It is advisable to make one of your first tasks, before entering into an IVA, opening a new bank account.

This should be with a bank that is not one of your creditors. However as many finance houses are linked (owned by the same company) you first need to shortlist the accounts that are available to you.

Below is a list of banks and linked financial companies.

Abbey National is linked with MBNA and Cahoot.

Bank of Scotland is linked with Halifax, Sainsbury’s Bank, Capital Bank, Intelligent Finance, Gus Finance, AA Financial Services and Renault Financial Services.

Barclays is linked with Barclaycard, Woolwich, Masterloan, Providian, Littlewoods cards, Monument.

Co-operative bank is linked with Smile (online banking).

GE Capital is linked with CL finance.

HSBC is linked to First Direct.

Lloyds TSB is linked to Black Horse and Chartered Trust

NatWest is linked to Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco Finance.

Yorkshire Bank is linked to Clydesdale bank and Northern Bank.

So once you have short listed the available bank accounts you need to apply for a basic account with no credit facilities. Remember part of your IVA Debt Solution agreement is that you will take no further credit (unless given permission from your IP).