Does opening a checking account affect my credit score?
No, opening a new checking account does not have a direct effect on your credit score. For information about what does affect your credit score, check out our post here (coming soon). You can have as many checking & savings accounts as you like without harming your credit score. However, using checking accounts wisely can help you improve your credit score by helping you manage your finances.
Using Automatic Transfers and Checking Accounts to Help Your Credit
Setting up an automatic transfer into a checking account that is used to pay bills that cost about the same amount every month can help you avoid forgetting to pay a bill on time which will hurt your credit score. You can name your checking accounts, which means that you can set up a checking account for each individual bill and set up the payment to either be withdrawn directly from the account or paid through a debit card that is part of the account. You can also set up and name a checking account that automatically has money transferred into it each month that you use for discretionary spending like eating out or shopping. This is a great way to help you prevent overspending and is a fantastic way to create a budget. It takes extra work to set up your accounts this way but it makes it easy to see where your money is being spent!
