Had an IVA agreed/set up in Oct '07 and it took until yesterday for my bank (1st Direct) to call me & give 30 days to find a new bank as they were withdrawing their facility. No problem, if that's their policy i can live with that. However, i'm now staring in the face the prospect of trying to find a bank who will be willing to open an account for me. Having read the forum i can see that there are many of you who have done so successfully but, when entering into the IVA i 'defaulted' with 10 separate card providers/banks. These included Co-operative bank, MBNA, RBS, Natwest, Halifax, Citi, Capital One, Barclaycard, Morgan Stanley, Goldfish and AMEX. Quite a few, eh.

Anyway, having contacted CCCs and my IVA IP, i've been advised to avoid accounts with these companies. OK, so i guessed that much, but the difficulty i now find myself in is trying to find an alternative bank that isn't a susidiary or affiliated to one of the above. I've tried Googling banking groups and drawn a blank. The CCCS did provide me with a list of possible banks but i've been unable to cross refer a few of them with any of the banks listed above. The outstanding potential choices i have are Abbey, Clydesdale, 1st Trust Bank, LLoyds/TSB, Nationwide Bldg Soc, Northern Bank, Ulster Bank & Yorkshire bank.

If anyone knows if any of these are affiliated to the above banks/ card providers or even if someone can tell me that any of them aren't i'd be ever so grateful.