Thanks to your site I’ve started to open a few bank accounts so I can receive the sign up bonus associated with it. I’ve probably opened 4-5 within the past six or seven months, I’m just wondering if I am signing up for too many or if I can push it and sign up for more than this? What is considered ‘safe’?
Thanks for the compliment and always glad to see more people getting into bank account bonuses. Most financial institutions won’t do a hard pull on your normal credit reports (e.g Experian, Equifax or TransUnion) when opening a bank account (you can see a full list of companies that do/don’t do a hard pull here) – but they will pull your ChexSystems report.
I’m going to assume that you’re only opening bank accounts that don’t do a hard pull on your regular credit report (you’ll get better value by signing up for a credit card instead), so I’ll focus on ChexSystems only. ChexSystems is a national consumer reporting agency, your ChexSystems report contains information regarding your history with deposit accounts (e.g savings & checkings account).
Unlike other consumer reporting agencies, ChexSystems reports only contain negative (overdrafting) or neutral information (opening new accounts). Around 80% of all credit unions/banks use ChexSystems, although more and more financial institutions are moving away from it as it creates significant amounts of people to become unbanked or underbanked.
Basically when a bank looks at your ChexSystems report, they are checking to see if you’ve had any significant issues with deposit accounts in the past. Such as:
- Unsatisfied balances
- Check overdrafts
- Depositing fraudulent checks
- Suspicious account behavior reported by other banks (e.g possible structuring)
These negative items will stay on your report for five years before falling off. The other thing banks check for is the amount of new inquiries you’ve had on your report, typically a high amount of new inquiries is indicative of fraud so financial institutions will automatically deny you. Some financial institutions are more strict about this than others, but in my experience it’s generally OK to open 10 or less bank accounts each year (if an account has been opened more than one year, they usually consider that not to be fraudulently opened and thus of no concern).
If you want to learn more about ChexSystems, I’d strongly recommend you read our introduction here. We also list some financial institutions that are more inquiry sensitive than others. If you’re worried about opening too many accounts, make sure you do the bonuses that we recommend first.
If you’ve got a question that you want answer, go and ask it over here. We’ll either reply there or do a dedicated post like this one!
Since this post was written in Aug of 2015 have the rules changed around being able to open ≤ 10 bank accounts in a 12 month time frame?
I’m seeing data points (DPs) in the comments that people have done more ≥ 10 bank accounts in a 12 month time frame.
There have always been reports of people opening more than ten bank accounts in a 12 month period. The key word in the headline is “safely.” I think the author means by it “being very likely not to be rejected for the sole reason on opening too many.”
Even still, being rejected isn’t that big of a deal if it happens. It just means you don’t get to open that particular bank account at that time. It’s not like it is some big negative mark on your report.
Also, bear in mind that a number of banks don’t use ChexSystems (mentioned in this DoC piece). A number of banks use EWS (Early Warning Services), for example. So if a person opened 15 bank accounts, of which 10 used CS and 5 used EWS, then that would be very plausible.
Is there a google excel template to keep track of all the bank account bonus? I just started the bank bonus journey and looking for a good way to organize all the deadline/bonus/requirement. thanks
You might want to clarify what you mean by “all” in “all the bank account bonus.”
(1) You might mean a spreadsheet that tracks every promotional bonus at every bank mentioned at Doctor of Credit, regardless of whether you have applied for it yourself. That would be a spreadsheet with hundreds of rows. I do not think Doc supplies that, but let us know if that is what you mean.
(2) Alternatively, you might mean a spreadsheet that tracks only the ones you have personally applied for. If that is what you mean, it should be easy to create one yourself. Columns you might want to include: Bank name, Business or Personal, Savings or Checking, Date Opened, Bonus Amount, Date you received the bonus, Date Closed, URL to original Doc article, Comments.
Best wishes…
Just create your own
I got a template a while back from travelmiles101.com. It’s for credit card tracking but you can modify it a little for banks. You can start from scratch, but why would you? One thing I would say is the spreadsheet is good, but you’ll also need a calendar (Google calendar) to set reminders on when to close bank accounts and credit cards.
