Trying to set up a Sqn bank account after ours has been managed for a long time by Wing Committee.
Any recommendations on bank accounts with low fees, access to debit card and ideally 24/7 banking.
Thanks
We were in a similar position but my new committee set it up entirely - I was part of the discussions but as OCs aren’t a voting member of the Comittee I didn’t get to vote on the final decision. (we ended up using Barclay but are considering changing as you now need a paying in book and we don’t have a local branch after it closed end of last year)
we use Holts they are very Military focused and get us 
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We have just joined NatWest. Working out well so far. Mobile app does the job - can request & authorise payments with ease.
Only downside is you do need to have one of the account holders to be an existing NatWest customer.
Hello,
I have some ideas about this - specifically avoid HSBC, Virgin Money and Santander (they just don’t work well with our organisation).
My preferred bank is Lloyds. They are free, offer dual authorisation online payments and are quite reasonable to deal with. Other plus points:
- my record opening time is 3 days!
- if you’re a signatory on multiple accounts, the same log in is used for all (handy for Wing treasurers if they are managing several squadron’s accounts at once)
- When adding and removing signatories, the only information you need from the new signatory is their email address and mobile number - they enter all their personal details themselves. You then sign the form electronically by email (using your phone for 2FA). No need to visit a branch or use a stamp.
- They’re pretty quick at dealing with things. My average phone wait time is less than a minute except on Friday afternoons.
My next recommendation is Natwest which is not as good as Lloyds but you can do dual authorisation online banking using the recently introduced Bankline for Communities (free) though you can’t get that through Online banking. They can do adding signatories without using paper too but it’s not as smooth as Lloyds.
Lloyds went from being terrible to being the best in about 5 years.
For the record, I’m a signatory on about 15 accounts currently and have had to deal with them all. Only HSBC got as far as the ombudsman though.
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We also moved from NatWest to Lloyds, and it was setup within 4 weeks, with 4 “signatories” , all with magic little boxes , 2 signature authority etc.
Cant complain about the service we received, would recommend
C
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if it makes any difference the RBL prefer and encourage the use of Lloyd’s for Branch use.
We do so and agree with @ihavelotsofopinions points - it is very easy to “double signature” digitally via online banking
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My tips for opening a Lloyds account - open it with one signatory as it’s easier to manage the opening process with just one proactive contact.
Once it’s open, you can add new signatories progressively through online banking which is easier if you have less engaged civ coms who might not understand the importance of completing things urgently which will avoid delaying the account opening. Also with a number of initial signatories, if a signatory causes issues for whatever reason, the whole application doesn’t have to be abandoned.
Since the account is single signatory at first, it’s really easy to do that startup management. When you’ve successfully added the new signatories, you can flip it to dual authorisation in online banking->admin with immediate effect. At this point you can start funding it whilst having had your sort code and account number for a couple of weeks to prepare changeover letters for subs payers and prepare for changing any direct debits.
What kind of account did you open? Was it just a standard current account?
We’ve been trying to set up a treasurer’s account with Lloyds and it is not easy. The information they want in order for us to prove we are a charity are ridiculous. They want copies of leases and how long have we been operating as a charity to name a couple.
We thought it would be a straightforward process but it has been going on fir over 2 months. Unfortunately my treasurer is over 70 and not tech savvy 
Hello,
Are you sure you’re applying for the right type of account? A Treasurer’s account is a few simple questions about how you operate and what your aims are - very easy stuff. In fact a Treasurer’s account is suitable for even a home made charity that turns over 20 quid a year. Absolutely no requests for leases etc. As I say, you can even set it up by just one person in 20 mins. In fact, I didn’t even need to supply that information for a business account for a Wing. They do ask how long you’ve been operating for but most squadrons know their foundation date as they probably have a commemorative notice on the wall or some history. If it’s over 20 years, they won’t check anyway.
That said, the Treasurer’s account has now been discontinued and replaced by the Community account which will have a charge of £4.75 per month but is suitable for organisations with turnovers upto £250k which will easily include larger Wings now, lowering their banking charges. Account openings are now suspended until the new type account has been launched (13 November).
Given that most banks now charge and the ones that don’t probably will in the next 12 months, I’d still be pro-Lloyds as it’s ideal for [us].
Not directly related - but might be of use to someone….
IF you’re using a BUSINESS account - you will usually be charged for paying money in as well as being charged for each payment you make via BACS / Chq / Card / ATM etc…
The sickening bit is being charged to pay money IN…!
To avoid this element, ask your bank for a BUSINESS DEPOSIT account in addition to your CURRENT account. It’s a basic savings account, like the one you had as a kid to pay birthday money in… but you couldn’t draw from it…
Once it’s been deposited, you can then transfer it via online banking…
Paying in to a deposit account is free and so is inter account transfers - provided it’s with the same bank!
(We used to own a pub - a pub’s typical bottom line profit is about 10-11% per year. Reducing the paying in charge of around 1.5% went straight to our bottom line and increased it to 11-12%. I know this doesn’t sound like “much” but read it again… it increased our profit by about 10%!
