No Fee Bank Account for non profit group

goombaydanceband

Hello, we are a non profit support organisation. Any contributions are used to pay room rent, refreshments, support literature, etc and any remaining monies are forwarded to our region office. We support ourselves. The UK governing body are a registered charity but use of this is not available to individual groups. Are there any banks that offer fee free accounts? We average less than £400/month contributions from service users.

Mark_d

https://www.lloydsbank.com/business/business-accounts/treasurers-account.html

Savvy_Sue

Just to add, the costs of running a bank account may depend on what you need to do: paying in cash isn't always welcome and can be tricky (especially if you don't have a nearby branch), and writing cheques also costly - if you can make transfers by BACS that's usually a better option. 

One bank which is not on the High Street is Unity Trust. I can't say for certain that they are fee free, but you may be able to take advantage of your governing body's charity status to open an account: I know that I was able to do so for a small walking group which is not itself a charity, but is affiliated to a national charity. Because they are not on the high street we did everything online, apart from occasional cash payments in, for which we were able to use a nominated Post Office. I found them easy to use, and to get in touch with: 2FA works well. 

penners324

Barclays, Metro, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander 

Just look up Community account 

magicmoneyportaloo

I'd also recommend Unity Trust Bank, my parish council uses it and it works well.

Undervalued

penners324 said:

Barclays, Metro, Lloyds, NatWest, Santander 

Just look up Community account 

But is the OP's "support group" a community (for banking purposes)?

It is over twenty years since I was involved in this sort of activity and it was getting difficult to open such bank accounts then.

Savvy_Sue

I don't know about the OP, but I've just managed to open a Treasurer's Account with Lloyd's for an annual local event which until now has done everything informally, in cash. I had no problems answering their questions. Too soon to say how well it works but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. 

Savvy_Sue

Just to update this: there has been a minor hiccup at their end, with an invoice being sent with this month's statement for £11.05. Peering at it closely, it appeared this was for paying in cash. Peering more closely at their website, couldn't quickly find any suggestion that they'd do this. But I did notice the statement said we were a Business Account, which seemed wrong. 

Quick phone call: first lady said she could refund this month's charges but that future charges would stand, however she'd put me through to the Complaints Team. Lovely chap there concluded that somehow our turnover of £1000 had catapulted us from 'Treasurer's Account' to 'Business Account', for which the limit is £50k. He's reversing that ... 

And the account is now £20 better off to make up for the inconvenience. 

EricMears

Our organisation has had a Lloyds 'treasurers account' for 20+ years which has always been fee-free.

Today,  I've received notification that the account is being re-branded as a new "Community Account" with a monthly 'Account Maintenance Fee'  of £4.25  (i.e. £51 / year).    That's rather more than our annual expenditure in most years !

I'd welcome any suggestions of other banks that still offer fee-free banking for non-profit organisations that aren't registered charities  (initial Google search hasn't helped !)

Savvy_Sue

EricMears said:

Our organisation has had a Lloyds 'treasurers account' for 20+ years which has always been fee-free.

Today,  I've received notification that the account is being re-branded as a new "Community Account" with a monthly 'Account Maintenance Fee'  of £4.25  (i.e. £51 / year).    That's rather more than our annual expenditure in most years !

I'd welcome any suggestions of other banks that still offer fee-free banking for non-profit organisations that aren't registered charities  (initial Google search hasn't helped !)

Oh now that's worrying! 

Just checking, you're not affiliated to anything which might be a registered charity? The walking group for which I was treasurer came under the umbrella of Ramblers, and that got us an account with Unity Trust (I think Ramblers national may bank with them). 

I shall be following this with interest, do let us know if you find anything. I can tell you that AFAIK Nationwide are no help whatsoever: I got very excited when I saw a couple of friends who are running a PAYG craft session were using them, but they said they'd had to open a joint account in their own names rather than one in their 'craft' name. 

WillPS

EricMears said:

Our organisation has had a Lloyds 'treasurers account' for 20+ years which has always been fee-free.

Today,  I've received notification that the account is being re-branded as a new "Community Account" with a monthly 'Account Maintenance Fee'  of £4.25  (i.e. £51 / year).    That's rather more than our annual expenditure in most years !

I'd welcome any suggestions of other banks that still offer fee-free banking for non-profit organisations that aren't registered charities  (initial Google search hasn't helped !)

Apologies if this comes across as impertinent, but if your expenditure is so low then is it really worth bothering with the hoopla of a bank account for your organisation? If I needed to raise £50 from a group for something I'd probably just have a whip round, maybe utilising monzo.me or similar.