refused current account with cahoot

abitrubbish

I have recently set up a joint account with A&L which is all going great. However, I also want a personal account to put some spending money in each month which is just for me. I am currently with Barclays who pay virtually no interest at all. A&L won't let me have more than one Premier account with them, so I looked around and cahoot seemed like the best deal.

I applied yesterday for the current account and linked savings account to maximise the interest on any money I don't happen to spend each month. I was accepted for the savings account but rejected for the current account. The message said something about not passing their credit criteria, but the acceptance for the savings account was provisional on passing a full credit check, so this implies that they didn't actually credit check me, but that the rejection was based on something I put on the application. As they suggested, I have e-mailed their underwriting team to appeal this, but was wondering if anyone had any insight as to what might be the cause of this.

I have been at my current job for more than 5 years, had a bank account for 10 years, have very good income and no serious credit issues. I don't even need an overdraft, just an easy to manage current account with decent interest.

The only thing I can think of that might have raised a flag is that I put my residential status as tenent unfurnished, but then filled in a figure for mortgage outstanding (I have a joint mortgage on a second home). Could this be the problem? If so, is it likely the underwriter will be able to pick this up and overide the decision? Will they contact me for clarification on this do you think? There didn't seem to be a number I could call to discuss this with a human being?

Sorry to waffle, but this is really bothering me. It isn't like I asked for a £10k overdraft or anything... I am waiting to receive my statutory report from Experian, but my online reports from checkmyfile do not show anything particularly bad that I can see.

TIA

digerati

Before applying for any bank account or loan, it's often an excellent idea to contact the three UK credit reporting agencies and request a copy of your credit reports (cost is £2 each): Experian, Equifax, and Callcredit. This way you'll discover exactly what prospective lenders will learn about your financial history and current situation as reported. Often these credit reports will contain factual errors or omissions which may not be favourable to your ability to obtain credit or open an account. By regularly checking your credit reports, you can discover potential problems and have them corrected, removed or add information that is missing.

A good idea is to request a credit report from a different company every four months (annual cost £6), so you'll monitor your credit reports at each company at least once every 12 months. More importantly, you'll notice any problems or errors within 4 months of them appearing on your credit report.

It's hard to say if your credit history and joint mortgage will affect your Cahoot bank account application. Most financial providers will either accept or reject an application with no correspondence entered into; basically it's designed to minimize admin costs on application processing. However they are normally happy to revisit a fresh application with more details provided especially about your rental versus mortgage discrepancy (from their viewpoint).

Hope this helps! :-)