Has anybody recently opened a bank account for a charitable company before registering it with the Charity Commission?
We are facing the chicken and egg situation that the banks want the charity to be registered before opening an account but the Commission want to see a bank statement showing £5k of income before they will register it.
(I would usually use a CIO which avoids this problem. Before that I used a letter pledging a donation but (as per guidance) those are no longer acceptable).
Thanks
Andrew
RBS offers community bank accounts which are available to unregistered charities, although note that at least one of the applicants must be an RBS customer: Community bank account | Royal Bank of Scotland Business
It took a couple of attempts at emailing the same information (“the bank won’t open an account until the charity is registered, here’s proof of offer of a grant”) but the Commission did in the end register it first - this was either late last year or early this.
Would be interested to see if perseverance still pays off or if they’ve decided to take a more firm line since then!
James Heathcote
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