Open Cooperative Bank account

[iteles]

After some investigation, the best combination of 'ethical' and 'business banking' in the UK at the moment seems to be:

• Triodos Bank
• Cooperative Bank

Suggestion: Triodos has a 12 week waiting list and ambiguous criteria, so I suggest we go with the Cooperative in the short term and do some more investigating into Triodos (and others).

Does anyone know of other banks we should be looking into?

P.S. I discovered some great banks that only seem to do savings accounts for now, like the charity bank and the Ecology Building Society 😞

Checklist for this task

• Print application form
• Gather required documentation
• Send in application
• Account opened success! 🎉

[nelsonic]

Right now we are the only ones watching this repo's issues, so "anyone" is me... 😝
I say go with Coop until the frustration (with their "computer says no" mindset) grinds us down again... 👍
what do you need from me to get this rolling?

• Cash (or bank transfer once the account is open?)
• Passport
• Signatures

[iteles]

[iteles]

No word from them yet. Will follow up this week if we don't hear anything.

[nelsonic]

Six weeks and counting... ⌛

[iteles]

Update: "High volumes of applications"?? And we should hear from them by the end of the week.

[nelsonic]

Wow... Gotta love the efficiency of the Coop...

[iteles]

Called again. Still in the queue 😮

[iteles]

Our application is being reviewed today but still needs to be passed to the regulatory team which will take another 5-7 working days. Humph. 😑

[nelsonic]

Regulatory Team...?! WHAT? Why? how stupid! is it because we are not "employed" anymore...?
when ever I think of the Coop all I can imagine is:

[iteles]

Ha no, it's their standard process.

Reviewer. Asks questions. Regulatory team. Ask questions. Pass it back to the reviewer. Maybe lets you give them money.

Seems sensible to me 😬

[nelsonic]

I bet that if you surveyed all coop customers not a single one would say they use coop bank for the superior service or better rates/returns.

[iteles]

Still waiting.

[nelsonic]

wow... gotta love the efficiency of the Coop Bank... 😉

[nelsonic]

@iteles given that CoOp Bank are dragging their feet, I am going to open a Santander "Startup" Business Bank account: http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/business/current-accounts/start-up-business-current-account so we can get paid...!

[iteles]

👍🏻👍🏻

[nelsonic]

@iteles FYI I completed the online application this morning:

I will call them tomorrow morning to check on the status.
And every morning until they confirm the account is open. 👍
Wish Co-Op were competent... its not like we don't have personal accounts with them...!! 😞

[iteles]

I've spoken to the every week and often twice a week since mid November 2015. Our application has been passed around 4 different reviewers as they keep going on holiday. I could not be more displeased with their service.

[nelsonic]

yeah, I had the same computer-says-no attitude from PayPal from June 2015 to Jan 2016 ...
When they don't want to help you, there's not much you can do. 😞

[iteles]

Done. This week. Only took

almost five months.

[iteles]

But look, now we have to apply SEPARATELY for online banking:
http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/assets/pdf/bank/business/bob/bob-application-form.pdf

I've never seen such AWFUL service.

[nelsonic]

wow... that sounds efficient.

[iteles]

Finally complete.

Removing address from website.

[nelsonic]

@iteles we still need to have some detail in the footer of the site:
http://www.out-law.com/page-7594

[iteles]

Right. That needs to be a new issue.