The Student Room Group

Student acounts

What are the downsides and the upsides of a student account?
Downsides = None I can think of.

Upsides =

No interest charged if you go overdrawn. You obviously still have to pay it back eventually but only the amount you've borrowed. Not extra. this is also subject to staying inside the limits. Different banks offer different amounts / timescales.

Some sort of freebie. Could be a Railcard for discounts on train travel. (4 years via Santander) or cash (£100 from Nationwide) etc.

Strictly speaking there's nothing to stop you from having more than one account with different banks although if you want the overdraft benefit and not just the freebie, you'll probably need to have your Student Finance loan paid into it.

There's a list of he headline benefits as well as some small print here: https://www.savethestudent.org/money/student-banking/student-bank-accounts.html#bank-accounts

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