Application for new bank account question

LOL, usenet isnt for people who know, its for people who have theories!

Mine is that our 12ft lizard masters want to get their hands on your money.

I would suspect its because they are in a position, if you are willing, to transfer your funds across from this account and close it on your behalf. In fact, forget the willing bit...they'll do it anyway!

Gary Ma> Can someone tell me why when you fill out an application form for a new

The correct answer is that they don't always ask this question. I have completed an application form which didn't ask for details of an existing account.

Thats a partial answer.

The other parts are :

1) Many banks 'credit score' new account applicants at the point of application. Many credit scoring techniques use the existence of another bank account as part of their analysis. The provision of the sort code & account number gives some degree of authenticity to this request.

2) Many Banks analyse their new account applicants for marketing purposes. The provision of sort code and account number tells them where the previous account is resident, and whilst the account number is not used directly or checked each bank knows the system which each other bank uses to allocate its account numbers and can elicit information from the previous account number, i.e. type of account, or an indication of how long the account has been open.

"john boyle" wrote

This bit interests me.

My account was opened on "Date1" at Branch1 - many, many years ago. Later, it was transferred from Branch1 to Branch2 which then became a "sub-branch" to Branch3, and I later transferred the account to Branch4. On each change of branch, the sort code & account number changed. I also cannot remember when each of these changes, even the last, occurred!

So, if I fill in a form and quote the current sort code & account number, saying I opened my account with that Bank on "Date1" - will they believe me, or think I'm lying because the latest sort code & account number relate to the date that the account was transferred to Branch4 ??

In message , Tim writes

Its not a hanging offence, it will be used more for market research, and it certainly wont be picked up at branch level. Id add a note to the effect of 'date with bank =mm/yy, datre with this branch dd/yy"

"john boyle" wrote

Thank God!!

"john boyle" wrote

In what way?

"john boyle" wrote

Hmmm. So what's the point?

"john boyle" wrote

And what if you can't remember any idea of when you changed the branch?!

In message , Tim writes

To find out whom they are nicking customers off.

Er, becasue it will be picked up at marketing dept at HO.

"john boyle" wrote

If that's all they are after, then wouldn't it be easier (for both the applicant and the new bank) to just ask "What bank were you previously with?" ? No "looking-up" required by either side, much easier & therefore more likely that the applicant will complete that question etc etc ...

In message , Tim writes

Yes. Im not justifying it, just explaining it.

Halifax ( as an alternate example) on the mortgage app forms merely ask 'do you have a current account? If yes, how long have you had it?"

Which reminds me. ING Direct have been up and running for about a year now. The so-called honeymoon period predicted by a poster to this newsgroup hasn't happened... Yet. No top rate only on deposits over 20K string has appeared. All very refreshing.

Bitstring , from the wonderful person JF said

Well over a year.

No, but their rate has drifted back to 'only .25% over base rate', which is about .5% down from where it started iirc.