the Step account IS now credit scored and has been for about the last year or so.

If you don’t mind having an electron card instead of a solo then the Co-Op cash minder is a good starting point

kevker

That's a bit of a bummer. I applied for a Step Account after bankruptcy and had no problems at all (apart from them losing the initial application), so can't really understand why you would have been turned down. After all, the Step account is designed for people with atrocious credit history (that'll be me and all the other bankrupts out there).

BWZN93

It depends on when that was though Kevker - all 'current' accounts whether cash card or debit card applications are now all credit scored - the reason being is that even with a cash card account you can still get into debt, for instance, setting up direct debits and having them bounce, you get charged and then you are in a negative balance. Therefore you are still viewed as a risk to the business as many people just ignore that and let the accounts go dormant with minus balances (ive seen it happen a lot).

If you want an account with a cash card but have failed for a current account, you still have an option, and that is to find a provider who offers a savings account with a cash card, that will receive S/O's, DD's and bacs (wages, transfers etc) but you wont be able to set up direct debits. Many building societies offer these accounts, and the bonus is that they can write cheques for you for free, so you can still pay your bills (although you do need to have credit in the account as the cash is immediately taken out of your account instead of a regular cheque).

HTH

Jo xx

kevker

I got my Step account in June. Dopn't know if things have changed since then.