Does switching banks affect credit file?

Debtfreestudentnurse

I’m thinking of taking advantage of the NatWest offer, but don’t want the closing of my Barclays account to affect my rating.

No money is owed, and I’ve had the account since 2016.

[Deleted User]

It will show as a new account, and the old one being closed.

Not an issue if you have a well managed history.

Debtfreestudentnurse

Always been well managed.

Thanks!

tryin

One of the things which lenders look at is how long you have kept your accounts open. A long history is looked at as more stable. So if that account is an old account maybe you should instead open a 'donor' account, specially just to switch.

Although as they said, if you've got a good credit history maybe it won't make a difference.

SlovakianGuy

Everyone should have at least 2 or 3 current accounts in different banks (and do some transactions on them), just in case one bank gets into trouble, such as TSB with their IT meltdown last year.

You can keep one account (and some credit card as well) for years, just to show stability. Then you can switch the other one or two accounts. If you only have one current account, you can only take advantage of one switch offer at a time, while losing your only account with a couple years of history. But if you have more accounts, you can still keep the oldest one and switch others.