Connected bank accounts ..personal and ltd company!

Kittykat74 · 9 October 2017 at 2:27PM

We have had personal accounts with a major bank for many years! Recently we moved over the company account (Ltd company)
I am unhappy to find these accounts have been linked both on the app and online. So if I need to make a payment then the entire list of anyone we have paid personally comes up.
I just feel this is a huge mistake waiting to happen (not I don't trust myself as I am very careful but mistakes happen ..) I also feel nervous having 'all eggs in one basket' if hackers can access this then they can access the business account too.
I have asked the bank to separate with different logins but have been told this is not possible. Does anyone else think this is odd?
Thank you

RG2015 · 9 October 2017 at 2:42PM

Yes, this does sound odd but I have heard that NatWest do exactly this.

I assume that as you say "we" that there are at least two of you that have personal accounts and are company shareholders. Does the other shareholder see exactly the same payees as you, both business and personal?

A limited company is an entirely separate legal entity to its shareholders so I cannot understand why these have been linked. I suspect though that this is a result of the anti money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) legislation.

It may be worth taking legal advice or at least undertaking some research on this issue. Just to satisfy my curiosity I am now going to start googling this issue.

Edit: It may also apply to company directors and authorised signatories

RG2015 · 9 October 2017 at 4:12PM

The following is on the NatWest website.

Use our mobile banking app to:
View both your Business and Personal accounts in one place

Clearly NatWest promote this as a feature of their mobile app. Therefore one major bank at least do not see this as a conflict. One must assume that they they have a well appointed legal team so it would not appear to be a legal requirement to keep these separate.

https://www.business.natwest.com/business/newapp/new.html

eskbanker · 9 October 2017 at 4:31PM

Santander do the same - my understanding is that they're effectively associating an online banking ID with an individual rather than a specific bank account, so any account that person has access to is visible within online banking.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to describe the accounts being inherently linked or connected as such, just accessible from the same login, which, as observed above, will be seen by some as a benefit rather than a weakness (it works for me!).

If 'all eggs in one basket' is a concern, don't use the same bank for both business and personal banking!

Kittykat74 · 9 October 2017 at 4:52PM

It is very confusing when trying to carry out banking tasks as everything is linked!
My husband is the Director and I am the secretary.. only us! But considering I previously accidently paid his salary to HMRC and paid him the tax and NI it worries me as yes I appreciate I need to be careful I just see huge scope for errors!
So yes I now need to look at changing bank again .. joy of joys!!

mt99 · 9 October 2017 at 5:45PM

Not sure it's a good idea to have a business account in the same bank (or group) as your personal account - I would definately keep these as far apart as possible.

evangelos · 9 October 2017 at 5:47PM

As mentioned Santander does the same (customer ID login/password and then you can see all your accounts business including).

In Santander however the payees of one account are independent from the payees of the other account. If you create a payee in your personal account, you cannot just "see" it from the business account and transfer money to him. You will need to recreate the same payee in the business account.

RG2015 · 9 October 2017 at 5:56PM

eskbanker wrote: »

Santander do the same - my understanding is that they're effectively associating an online banking ID with an individual rather than a specific bank account, so any account that person has access to is visible within online banking.

Up to 2012, I worked for a large company and managed all of the UK banking with the same bank as I used for my personal banking. There was no link at all then although my ID was verified for both personal and company banking.

Round about 2009 or 2010 I arranged all of the KYC requirements for the company directors which was a tortuous task to say the least! I simply cannot imagine any of the directors or signatories having access to their personal banking on the business banking login.

polymaff · 9 October 2017 at 7:17PM

RG2015 wrote: »

Yes, this does sound odd but I have heard that NatWest do exactly this.

They do - or at least they did, even 25 years ago.

We had personal, sole trader and limited company accounts with NatWest and they consistently failed to take any heed of the paying in slip submitted when deciding where to credit a payment.

Absolute clowns.

Kittykat74 · 9 October 2017 at 9:52PM

The very question I asked (if the CEO had all his personal and business accounts linked) the gentleman who confirmed they would not be revisiting the decision to have 'merged' bank accounts!! .. He did not answer...:rotfl:

Connected bank accounts ..personal and ltd company!

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