Quick overdraft question

Masomnia

The summer is wearing on and work has been elusive, and the way things are going I'm going to find myself with cash flow issues within the next few weeks.

So I'm thinking I'd best go and arrange an overdraft with my bank, RBS.

I haven't done this, or anything even like it before. So I suppose I just want to know how the process works. Will I just walk in and say "Hi, can I have an overdraft?" And they say "Yeah."? Or is it much more drawn out?

Thing is, I do have savings, almost £3k in an ISA with Egg. Now maybe it's just my old fashioned attitudes to borrowing money, but won't they just lok at where my money has gone and tell me to use my savings? I don't want to, because I don't want to lose the interest, and the tax free status for the years in the future.

Or will it just be based on my credit rating? Which I assume is good since I've never borrowed before, never defaulted on credit cards, and am on the electoral register, have a phone contract etc.

Any general advice is much appreciated!

Mike

Masomnia

No one have any experiences to share?

All responses will be thanked!

Helix

When I did it with Natwest (who RBS own) I just asked if I could have the overdraft activated. Showed them my UCAS AS12 letter (you might not need this but take your student ID card just in case) to prove I had got into university. They typed a few things into the computer and it was done and became active overnight. They didn't ask me any questions at all.

JDMYOFAN

Overdrafts are very simple to apply for and almost anyone can have one.

If you have 3k savings then you're already in the right direction! They won't advise you use them instead of the overdraft, as they make more money from overdraft charges (however small they may be).

Just ensure you stay within your overdraft, i.e. ask for more than you need.

You can usually apply online too

kettlefish

I had to sort out a student overdraft at pretty short notice too, all I did was take in a copy of the letter saying I'd been accepted on a course, and they amended my overdraft to £800 interest-free until I complete my course! Mind you, this was NatWest so might be different amount or policy etc. In response to the ISA question, most banks are pretty supportive even if they know about your savings - mine even encouraged my to put the interest-free overdraft into my ISA to make some cash! Sure the lovely woman who helped me didn't tell her boss that one... :rolleyes: Sounds like yours is merely a cash-flow issue rather than you being irresponsible with cash so they should be fine with you - like I said, they will need proof that you're a student!
Hope this helps xxx

RachaelE

I'm not sure if it's any different when you have no overdraft at all, but when I asked for mine to be extended with Barclays (when I was at uni) I had to give them a breakdown of my income and outgoings to prove that I needed the overdraft.

However, whenever I did this (and I did it a few times, I was very bad with money as a student) the Personal Banker/student bank person at Barclays always just helped me to doctor the figures so that they made it look worse than it was and therefore increase my chances of getting it increased, which always worked without fail. Not very responsible of the bank but it was useful.

I imagine it's a different process for each bank though.