Is This Bank Account OK For A DMP!

Pan_3

Am going to be entering into a DMP in the next month or so and am keen to tie up all loose ends before the proverbial hits the fan!

I currently have a current account with both Halifax and HSBC. I have had the HSBC account for about 11 years and all is well with it...I have a Maestro card, cheque book with guarantee for £100 and a small overdraft facility that I never use, I do have a managed loan on the account which I have been paying on time and no missed payments for 8 years (4 to go...don't ask!). Obviously, if I enter a DMP I will need to add the managed loan to this and I'm assuming that HSBC will close my account as well.

Rather stupidly, I decided to open another account last week for the DMP preperation. I chose Halifax and was accepted with a £200 overdraft, cheque book with £100 guarantee and a Visa debit card....excellent. Problem is I've now discovered that my other debts, AA loan and credit card and Sainsburys loan are part of HBOS which as you know are part of Halifax...DOH!!

So, bearing in mind that I will be in the same situation with the Halifax account I decided to open an account with Abbey today....they gave me a full current account but stipulated no overdraft, they gave me a cheque book but stated that the check indicated that they could only offer me a Visa Electron card rather than a debit card. They did say that this could be reviewed if the account was run ok for 6 months etc. I'm sure that they offered me slightly limited facilities because the system showed the credit checks etc for Halifax and my rating is not exactly brilliant anyway.

So, to cut to the point, I'm a bit concerned that I may struggle with this abbey account as a few people at work this afternoon have suggested that the electron card is quite limited and is only usually offered to younger people. In a way, I think it will be quite good to be slightly limited as it will foce me to use cash more but I'm just annoyed that i'm going to be losing a bank account that offers me full facilities.

The only other option I have considered that a friend suggested as they have done the same thing is to 'hide' the HSBC loan as a family loan in my SOA to CCCS. I have checked my credit files and the HSBC loan is not listed and is totally internal to HSBC. I am reluctant to do this as i understand how important honesty is at this stage but it would solve a problem as I would still be able to keep the HSBC account.

So, any advise would be really helpful. Am just totally confused as to what to do for the best, yep I want to be honest but I cannot see how the HSBC loan could be discovered and it would mean that I would keep a decent bak account. Like I say, a friend decided to do this and it worked out o.k for them. Any opinions on the electron card would be greatly recieved as well.

Many thanks for taking the time to read!

doodah

hi there, as far as i know electron cards are much more widely accepted now, as everywhere had to update to chip and pin machines which mostly accept electron. but as an alternative, and i always seem to be recommending this, citibank offer a current account with a visa debit card. from what i've seen on this forum they seem to offer it to anyone. i got one and that's saying something! only thing is it's not a cheque guarantee card.

moonlightpjs

Hi there, I too got a bank account with Citibank, visa debit card and cheque book though no cheque guarantee or OD. I have a terrible credit history as do a lot of people who have posted on this.

Have a read of this thread regarding it:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=321204

Also, not that it may apply to you but just to warn you we also had a DMP with CCCS and did not declare a debt and when we found out we couldn't manage the repayments and asked the CCCS to add it to our DMP, they cancelled our plan. I have spent many a time on the phone to them begging, in tears even for them to reinstate it all to no avail. Please be careful and good luck!!!

Lisa xx