Tried to Open a Halifax Student Account today...

Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

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I mentioned Address in my post, they don't take your parents checks into consideration they see if there's a poor repayment history from the address, only reason why I mentioned parents is because they've normally been in the house for a few years so it will be their repayments that are taken into account.

Having an account with the bank prior to getting an account is always useful. My Barclays account was just converted from a current additions to a student additions account, my halifax due to some complications was a completely new account. As I had a record with both banks it was much quicker.

You will struggle to get a product on finance if you are a "student" as those companies will want a proof of regular income. The best ways of getting a good credit history is to either take on a subscription service, e.g dvd rentals, magazine, something with regular direct debit payments, or mobile phone contracts or utility bills. Anything with a regular payment to show that you can be responsible with cash.

Transferring cash between accounts is easy. Either you can do it over counters (for free you take cash out of one branch and walk into the other with it, they charge for electric transfers) or you can use web banking and setup a payment, takes less than 5 minutes, if regular just a few seconds. This used to take up to 5 days to clear but on some banks now it's same day.

Yes having an overdraft is a good way to make some cash on the side. taking the Halifax 2750 overdraft, just sticking 2k of that in a 5% ISA will give £100 a year. Who wants a railcard when you could have a cash lump sum each year which not only covers the railcard but also the essential rail travel :p: