How long to wait between SUCCESSFUL current account applications?

book12

badger09 wrote: »

What is your evidence for this statement?

No evidence. However, the credit search doesn't specify an acceptance or decline.

Lots of credit searches harms credit history, and look desperate for credit.

masonic

book12 wrote: »

No evidence. However, the credit search doesn't specify an acceptance or decline.

Correct, although a successful credit search will normally result in an active credit account which can be cross checked.

Lots of credit searches harms credit history, and look desperate for credit.

It seems like, as far as current accounts are concerned, 'lots' is a very large number. Again, those that have translated into active accounts can easily be checked to differentiate between someone successfully opening a lot of accounts and someone unsuccessfully applying for a lot of accounts.

colsten

book12 wrote: »

No evidence. However, the credit search doesn't specify an acceptance or decline.

Lots of credit searches harms credit history, and look desperate for credit.

What sort of harm is being done to the credit history?

As you say, there is no evidence for your theory. Plenty of people on here, including myself, have applied and got accepted for lots of current accounts in short periods of time, and not experienced any harm of any sort.

Dird

badger09 wrote: »

What is your evidence for this statement?

On June 26th I was accepted for a HSBC Advance account.
The application took so long (the branch lost my documents) that it expired.
Today they rang me to do the application again. I failed the credit check (the one I passed on June 26th). Luckily the underwriters overruled the decision as I so recently passed but it means I'm going to hold off for a couple months before my next switches (it'll take that long for most of them to pay out anyways).
Nothing negative has happened to my situation besides adding the numerous accounts without overdrafts. The only other change is that they saw me on the electoral roll which is apparently better to have than not.

The only other reason I can think of, besides the bank accounts, is if they check for applications specific to themselves but I can't imagine this as I guess it's quite typical they open an account for someone then next month sign them up to a credit card or something

colsten

To balance Dird's experience: I have well over 20 current accounts, 6 of them opened in the last month. One of these recently opened accounts is an HSBC Advance, which also happens to be my second HSBC Advance, which I applied for just for the fun of finding out whether they would allow a second one.

I have done this sort of thing for years, and I have no reason to think that applying for many current accounts in a short period of time has worked against me, or would work against anyone. Getting turned down for an application most likely has many other reasons, such as having reached the bank's limit of total available credit. This would be independent of the number of applications.

The rejection of Dird's second application at HSBC within a fortnight might well have to do with the number of applications at HSBC, as you wouldn't normally apply for the same thing twice. That is very different to getting rejected based on the total number of applications for all accounts at all banks.

Dird

Yeah as I mention earlier in the thread I had done 15 credit checks over about 6 weeks with no issues. #16 caused this issue though. I thought it worth mentioning as a slight caution (at least with HSBC) as YorkshireBoy also said he applied for many in a quick span and got refused an Advance (I'm too lazy to look through the HSBC thread to see if he meets the salary requirement).

The first application was 5 weeks ago (June). No idea if they look specifically at which account was applied for or not, they just mentioned their "score" not being high enough. I might go into Lloyds on the weekend to see if their rating of me has changed.

Edit: Also I guess it depends on which agency the banks use. I'm guessing HSBC use Equifax who for some reason rank me middle tier "fair" whereas experian seemed to rank me much higher

colsten

Dird wrote: »

#16 caused this issue though.

you do not know that the reason was that you applied for the 16th time. All you know is that your 16th application, which happened to be a duplicate of an application you had made at the same bank within the last 4-6 weeks, was turned down. You also know that on appeal that rejection was overturned - so the rejection could have been just the result of some awfully lazy programming, or terrible design of the application process.

Dird wrote: »

No idea if they look specifically at which account was applied for or not, they just mentioned their "score" not being high enough. I might go into Lloyds on the weekend to see if their rating of me has changed.

Edit: Also I guess it depends on which agency the banks use. I'm guessing HSBC use Equifax who for some reason rank me middle tier "fair" whereas experian seemed to rank me much higher

Your rating and your score at any company other then the one you are applying for is pretty much totally irrelevant.

shortcrust

book12 wrote: »

After a successful application, I would still wait for a minimum of 6 months though. Waiting longer the better.

A number of credit searches no matter if it's an acceptance or decline, would still damage the credit record.

This doesn't match my experience. I often have three or four applications in a six month period without any apparent damage to my attractiveness to banks.

Give things a rest if you're planning to go for a mortgage. If you're not, take care not to let worries over your 'score' stop you getting the things you want.

Dird

colsten wrote: »

Your rating and your score at any company other then the one you are applying for is pretty much totally irrelevant.

Only in terms of whether I'll be accepted or not. But a couple weeks ago I went to Lloyds and they still rated me by their highest identifier (after I had applied for 10+ accounts). If still unchanged on Saturday then maybe it's just a funny HSBC bug, otherwise it may have just taken a while for the info to reach the banks (if my Lloyds rating has gone crap also)

colsten

Dird wrote: »

Only in terms of whether I'll be accepted or not. But a couple weeks ago I went to Lloyds and they still rated me by their highest identifier (after I had applied for 10+ accounts). If still unchanged on Saturday then maybe it's just a funny HSBC bug, otherwise it may have just taken a while for the info to reach the banks (if my Lloyds rating has gone crap also)

You seem to assume other banks have the same scoring algorithms and credit policies as Lloyds do. Why? Do you have any evidence for your assumptions? BTW, I do not have any evidence that they don't but it seems a lot more logical that different banks have different approaches to their customer acquisition strategy and processes.

You also seem to assume that banks look at your recent applications for accounts elsewhere. Why? And how would they know you applied for a current account? All they can see is a search for a credit product. The don't know what sort of a product it is, and they also don't know what the result of the search was. Or even if there was any result.