It can be a challenge opening a checking account with bad credit. Not only will banks deny you a bank account based off your credit history, they also use an internal form of credit checking called the CheckSystem. This system is basically a “bank credit score” that’s given to you as a backing customer. All banks share this information. If you have missed payments to your bank, had you account negative, etc.

The first thing you need to do is to get an official copy of your credit report and make sure that there are no errors to be found. Even the smallest errors can drastically lower your credit score. So fix these credit report errors to help increase you chances of opening a bank account for with bad credit history.

If you don’t happen to have a credit card, you can purchase a prepaid debit card. These are essentially preloaded credit cards that are attached to your bank account. You should put $100 on the card – the standard amount needed for opening a bank account.

You can open a bank at a large bank with poor credit if you add direct deposit from your employer. Once you open an account, you will probably after to visit your company’s human resource office to help set up a direct deposit to your bank. This will give you a limited account that will allow similar functionality to a checking account, but with a limited amount of transactions.

If you can’t open a bad credit bank account with regular banks, you are going to need to get a checking account for bad credit. To do so you should seek to open an account with an internet bank. The opening deposit required may be higher, but the credit score requirements will be lower. You can find many such online bad credit banks willing to give you a poor credit checking account. However, you should check out all offers you see and see what they offer. It’s always best to do a bit of comparison shopping here to ensure you get the best deal.

Another option for you to consider is to look at getting a second chance bank account -- i.e. bank accounts for bad credit. These are basically special bank accounts offered online (and at some physical locations) that are specifically made for bad credit clients. A 2^nd chance checking account will give any person with bad credit a chance of having a bank account. You can find these by looking online.

Getting a bank account with bad credit can be done – but you will have to be persistent and explore all available options. If one method does not work, then try another.