No income - can i still open an account??

bushbaby22

Hello
I'm hoping someone can help...
I am a stay at home mum who doesn't have any income (unless Child Benefit can be classed at income?) and am starting a small business from home. I would like to open up another bank account to use purely for this small business. Can anyone recommend one? Can I even open one with no income? Ideally I would like it to have an esaver too.

I tried to call Barclays this morning to talk it through with them but after being on hold for almost 8 minutes on a chargeable call (at 8:40 this morning), I am feeling really annoyed!

Any help is greatly appreciated

BugsyBrowne

Defiantly do an online application for another bank, my mates missus get child benefit and gets about 30k a year so they will be pretty chuffed to have you as a customer.

chambta

You will be able to open pretty much any account you choose regardless of income. Your credit history is more relevant.

Anthorn

Have a look at the small print or additional info to see if there's a minimum monthly credits requirement.

For an eSaver you'll possibly need to link it to a current account not necessarily at the same bank to facilitate credits and withdrawals (i.e. Newcastle B.S., Santander, ING) so it's the current account first and then the eSaver.

electrobix99

I would not tell them what you are using it for. You should not use a personal account for business transactions.

BugsyBrowne

bushbaby22 wrote: »

Hello
I'm hoping someone can help...
I am a stay at home mum who doesn't have any income (unless Child Benefit can be classed at income?) and am starting a small business from home. I would like to open up another bank account to use purely for this small business. Can anyone recommend one? Can I even open one with no income? Ideally I would like it to have an esaver too.

I tried to call Barclays this morning to talk it through with them but after being on hold for almost 8 minutes on a chargeable call (at 8:40 this morning), I am feeling really annoyed!

Any help is greatly appreciated

Simple answer is yes you can open any current account and as chambta says they will credit check you to see what account your eligable for and if there is no bad history then choose what's best for you.

agrinnall

electrobix99 wrote: »

I would not tell them what you are using it for. You should not use a personal account for business transactions.

I can't agree with this advice. If you open a personal account then use it for business you run a very high risk of it being closed with no notice when they find out. Far better is to find a bank that will offer you a business account with no charges for the first couple of years, by which time you should have a good idea whether it's worth carrying on or not.

Macca83_2

Well technically there's no law against a sole trader using a personal account. The banks don't like it because obviously they aren't making the same revenue out of it. It is fairly common practise for the small trader to start out using a personal account to test the water. But it really needs to be a separate account for book keeping purposes. The bank only usually picks up on it if there's a huge volume of cash going through the account. So yes it is possible to trade from a personal account but not advisable from a bank perspective.

bushbaby22

Thank you for your replies