By: Nektaria Stamouli
13 May 2010 Tell a Friend
The end of the academic year is fast approaching and for many students this means that graduation is coming. Leaving university means end of carelessness and entering a period with more responsibilities and duties. Usually there are quite a few things to consider after leaving university and changing your bank account or switching to a graduate account can get forgotten.
However, shopping around and picking the best graduate account can actually save you loads of money, which can be really helpful at the beginning of your 'real life'. Graduate accounts are effectively current accounts that give time to find your feet. Finding a job, relocating or even buying a new house or a car, are only some of the changes that life after university can bring.
The graduate accounts try to make the move as easy as possible, usually by offering a wide range of benefits such as: interest-free overdraft, low cost graduate loan, credit card, mobile phone and online banking. They last up to three years after graduation and most of the times the credit ability they offer for at zero percent interest is shrinking year on year over this term.
From student to graduate
Usually your bank will give a thirty days' notice before transferring you from a student to a graduate account. This is the stepping stone in which you should repay all the overdraft debts your student life might have left you with. Most graduates usually decide to stick to the same bank, in which they had their student account- because they have the sense of loyalty or of uncertainty, or simply because searching the best bank deal is the last thing they have on their minds.
This usually can cost you money. If you have proof of your qualification and you have operated your student account within the agreed overdraft, then there is no reason why you stick to the same bank. You can special graduate account offers in the market that are willing to prolong interest-free overdrafts for up to three years after university.
On the other hand, if you have been loyal to the same bank for a long period and you don�¢����t feel like changing, you can access them with a good deal that you may have found in another bank and ask them to match it. For them having loyal customers is even more important than luring new ones.
You shouldn't switch to another bank for a graduate account only if you failed to complete or pass a course. While the current bank will automatically transfer you to a graduate account on the course's set completion date, a new bank will demand proof of graduation.