Effect on Credit Score of opening multiple current accounts?

book12

Dan83 wrote: »

Hi,
I opened accounts with nationwide, TSB, lloyds and tesco in December with no problems.

I'm surprised that it didn't trigger a fraud alert or a cifas marker on your credit file.

Many applications in a short space of time can indicate to other banks that it's fraud. It also looks like you are desperate for credit. A lot of credit searches aren't good for the short term.

I know in your casw you are genuinely applying for them. But I'm just saying.

colsten

book12 wrote: »

I'm surprised that it didn't trigger a fraud alert or a cifas marker on your credit file.

Many applications in a short space of time can indicate to other banks that it's fraud. It also looks like you are desperate for credit. A lot of credit searches aren't good for the short term.

I know in your casw you are genuinely applying for them. But I'm just saying.

What is fraudulent about opening several current accounts in a short space of time? How does it make you look desperate for credit if you don't even apply for an overdraft? What evidence do you have that lots of searches due to current account applications "aren't good for the short term"?

splatt30

Well Nationwide FlexDirect application accepted this afternoon.
Will apply to Lloyds once that is up an running.
Oh how I miss my offset mortgage :-(

book12

colsten wrote: »

What is fraudulent about opening several current accounts in a short space of time? How does it make you look desperate for credit if you don't even apply for an overdraft? What evidence do you have that lots of searches due to current account applications "aren't good for the short term"?

I'be read an article on here about it, but it was mainly geared towards credit cards and loans. I thought applying for a bank account (with or without an overdraft) will involve a credit search, and the search is visible to other lenders.

Rich2808

No one knows for certain if it makes any difference.

But if you are about to apply for a mortgage I would be a bit nervous about how some lenders will regard lots of credit searches in a short space of time. It certainly affected my free credit scores from Noddle and clearscore (equifax) - for what they are worth.

Given how picky some lenders are these days over minor things I would avoid applying for lots of new accounts within six months of an expected mortgage application.

Abby23

From my personal experience opening a lot of bank accounts in a short space of time does effect your credit rating for around 5-6 months afterwards.

Last year I decided I'd finally start playing the current account game for savings and opened 5 bank accounts in about the space of a month (I wasn't initially planning on that many but once I realized how much more interest I could be making I couldn't stop myself lol).

I got accepted for all the bank accounts without any problems (I didn't ask for any overdrafts as all just to store savings) but I then decided while I was in the zone finance wise I would open a good travel credit card as I'd been meaning to do that for a while.

I used the tool on the moneysaving website to see my chances and as someone who has always had fairly good credit I was very shocked at the very low percentages that I was getting for pretty much every card going!

I checked my credit score on Noddle the next time it updated and I know everyone says you should ignore the numbers as they're meaningless but my chance of getting credit score on there had dropped from 4/5 when I'd checked it about a month previous to 2/5.

Nothing else had changed other then me opening the bank accounts so I can only assume this negative impact was brought about because of the large number of accounts I'd opened in such a short window.

I decided to put off applying for anything else to give my credit rating a chance to bounce back and by the end of six months my credit rating was back to where it used to be and I got my credit card.

splatt30

Plus £35 from topcashback for opening the nationwide account (I didn't know anyone to refer me)

For me, we have just moved house, so won't be needing a new mortgage in a long time. We have also kept money back to do work on the house so no need for a loan, and a stack of money sat around waiting to be spent. I will go cautious but probably one more account next month and that will do.

YorkshireBoy

splatt30 wrote: »

Plus £35 from topcashback for opening the nationwide account

That's a shame. It was £78 or so just a few days ago

(I didn't know anyone to refer me)

I think you'll find you've literally 100s, if not 1000s, of "friends" on here. Or at least you did have.

splatt30

Ah well, it's an extra £35 not expected. I'm happy with that

tg99

Not looked at any full credit reports but I did see that my Experian credit score dropped to low 800s from its usual high 900s when it was last updated which was just after I had opened 10-15 current accounts (no overdrafts) in the space of a few weeks for donor account / switch incentive purposes. No other change in my circumstances so I can only think the drop off was due to this. Will be interesting to see if it returns to 'normal' after 6 months or so.