CAF Bank has offered to waive its account charges for two months due to an ongoing outage, but charities remain frustrated.
The bank, which has around 14,000 charity customers, said today that it would drop its fees for all customers in August and September amid continued disruption.
Since CAF Bank first reported the outage 10 days ago, many charities have been unable to pay staff and suppliers, with some facing hours-long telephone waits to receive support.
CAF Bank shut its online services after detecting “attempted fraudulent activity on some accounts”, which it told customers was “caught quickly”.
“On investigation, we identified the vulnerability in third-party software,” CAF Bank chief executive Alison Taylor said in an email to customers last Thursday.
“Once we discovered this, we had no option but to suspend the online service.”
In a new message this morning, Taylor said CAF Bank was “making progress” on restoring the online service, but confirmed that it remained unavailable.
“Due to the disruption, as a small thank you for your patience, we will be waiving our monthly customer account charge for all customers for August and September 2026,” her message to customers reads.
‘Drop in the ocean’
Three charities Civil Society spoke to today said the offer to waive a monthly fee amounted to around £5 per account, which they deemed was insufficient.
Rebecca Lea, chief officer of the Bridgend Centre in Cheshire, said: “This is a drop in the ocean compared to the costs incurred by us due to this failure.”
Lea last week authored an open letter from more than 60 charity CEOs and finance leaders to call for an improved contingency plan at CAF Bank.
Oliver Sheahan, centre manager of Boxmoor and Warners End Neighbourhood Association in Hertfordshire, said the offer was “obviously not good enough”.
“It’s almost insulting, completely tone deaf and it just doesn’t go anywhere,” he said. “It’s not a goodwill gesture – what it’s saying is that they can’t give you the service.”
Sabiene North, chief executive of Be Free Young Carers in Oxfordshire, was also dissatisfied with CAF Bank’s announcement.
“They’re just really out of touch and out of tune with charities – I’d love them to come and spend some time with small charities and see how it’s impacted everything we do,” she said.
North added that her charity was having to use its own money to pay for events, in particular a bouncy castle at a recent family fun day, and did not know when she could pay staff.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last week confirmed that it was “actively engaging” with CAF Bank and other regulatory authorities.
“We expect firms to take the necessary steps to reduce the risk of incidents occurring and, when they do occur, to fix issues quickly, keep their customers informed and minimise disruption,” the FCA said.
