Credit Score's and Bank Accounts

kteara

Hi all,

I have a quick question regarding a dilemma I am facing, opening new bank accounts.

I am 20 years old. I currently have a few bank accounts open but I want to open more in order to get cash incentives and interest rates. The accounts I want to open/interested in are:

1) First Direct - 6% Interest and £125 Bonus
2) Clydesdale - 2% Interest and £150 Bonus
3) HSBC - 6% Interest
4) The Co-operative - £100 bonus

I currently have a barclays account which I will switch and close to Clydesdale. I will then switch and close the Clydesdale account to First Direct. I will then separately open the HSBC account so I end up with two accounts that have 6% Interest and I've gained the Switching bonus too.

Heres the problem. I previously opened 2x TSB, 2x Nationwide and 1x Halifax accounts last year (within the space of 6 weeks) and this resulted in a huge drop in my credit score, preventing me from opening another account that I wanted to gain a switching bonus from... How can I open these accounts without destroying my credit score? I also want to open a credit card with Halifax soon so how should I go about opening these accounts and getting a credit card without ruining my credit score?

Thanks for reading!

grumbler

Scores, NOT score's

The only way is to spread the applications.
Credit searches remain in the files for 1(?) year and normally get ignored by lenders after ~6 months, if not earlier.

windup

Too many contradicting threads in a short space of time.

grumbler

What exactly contradictions have you noticed?

kteara

grumbler wrote: »

What exactly contradictions have you noticed?

Exactly, and what does it matter? Is it because I made a thread about pensions? Please ignore this person. If you have nothing valuable to add to this thread then excuse yourself. I am here to gain information.

kteara

How long of a gap do I need to give, opening/switching accounts without it affecting my credit score? Does closing/switching an account also affect my credit score? Would getting a credit card and spending on it immediately improve my credit score thus enabling me to open all the accounts I'm interested in?

I don't want to be refused opening an account like I have been previously this year. My current credit score is sufficient to start opening bank accounts again just incase you were wondering.

grumbler

Your "current credit score" is a meaningless number that CRA(s) do their best to sell you.
It can be used as a very rough indication though. All lenders have their own scoring systems and criteria.

kteara

grumbler wrote: »

Your "current credit score" is a meaningless number that CRA(s) do their best to sell you.
It can be used as a very rough indication though. All lenders have their own scoring systems and criteria.

So can I open all of these accounts without any problem? That wasn't the case in 2014 when I tried opening a few accounts to gain the switching incentives and high interest accounts, after the 4th one I couldn't open any more.

grumbler

You can try, but you can never be sure, even if a CRA tell you that your score is perfect.
So, it's all about chances/probabilities.
I think you have enough information to make an educated guess yourself.

See also MSE article: Credit Scores

kteara

grumbler wrote: »

You can try, but you can never be sure, even if a CRA tell you that your score is perfect.
So, it's all about chances/probabilities.
I think you have enough information to make an educated guess yourself.

Well have you had experience in opening this many accounts before? I don't know how long of a gap I need to give between each application before I'm unable to open one. Does closing a bank account via switching affect my credit rating or is it only the credit search done when you open one?

grumbler

No, closing an account normally doesn't make much (any?) difference unless it was the only long standing account. However, any lender can have a differing view on this.