Closing a long-standing account

Venusflytrap

I have had a Barclays current account for over 6 years which served as my main account for my salary, DDs, SOs and card purchases.

I recently (Nov '11) opened a NW Flex account making this my main account and transferring all my DDs/SOs and now salary to it, as well as a N&P account for personal allowance spends and foreign cash withdrawals.

My Barclays account is effectively redundant now and I am considering closing it. Is this disadvantageous (from a lender's point of view) as my longest standing current account will then be less than 2 years old? I have other joint current accounts and 4 CCs but they are all under 4 years old as I had previously closed down older accounts no longer used/needed.

grumbler

Yes it's disadvantageous and is worth keeping it.

Venusflytrap

grumbler wrote: »

Yes it's disadvantageous and is worth keeping it.

Thanks, but could you expatiate a bit?

grumbler

I just know. And on most applications they ask you for how long you have your current account, don't they?
It costs you nothing to keep it.

System

The length of account holding only makes a marginal difference to credit applications as it doesn't really say anything about the ability to reply.

If you had just opened your account with Nationwide then I would say keep it until your established with them for a few years but thats not the case here.

Two current accounts are sufficent for most needs and I personally close unused accounts unless there is a reason for keeping them.

JuicyJesus

Heng_Leng wrote: »

The length of account holding only makes a marginal difference to credit applications as it doesn't really say anything about the ability to reply.

Exactly correct. It's a small stability factor but someone with a decent credit history otherwise shouldn't have an issue.

Venusflytrap

Thanks Heng Leng and JuicyJesus (fun name by the way!). I can see the logic to both sides of the argument and am leaning towards closing the account simply because I do not wish to have active but unused accounts.

My credit history is healthy and strong and I plan to build a much longer r/ship with NW, N&P and my current CC providers (unless the account benefits become otherwise) which will further strengthen my credit worthiness long-term.

Thanks again.