Top Student Accounts 2008/09 Article Discussion

Fenchurch_2

Hey guys,
I'm about to start Uni later in September, and have yet to get a student bank account. I'm currently with Natwest, and they've sent me stuff in the post to upgrade to a S.A. but have left it until I've done all my research.
From what I gather, putting my student loan into an HBOS account for the overdraft seems to be the best idea, but can I also upgrade my Natwest account for the railcard? It says in the article that there's nothing in either bank's contracts to stop me having another student account.

Thanks in advance

fluffyhelen

I've been at University for 5 years so far and so getting deals out of banks hasn't been too difficult. I started out with a Natwest account but I just upgraded my regular current account and missed out on their railcard offer!

However! They gave me a £1500 overdraft with no questions in year 3 and allowed me to keep this in the year I dropped out of Uni vowing never to return again.

They've now increased this to £2000 and this is the maximum they will lend on a 0% overdraft. I've had no issues with them.

I've also opened a Royal Bank of Scotland graduate account now to take advantage of their 0% overdraft of £2750 for graduates. It wasn't too hard to open both as a student though.

Natwest have been way kinder to me as a student than HSBC have to my boyfriend!!

sotonsaverjen

I've been with Natwest for my first year at uni. got my webcam (never used!) and my rail card (used a lot!) and now received my new railcard and expecting to increase my overdraft to £1400 in september.

I read the new article on best student bank accounts and I'm not sure whether to change to HSBC if their overdraft is £3000? As it is not guaranteed straight away. I'm not intending to use all of the
£3000 but i came close to the edge with natwest this year just gone and ended up using a credit card (smacked wrist!)

dillemma. :eek:

anyone got any good advise? i dont really want to lose the railcard but as i have just got the new one i dont see them demanding it back!?

im new to the forum so sorry if this is already answered elsewhere

ta

whiterose11

can u have 2 accounts, very tempted by natwest railcard offer as will use the train a lot however the larger overdraft from halifax sounds good but then not gonna get all of it at once. As i have a 5000 bursary from my univeristy every year i will probably give deficit banking a try.
anybody got any idea if this is allowed or not thanks
becky

Lokolo

Read the terms and conditions on the website. Most banks say you must only have student account with them and no-one else, some require student loan to go into it etc.etc.

retepetsir

Any details on graduate accounts yet? I'm with Barclays (Student Additions) and have just graduated. Apparently they charge ~£8 a month for their graduate additions account! :eek:

[Deleted User]

A lot of people seem to be going for NatWest because of the rail card, missing out on a bigger overdraft. The biggest overdraft you can have with NatWest is £2000, which you can get only in year 5. the biggest with Halifax is £3000 which is available in the first year. Barclays gives up to £2000 in year 5, like NatWest, but the actual figure changes differently through each year of study.
Over 5 years, if you put all your overdraft in a 6% savings account, Natwest will make you £540 in interest, Halifax will get you £1015 and Barclays will get you £497.
(That is calculated by getting the maximum possible overdraft in each year of study, and topping up savings account so that you are fully overdrawn on your student account.)
As the rail card is only worth £120, (or £24 a year) surely it's better to get the Halifax account, which even after you've paid for a rail card yourself, gets you about £400 more interest?

Samba_2

Could you not open both a Natwest and a Halifax Student account, as asked above? Halifax state that you need to make a regular payment into the student account:
"If you have an arranged overdraft you must pay your salary, grant cheque, student loan, money from your parents or other regular payment into your account."
Then you could get the offer of the Free Railcard with Natwest, and have your Student Loan paid in here (although I don't think it states that you have to have your loan paid in here either), and then set up a direct debit every month into the Halifax account to satisfy their criteria too?

Sounds a little complicated, but I don't think it really would be, and you get the best of both worlds? Or have I missed something? Please advise, as this is what I am planning to do! Thanks.

WillowFae

I just wanted to point out an error on your comparison tables. For Halifax you state that you must be entering a three-year undergraduate course. This isn't quite true. Their list of qualifying courses lists the one year PGCE.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/pdf/student_terms.pdf

[Deleted User]

You could certainly try to open more than one student account, although the overdraft limits are subject to a credit check and you getting regular payments into the account, so if one account is not getting the student loan paid into it, then you are unlikely to get the full overdraft.
What you should do though is to ask the banks specifically if it is against their T&C's. The last thing you need is to have both taken away and to have to spend the rest of your uni life without any perks.

A loophole in the loan argument might be if you get the loan paid into one account, then transfer it in full into the other. Of course it would not show up as having come from the SLC, but it would none the less be a regular payment.
It also saves having a monthly direct debit, as this means that after one transfer, you can now do anything with the money, such as put it into a savings account, rather than having it sit in your account waiting to be transferred.