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Recommend a bank account for a club/voluntary group..

Hello

Does anybody have any dealings with clubs or voluntary group finances? A new group that I belong to is wanting to set up a bank account and I'm looking for recommendations. Basically, we want an account with free banking. I'm not expecting much interest (if any), and we don't expect to have a large balance in the account -a few hundred pounds at most.

Internet banking would be very useful, but what other facilities do they offer, -e.g. chequebook, ATM card, debit card etc? We have branches of all the main banks nearby, so we aren't limited to which ones we can use; we just want the one with the most flexible facilities.

Thanks in advance

Comments

  • anniecave
    anniecave Posts: 2,463 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    We use LTSB for our church, I think it's called a "treasurers account".

    The main problem usually is because of the legal nature of this sort of thing, 2 signatories are usually required for any sort of transaction on this sort of account, so they can't then give you a debit card or online banking. You end up being reliant on cheques to pay for things, and both signatories need to sign the cheque. Also you can't even get "view only" internet banking, you have to wait for a statement in the post!

    If you can find an account that gives you internet banking, or a debit card facility, let me know, as we were looking at options for an account for a specific project at our church, and in the end we decided it was easiest to use someone's personal account due to the problems mentioned above!
    Indecision is the key to flexibility :)
  • rb10
    rb10 Posts: 6,334 Forumite
    CAF Bank and Unity Trust both give online banking.

    "View only" access is easy here, and you can also make payments subject to the mandate given to the bank. If two signatures are required for withdrawals, then one person sets up the payment, then another has to log in to approve it.

    Deposits to CAF are made through any HSBC branch, or to Unity through a nominated Post Office branch.

    I would never consider using any other bank for a charity or community account. The high street banks tend to be useless at changing signatories etc.
  • our voluntary group use barclays was easy to set up and got all the stationary within 7 days
  • anniecave wrote: »
    We use LTSB for our church, I think it's called a "treasurers account".

    The main problem usually is because of the legal nature of this sort of thing, 2 signatories are usually required for any sort of transaction on this sort of account, so they can't then give you a debit card or online banking. You end up being reliant on cheques to pay for things, and both signatories need to sign the cheque. Also you can't even get "view only" internet banking, you have to wait for a statement in the post!

    If you can find an account that gives you internet banking, or a debit card facility, let me know, as we were looking at options for an account for a specific project at our church, and in the end we decided it was easiest to use someone's personal account due to the problems mentioned above!
    we use barclays community account and 3 sigs any 2 to sign also internet/ banking telephone banking debit cards if all the sigs agree to this with small withdrawl limits per month
  • Barclays are a waste of space.
    We've been trying to change the signatories on our club/ charity account for the best part of a year now, and it still hasn't happened.

    Add to that the fact that they don't actually check the signatures on cheques (One person was signing cheques for years until they decided he wasn't actually a signatory after all), and the Norwich branches are terminally unhelpful with anything regarding this, and I'd avoid.

    -Gollum
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