Morning @Dad2james,
Your mileage may vary with other banks but for Lloyds and in general across the banks, a community type account has greater benefit than a business account. For instance, business banking with Lloyds is £7/month. The community account is going to be £4.75 and they will indeed charge you to deposit cash but only £0.75p per £100 each month. That means a squadron would need to deposit a LOT of cash MONTHLY to get up to the £7 level. (all I’m saying here is that card fees and electronic payment fees are increasingly going to be cheaper than cash).
Since with most banks (I can’t say all but casually, all) you need to have a current account to be eligible to open a deposit/savings account, the same charges will apply to all of these (don’t quote me on it but I think it’s actually more expensive to deposit cash into a Lloyds savings account). That may be a loop hole which used to exist but is now generally closed for any bank you would actually want to use.
One of the best solutions to this is to get on board with the Xero programme. I won’t pretend that the base cost of Xero is cheap - it’s not expensive at around £14 per month for Ignite but of course it offers much more than simply the ability to make the bank account visible to the Squadron commander and adjutant in almost real time. It allows [staff] to raise invoices with card payment links and bank details and send those directly to parents and caregivers as well as saving hours in generating the Form 60 at the end of the year and enabling the Wing to see if you’re going to be a problem come April long before you become a problem in April because they have a trivial oversight (this might seem imposing but they can ask to see your accounts and records at any time and if you can’t produce them, that would be warning bells for more than one reason).
Side thought: for some squadrons and if you have the right type of account, to save money on this you might be better giving your OC/adj read only access to the bank account. This is the sort of access intended for someone working in a sales department who has no authority to spend money but often needs to check that invoices are paid or search for “lost” transactions. Lloyds are able to provide this functionality and that gives true real-time visibility of the bank statement for those “morning of the event” payments! If this allowed the person to PAY IN cheques using the mobile app, that too would be a great advantage and it might make accepting cheque payments relevant again! Cheques now clear in 24 hrs/overnight. I’m not sure how the paying in process stands for limited access signatories.
Incidentally, HSBC still being a pain. Another change raised and failed. Cannot recommend getting rid of them enough.
This is the account we’re trying to open
Those are definitely not the types of questions you should be answering as a squadron opening up a Treasurer’s account. It’s three limited entry boxes of prose (asking for stuff in ACP 1 generally) followed by a few simple turnover, country of operation and tax status questions. Perhaps you chose the wrong type of organisation on the first page which opened the can of worms. Unfortunately, new applications are on hold until (Friday) 13th November whilst the transition from Treasurer’s to Community accounts is made so I can’t see those first few pages of application at the moment to compare notes.
Perhaps its worth us cancelling the application and starting again?
I think that’s what I would do in this situation. One of the questions isn’t “have you ever tried to open an account with us and failed to succeed” so it shouldn’t cause a problem And right now it will give you a few weeks of break.
If your list of signatories on your present account is identical to on your new account you will also be able to use the switching service which will move any Direct Debits to the new account and redirect any standing orders for three years (specifically, your old bank details will now point to the new account for this period). Do be sure to download your statement history though because I find variable results when doing this even though the previous five years should be offered to you. Ironically, this is one of the few things HSBC are good at!
Morning @ihavelotsofopinions
You are obviously well versed in banking and I appreciate your advice so far. Unfortunately I am a novice in these matters therefore I apologies if my questions seem obvious 
I’m going to cancel the current application once I have agreement from the rest of the committee. What account type should I now be looking at to have the dual signatory which is the main feature? Is it a straight forward current account or do I need to wait for the new community account on 15th Nov, or is there something else 
Thanks again
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I’ve dealt with a lot of money problems over the last decade or two. Most of them largely stemmed from people having accounts with HSBC or Yorkshire Bank as was.
If you’re going with Lloyds, cancel this application and wait for the community account in November. Even with the monthly fee, in terms of administration it will be the easiest to deal with and hand over. The only other free decent account is Natwest and it’s very likely that they will introduce charges shortly too - they’ve been doing some back end work like introducing Bankline for communities (the system that gives dual authorisation) so I think it’s on the cards.
Regarding me and sharing my knowledge, because this organisation ineffectively only recognises Regional and Wing Chairs as points of contact, I’ve found it very difficult to distribute my knowledge around the country.
Most are terrible at communicating, worse at working with younger volunteers (they often don’t understand how things work in the 2020s - something the uniformed side are very much aware of) and the more effective ones are usually trying to hold together a squadron or two across a 90 mile or more distance. Infact, even as a Wing trustee I couldn’t share information due to the (unnecessary) tie-down on the Wing or Region Sharepoint pages despite no one else offering information. There are also lots of old fashioned ideas such as sharing documents with information in whereas putting information directly on websites is now the de-facto way of communicating casual information like banking knowledge, gift aid etc. I do often feel it would help immensely if we could bring civilian committee management into the 1990s.
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Just to add to this and it may help others, we had the letter from Lloyds advising us that we were moving to the new community account and advising of the charges. My Chair phoned them up on the number provided, they confirmed that as an Excepted charity (and they read the list out from the Govrnment website) we do not have to pay the fees and our account will continue to be free. We were expecting them to push back but it was absolutely straightforward, no arguments just “yes we can see which category you fit into and you’ll be excluded from the migration to the new account”.
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Out of curiosity, what category doe we fit under?
All I can think is that we get lumped in with Scouts and Guides cause we don’t meet the criteria for 11. Charities for the armed forces
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