[…] in a short amount of time. Just like with credit cards, too much activity is not good. However, Doctor of Credit says you can open up to 10 new bank accounts a year without any […]
I’ve opened seven bank or brokerage accounts since August 2021 with no issue until today when I applied for the US BANK $500 checking bonus. I was denied most likely because I live in NY and have no other relationships with US BANK. No big deal. There are plenty more fish in the sea. Of course I could apply for a US BANK credit card to establish a relationship with them, but I don’t think I’m gonna do that.
Next time try a brokerage account, and use that login
? try what with a brokerage acct…is this right post you meant to reply to?
Yep. There’s a workaround (that I found through comments on here) where if you apply for a checking account while you have a brokerage account, you can use that login to sign up out of footprint. The brokerage account gives you that pre-existing relationship Sweepster was talking about, without the burden of a new credit card.
This is how I got my account was through brokerage. Opened that and two days later could get the checking.
same denied by US bank so moved on, and no problem thus far.
I loved it when you said that most financial institutions won’t do a hard pull on your normal credit reports (e.g Experian, Equifax or TransUnion) when opening a bank account. My sister is opening a convenience store. She needs a checking account to issue to her suppliers. I will share this post for her to find out where to open a free checking account.
I would like to inform those that have opened accounts at HUNTINGTON BANK. My husband and I were refused to get a bonus we met every requirements and had the rules in writing. I was given internal documents that also proved we were meeting all requirements. Yet I was told by a corporate person that it doesn’t matter what’s in writing,what matters is the spirit of the offer.So I carried my check book out with no way to inform others. Mary McNellis
That sounds very typical of Huntington b.s.
Hi Mary. It would be really helpful to hear what it was about the spirit of the offer that they felt you were not complying with.
PS. Due to the risk of identity theft, the advice here on this blog is not to sign your posts with your full name. That’s true on any blog, just not DoC. Just an FYI.
You should’ve tried filing a CFPB complaint. Just remember that for next time.
I opened 22 bank accounts in 2020 with no issues.
Hi Lynn. It would be interesting to know how many of those 22 accounts appear on your ChexSystems report and how many appear on your Early Warning Systems report. You are entitled to a free CS and EWS report every year.
whoa, awesome.
did you close any old ones during the same time? that’s about 2 per month pace, which seems incredible.
rrrr
I’m glad to find that it’s generally safe to open less than 10 bank accounts each year if our credit is ok. I find it helpful that you also mentioned that negative issues with our past accounts will stay on our report for 5 years before falling off. Therefore, I will have to keep my bank accounts clear of credit issues if I want to apply for new bank accounts. I will definitely try out your method to open bank accounts as a way to have my money organized.
Hi Alicia. Nice to see you post here.
Bear in mind that “credit issues” are tracked by the big three credit reports: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. Credit issues involve your success with credit: loans, credit cards, etc. Negative issues there stay on those reports for 7 years, and 10 years if it is a bankruptcy.
This Doctor of Credit article is principally about how banks track your behavior with respect to opening and closing savings and checking accounts — that’s a whole different set of issues from how you handle credit. The events being tracked here are things like:
Opening a savings or checking account
Closing a savings or checking account
Applying for a new account (whether it was approved or not)
Bouncing checks while the account is open (or similar bad transactions)
The two bureaus that track your behavior for savings and checking accounts are ChexSystems (CS) and Early Warning Systems (EWS).
When you open a new savings or checking account, most banks will pull either a CS or an EWS report, and some will also pull a credit report (TransUnion, Equifax, or Experian).
That’s just an overview that may clarify for you some of the differences between credit reports (TU, EQ, EX) and the reports that track your past behavior with savings and checking accounts (CS and EWS).
It would actually be a good idea for you to get all five reports cleaned up as much as you can, though the strategies involved in such cleanup are very different depending on whether it is credit report or a deposit account reports. It all starts with getting your free copies of your reports.
Can u deposit money in each one of those accounts safley..