Opening a business current account is an important step for any charity.
In order to help you prepare, UK Finance has worked with providers of UK business banking accounts to agree a basic set of information that they will need from you.
They have developed a guide that explains the essential details and documents you’ll need to open your account.
The guide, which is a checklist to help you prepare to open a business current account, can be found here.
Once you have completed and provided the documentation explained on the checklist to your bank of choice, the bank will undertake a review of the information provided including relevant security, identity and credit checks.
So long as all the necessary information has been provided this assessment and security check process should usually take around 10 working days.
However, if greater due diligence is needed it could take longer.
It is important to note that if you have foreign investors, directors or owners this process may take longer as the bank based in the UK will need to undertake checks abroad, often via professionals (e.g solicitors/accountants), in the directors’ country of residence or business domain.
It is also important to note that these checks will continue periodically across the life of the account relationship and may require further information/documents to be provided to ensure that the bank’s record of you remains current and compliant with regulatory expectations.
You can find out all you need to know about opening a business current account at Better Business Finance.co.uk
