Inactive accounts

I’m quite sad in that I have all the fintech accounts pretty much: monzo, starling, N26, Revolut… Just to see what they are all doing (does anyone else do that? :joy:). I hardly use a coupe of them so do any of them have policies about deactivating inactive accounts?

As a side note, are N26 actually going to be adding anything useful any time soon? They launched that thing with the barest of bones!

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Starling won’t let you reopen for a year after closing and it’s 10 years for N26. Might as well leave them open and chuck the cards in a drawer with all the other forgotten things you might use again someday

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What’s that policy for?

That’s what I mean though, if I was to chuck the cards in a drawer and not use the account for say a couple of years, would they eventually deactivate the account?

None of them have been around long enough to know yet and a lot of banks don’t publish their dormant account policies. Possibly but open account numbers look good

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Given how both value customer numbers, and given how they restrict your return, my personal guess would be no

Though eventually is a bit open ended, so maybe when it comes time for a new card they may come a knocking!

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Monzo are happy to reopen any closed accounts whenever. I think my Starling bank is up this month :credit_card:

I generally close any accounts I haven’t used in a few months mainly to keep things neat but also to reduce any risk of fraud.

This ^^

Your credit rating takes a hit each time you open a new account too.

A few people say that you have to have a ‘legacy bank’ to be with Monzo to bridge some of the gaps in their service, however, I’ve been with Monzo for over a year now and never needed mine. As a result my Natwest account will be getting closed very soon so I’ll just have my Monzo current and joint account :slight_smile:

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I did think about fraud but since they all have instant notifications of transactions, as long as I have the apps installed I’m not too worried :slight_smile:

Personally if it is not charging you any fees I would keep it open, assuming it is a VISA card, just to have another option if Mastercard has any mini flutters (as both Visa and Mastercard did very briefly this year IIRC). Alternatively switch it to say Nationwide, benefit from their 5% interest for a year on FlexDirect and treat it as a savings account. You can also open a 5% regular saver with them for a year, and they do Visa cards, so three things in one. I would say that is enough benefit to keep it open as a secondary account.

I too have many accounts, to see where they will be.

Monzo, N26, Starling, Coconut, Revolut.

It’s nice to be able to pick and choose. Monzo is my main and only account I use. Starling don’t let you back in for 12 months, N26 is 10 years (120 months / 520 weeks). Seems a strange one really.

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That’s semi true - It’ll only be affected by the CRA’s they report to - Monzo and Starling only report to one at the moment (I think) - But that’ll change next year.

Likewise, leaving an old account open is good for the “score”, because they like to see a long relationship with the bank.

Having a legacy account open for 10 years, and a Monzo account open for 1 year will balance it out.

Although, as previously discussed… who can really predict anything with credit scores :joy:

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This is the weird one. I’ve found a reference on reddit.com where an ex-account holder was told the wait is 5 years.

I’m sure iv read 10 years a few times. Seems a ludicrously long time. I wonder what their reasoning behind it is.

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Yes, I’ve seen 10 years all over the place, but not sure it’s been an official N26 statement. Either way - such a restriction seems odd and hardly customer-centric.