At 11:47 +0100 29/4/08, Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley wrote:
I bank with The Co-operative Bank (who are the only UK bank with an ethical investment policy who do current accounts), and they do a Community Banking account specifically for non-profits http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1196151412581,CFSweb/Page/Business-CommunityBanking (which also allows you to apply for grants from the bank towards worthy causes). When I applied for one of their Community Banking accounts, sorting out the anti-money-laundering ID requirements for all the signatories did take some time, but those are statutory requirements you will have to fulfill when applying for any UK account.
Yours, Joe. (User:Joeblakesley)
I volunteer in a small community project, and we were turned down by the Co-operative Bank. The reason given was that one of the signatories had a County Court Judgement or bad credit rating or similar.
We then approached a credit union, and we now have a bank account. This week we asked for the first cheque to be written, and low and behold, the credit union banks with the Co-operative Bank!
The whole process took about six months (that is deciding to apply to the Co-op, filling forms, appearing in person with passports, and then being refused, and going to a credit union). We do not have a cheque book, but we can request cheques to be written from cleared funds in our account. We can initiate and receive BACS etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union
Gordo