CAF Bank has paid a local infrastructure organisation £750 in compensation after it complained about online service disruption to an ombudsman.
Support Staffordshire, which assists charities in its local area, refused two lower offers from CAF Bank after the disruption last year before contacting the Financial Services Ombudsman.
The £750 figure has now been agreed following the ombudsman’s intervention.
Support Staffordshire said in a statement that the financial settlement was a “welcome token of acknowledgement".
“Their findings about how CAF Bank handled this fiasco are damning,” said Support Staffordshire’s chief finance officer Jayne Ison and chief executive Garry Jones.
“And it was only when forced by the ombudsman that CAF Bank have made this offer.”
Ison and Jones said that Support Staffordshire lost at least £5,000 in dealing with the problems, which had wider implications across the charity.
“The stress and upset for staff is hard to calculate,” they told Civil Society.
“We are actively seeking to move banks and would suggest other charities consider their own banking arrangements as we continue to have no faith in CAF Bank’s basic customer service capabilities.”
Neil Poynton, CAF Bank deputy chief operating officer, apologised for the disruption caused by the launch of its new online system on 9 June 2025.
More than 14,000 customers struggled to process transactions, including bulk payments, prompting a series of complaints to the bank after the launch.
Poynton said that CAF Bank, owned by the Charities Aid Foundation, has been implementing regular upgrades and is taking steps to improve its service.
“We recognise this caused difficulties for some customers and their staff, this was never our intention,” he said.
Poynton added that CAF Bank remains focused on supporting charities to provide the sector with dedicated banking services.
Charities moving banks
CAF Bank initially offered payments of £25 last year to several charities that complained about the disruption they had experienced with its new service.
Emma Pears, founder and chief executive of children’s charity Selfa, told Civil Society that her charity eventually received £150 from CAF Bank, but that it was still looking to move its banking elsewhere.
Alcohol Change UK CEO Richard Piper, who labelled the initial £25 goodwill offer “insulting” last August, said his charity had received no further offers and had complained to the ombudsman.
Piper told Civil Society his charity continues to experience problems with CAF Bank’s system, which has put strain on his staff.
“We have made some progress researching alternative banking providers and do intend to move, but the extra staff capacity needed to cope with CAF Bank’s new systems means we are paying staff for additional hours just to keep standing still,” he said.
“[As a result, we] have zero spare capacity to complete that work of finding an alternative provider.”
