Business bank account with poor credit history?

casterlyrock · 26 October 2017 at 6:59PM

I'm a discharged bankrupt (discharged May 2016), and whilst my credit rating is improving steadily, it is still poor understandably. My only bank account is a personal, basic Nationwide account.

I'm launching a start-up business in the next few months and will need to open a business bank account. I don't need anything special such as an overdraft or anything like that, just a separate account.

I've read that it can be very hard for people with poor credit to be approved for a business bank account, despite it being a separate financial entity. What I don't want to be doing is applying to every high street bank in the hope of being accepted, as it will just impact further on my credit report having so many searches.

What are my options here? Can anyone recommend a particular bank or bank account that is likely to accept me?

Thank you.

Neil_Jones · 26 October 2017 at 8:29PM

In theory you only need a business bank account if you're setting up as anything other than a sole trader, because a sole trader is the business with no need to keep things separate, though it helps for self assessment rather than wading through transactions for Tesco and what not in amongst everything else.

However in practice most personal bank accounts have it in their T&Cs that you can't use those accounts for business even as a sole trader.

The easiest option is CashPlus, which is no credit check required but doesn't attract particularly good reviews service wise and has a fairly high annual fee. While most business bank accounts charge you for processing cheques, duplicate statements, scratching your nose, etc, most high street banks tend to give you anywhere up to 2 years free business banking. CashPlus doesn't.

casterlyrock · 26 October 2017 at 8:57PM

Neil_Jones wrote: »

In theory you only need a business bank account if you're setting up as anything other than a sole trader, because a sole trader is the business with no need to keep things separate, though it helps for self assessment rather than wading through transactions for Tesco and what not in amongst everything else.

However in practice most personal bank accounts have it in their T&Cs that you can't use those accounts for business even as a sole trader.

The easiest option is CashPlus, which is no credit check required but doesn't attract particularly good reviews service wise and has a fairly high annual fee. While most business bank accounts charge you for processing cheques, duplicate statements, scratching your nose, etc, most high street banks tend to give you anywhere up to 2 years free business banking. CashPlus doesn't.

It's a limited company unfortunately. I've read on a few other forums that people seem to have more luck with Santander after being rejected with other high street banks for poor credit, so that might be my first port of call. Just wondered if there was any way of increasing my chances with other high street banks.

Like I said, not after any kind of overdraft facility or any special, and would like to avoid something like a CashPlus account but worst case scenario it will have to do.

Neil_Jones · 27 October 2017 at 11:30AM

There's a few options here to look at:
http://www.ukbankaccounts.co.uk/basic-business-bank-account/

c-m · 10 January 2018 at 9:52AM

How did you get with this? Did you try Tide yet?

There's an overview in the link below, but checking the comments it seems hit and miss as to whether it's much cop.
Tide business bank account review

Edit: Payments were down last weekend. This was scheduled, but the work also seemed mess up the app. I was unable to log in.

Business bank account with poor credit history?

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