Trying to find a deposit account for a charity

cinq999

Hi all. :wave:

I have been looking everywhere, but am still stuck as where best to go.

Basically, we are a small registered charity, and we are looking for a deposit account.

We receive approx 15 standing orders per month from various people.

What we need is an account, that allows each payment in to have its own individual reference.....ie, surname of payee. Each year we claim back the tax from HMRC, but the problem we have with our current deposit account is that all payments in have a identical ref code each month.....HMRC have no way of verifying who the payment is from.

It's a Nationwide account, which is an account "within" an account. Ie. to set up a standing order, you need the sort code, account number, and then the reference is another account number. I assume they use a "main" account, which has several smaller accounts inside.

We are looking for something more like a normal account, which has only the 1 account number and sort code, and so the Ref can be used to identify the payee.

The only other thing is that it would need to have at least 2 signatories.

The interest is not a concern...Nationwide pays a few pence a year on several thousand pounds....the main concern is the payee referencing.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Savvy_Sue

Unity Trust will do the job: if you need to pay in or withdraw cash you'll need to set up an arrangement at up to two local bank branches and up to two local Post Offices, otherwise you'll do it all by post or phone or online - two signatories on cheques, and two 'inputs' needed on internet transactions.

You get some interest, not sure what the rate is atm, but it's very poor everywhere AFAIK.

You could also consider CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) and Stewardship, but I don't know what their bank statements look like or what other services they provide.

CKhalvashi

I agree with Sue.

For immediate access, HSBC will do the job, too.

I use them for several charity accounts, as I bank with HSBC, and they offer free banking to charities with t/o under £1m.

CK

zax47

I'll recommend HSBC too. I'm treasurer for the supporters' club for our local footy team and we use their Community Account. Costs us nothing to run and does everything we want, more here;

http://www.business.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/business-banking/business-bank-accounts/community-account

Savvy_Sue

BTW, I'll say again, that it's always worth working out what you want from a bank account before you work out which is the best bank for your organisation.

If you want to be able to go into YOUR branch UT, CAF and Stewardship are not for you. If, on the other hand, your nearest bank is over a mile from your workplace and has no parking, and you find the notion of queuing up to pay cheques in somewhat quaint, you'll value being able to post cheques off. Of course if you're regularly withdrawing or paying in cash you NEED over the counter services - but UT can handle that.

When I started as treasurer of a local voluntary group, one of my first actions was to open an account with Unity Trust. (Mind you, before I did that I changed the mandate on the existing account to require two signatories, but we won't go there!)

Brassedoff

I run a CASC register football club, we have been at Natwest for years but recently moved to Yorkshire as they charge us nothing. Go have a look

DemiDee

I'm sorry, but from our charity's personal experience (we chose the bank due to previous and current good experience with their mortgage department) I would advise that you avoid opening a charity account with HSBC at all costs. From the moment we opened our account onwards, we have had nothing but trouble with the most basic of things - mistakes galore which have taken up much time and energy to resolve, from having been sent no less than 13 different account passwords via email - all of which didn't work, to being sent a similar amount of the password gadgets through the post, again which didn't work. We have had unofficial charges made without out knowledge, which have been reinstated only because we noticed them, and many other things - basic things which a bank would normally do as a matter of course - go very wrong indeed. The internet banking interface is awful, and just as recently as today, we've just noticed that in the past month, they've set up a direct debit on our account with NPower, which neither of our account signatories, one of which is myself, know anything about! I know and appreciate that mistakes can happen. But to have experienced so many and so frequently is more than a coincidence - it's complete incompetence.

Wywth

DemiDee wrote: »

I'm sorry, but from our charity's personal experience (we chose the bank due to previous and current good experience with their mortgage department) I would advise that you avoid opening a charity account with HSBC at all costs. From the moment we opened our account onwards, we have had nothing but trouble with the most basic of things - mistakes galore which have taken up much time and energy to resolve, from having been sent no less than 13 different account passwords via email - all of which didn't work, to being sent a similar amount of the password gadgets through the post, again which didn't work. We have had unofficial charges made without out knowledge, which have been reinstated only because we noticed them, and many other things - basic things which a bank would normally do as a matter of course - go very wrong indeed. The internet banking interface is awful, and just as recently as today, we've just noticed that in the past month, they've set up a direct debit on our account with NPower, which neither of our account signatories, one of which is myself, know anything about! I know and appreciate that mistakes can happen. But to have experienced so many and so frequently is more than a coincidence - it's complete incompetence.

I don't know which internet banking HSBC use for charity accounts.

But I have a personal account with HSBC and internet banking is no problem.

Also, for the past 3 years we had a HSBC business direct account (now closed due to application of monthly charges)
However, again their internet service was great, although it takes abit of getting used to - it's designed for all businesses big & small alike, and access at varying levels by as many staff as you like. In trying to be all things to all businesses, it has some complications that would not really be required for a simple, small business.

DemiDee

Wywth wrote: »

I don't know which internet banking HSBC use for charity accounts.

They use business banking, Wywth, although charity accounts aren't charged a monthly fee, even though they tried that one, too! I use First Direct (a HSBC subsidiary) for my personal banking and can't fault them, and we have a mortgage with HSBC, which has gone without any problem at all. I can only assume that it's the charity/business banking side that has admin who don't have a clue what they're doing. I was warned beforehand, by another charity, but because we'd had no problem with our mortgage nor with First Direct, I'd ignored the warning, to our peril!

unlucky67

I use the Clydesdale bank for 4 small charities - mainly because they have a local branch. They are operated as business current accounts - no interest but no charges ...
Two signatories on account - internet banking where you can have nominated users - users who can view the account and do a few other things but not make any payments ( the main user can make payments)
They are affiliated with the Yorkshire bank - so I guess they will be the same if they are more local to you...
Only thing I don't like about Clydesdale is you can access online banking records older than less than a year and if you make payment to another Clydesdale account it appears on statements as going to the account no - not a name...
We get internet banking payments - but not standing orders though - and they appear on statements as names and references...