UK student bank accounts: the best perks, from railcards to cheap meals

You are not required to have a student bank account but those aimed at university-goers tend to offer features you cannot get elsewhere. Photograph: Nikola Stojadinovic/Getty Images

This month, hundreds of thousands of students across the UK will receive some life-changing news that will determine where they spend the next few years of their lives.

However, amid all the celebrations, as sixth-formers find out if they got into their first-choice university, and the (hopefully temporary) sorrows, as those whose exams did not go to plan scramble for a place through clearing, there are some important financial matters to think about.