I guess Alliant must not make it obvious enough during the application process about what I wrote in my above comment. I didn't take detailed notes on that part of the process and don't remember what the screens showed.
But I did save this message shown when I was signing up (it was a few years ago), which indicates they do soft, not hard checks: "Alliant will pull a soft credit inquiry for all applicants' background checks. If you have a credit freeze, you must temporarily release it to apply."
If you already have any credit cards or lines of credit, be careful about closing them down, because that is something that dinged me in the past. If you close down an old credit card and get a new one, the average age of your accounts is reduced, which makes a difference. So if you're not being charged fees to keep one open, it may be better to just keep it even if you don't use it anymore.
Now that I think on it, simply getting a new credit card will reduce the average age of your accounts whether or not you close the old one down. So maybe there's nothing you can do about that drawback of getting a new card.
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Date: 2022-May-13, Friday 06:12 pm (UTC)But I did save this message shown when I was signing up (it was a few years ago), which indicates they do soft, not hard checks:
"Alliant will pull a soft credit inquiry for all applicants' background checks. If you have a credit freeze, you must temporarily release it to apply."
And based on this, applying for a bank account shouldn't hurt your credit score:
https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/banks/articles/what-happens-to-my-credit-score-when-i-apply-for-a-bank-account/
More info:
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/what-is-a-soft-inquiry/
https://www.cnbc.com/select/what-to-know-when-applying-for-bank-account/
If you already have any credit cards or lines of credit, be careful about closing them down, because that is something that dinged me in the past. If you close down an old credit card and get a new one, the average age of your accounts is reduced, which makes a difference. So if you're not being charged fees to keep one open, it may be better to just keep it even if you don't use it anymore.
Now that I think on it, simply getting a new credit card will reduce the average age of your accounts whether or not you close the old one down. So maybe there's nothing you can do about that drawback of getting a new card.