I’m sure a lot of people across the country have received a letter from Lloyds telling you that your Treasurer’s account will be converted into a Community account on 20th December and some charges will be introduced. Having now read the terms and spoken with Lloyds about squadrons for whom I am a signatory, I can confirm that Air Cadet squadrons are eligible to remain on the same product, currently with no charges. At least one other user on the forum has also done this.
Whilst registered charities and excepted charities remain eligible, when the accounts were originally opened there was no flag set against the organisation to indicate its type - only that it was “a community organisation”. This is why you’re grouped in as part of the change. All that is needed is to call the number and let them know you are an excepted charity or registered charity as appropriate and the migration can be stopped.
Since the web page is not presently searchable, you can find the full details here:
along with the number to call and sort. It took me about 15 minutes to update the changes for around 10 squadrons. Don’t call on a Friday, the lines are busiest then. You’ll be through in a couple of minutes before 10am normally.
If you’re not sure if you’re an excepted charity or registered charity, check with the rest of your committee, take a look to see if you can find yourself on the Charity Commission website or finally, take a look in ACP 8 to find your charity exception order number. If you’re a registered charity you will probably need to tell them your charity number but excepted charities won’t need to provide any further information.
It’s a bit cryptic to get to so I thought I would put the link here after checking what the new process was like. The process behind the scenes seems to be similar/the same.
@ihavelotsofopinions This is so helpful, thank you. I will have a look today.
Am I better getting it set up by our Treasurer initially or can I go ahead and start the process as Chair and add him later? He’s not very good at tech and it has taken a lot of persuading to get him to agree to online banking.
Thanks again
If you have technophobes I would be inclined to set yourself up as the sole user and then when the account is open and the time comes to add a more users you can be with them as they fill in the details. Adding a specimen signature does involve using paper and pen and taking a photograph which could delay your opening unnecessarily. Much easier to get the account open as the card and card readers take a couple of weeks to arrive anyway.
Adding new signatories and then activating dual authorisation can all be done from within the online banking product so you will have total flexibility to change to dual authorisation as soon as you’re comfortable with your signatories. This assumes you’re not immediately closing the existing account and it can continue as normal until you’ve got the Lloyds account set up how you want it.
If you’re having difficulty getting people to agree to online banking, remind them that it has been a requirement since 2023.
