FAQs

Bath Building Society Business, Professional & Charity accounts are for businesses and organisations established and operating in the UK, for example:

• Limited companies
• Charities
• Partnerships
• Sole Traders
• Housing Associations
• Clubs & Societies
• Parish Councils

All of our accounts are for your short and long term business savings needs. They are not suitable for use as a business current account or the day to day transactions of running a business.

If you’d like to check if your business or organisation is eligible, please contact us

There are several ways to open a new account with Bath Building Society. Pop into a local Branch or Agency, apply via email or post. Here’s what to do next:

• Decide which account you would like to open, from the list shown here.
• Read the key product information in conjunction with our terms and conditions and FSCS information.
• Complete and sign the application form for the account you wish to open. This form can be downloaded at the bottom of the account information page.
• If you are opening a joint account, both applicants will need to complete and sign the application form.
• Take your completed application form into any of our Branches or Agencies, or you can email it to savings@bibs.co.uk or post it to our Head Office.
• You can open your account with a cheque payable to yourself or you can send your initial deposit via faster payment once the account has been opened. Please contact our customer service team  for any further information.
• We’ll send you a Welcome Pack once your account has been opened.

You aren’t currently able to open a business account online. To apply you can download an application form from the product information page for the account you want to open, complete and send via email to savings@bibs.co.uk or print and post to us. (See How Can I Open An Account, above).  You can also book an appointment online to talk with one of our Business, Professional & Charity account specialists if you would like to find out more about how the account works.

We may carry out electronic searches through credit agencies in line with UK Money Laundering Regulations, to help us identify you and confirm that the information you’ve provided is correct.

All financial institutions are required to gather information to verify your identity, prevent fraud and comply with money laundering regulations. Here are some of the more popular forms of ID we accept:

• A photo of the front of your bank card or a bank statement showing your nominated bank.
• Clubs and Societies must include a copy of the minutes confirming their intention to open an account.
• Charitable organisations must include a letter from their governing body, stating their intention. to open an account, the names of all the signatories required to operate the account.
• Limited companies must include a copy of their certificate of incorporation.
• Details of persons with significant control such as Directors and Shareholders, with over 25% Shareholding and Trustees, who are not signatories on the account are also required.

The easiest way to manage your savings account online is by using Bath Online. It’s simple to do and you can register here.

Bath Online is available 24/7 and allows you to view transactions, check your interest rate, request transfers to your nominated account and communicate with us.

We offer a next day faster payment service. The payment will leave your account on day one and reach the beneficiary no later than close of business the next day.

In a hurry? For a charge of £3 you can take advantage of a same day faster payment service. The payment will leave your account on day one and reach the beneficiary by close of business the same day.

Yes of course. Because we are not a clearing bank, you will need three sets of numbers:

Sort code 62-30-45

Account number 00000000

Reference: Your 8 digit account number (you will find your account number at the top of your passbook).

Account Name: Bath Building Society

Please note when sending funds please use Bath Building Society as the account name, your bank will then recognise and confirm you are sending funds to Bath Building Society. This is in relation to Confirmation of Payee and should only need to be done once.

Please provide us with a copy of a bank statement to nominate an account for electronic transfers. The account must be in the same name as your business account with Bath Building Society.

Unfortunately we do not offer this service. However, you can register for Bath Online to manage your account online and make transactions to a nominated account.

When paying in a cheque to your account, please make it payable to the name on the account.

The frequency and amount you can withdraw from your account will vary depending on the account type. Please refer to your account terms and conditions or contact our Savings team.

Funds transferred will appear in your online account the next working day, cheques currently take six working days to clear.

You can download our change of signatory form or email savings@bibs.co.uk to ask for a form to be sent to you. You can also change your details by visiting one of our Branches or Agencies.

You can update your address via Bath Online, download a change of customer details form to send to our customer service team at our Head Office address, or pop in to one of our Branches or Agencies.

If you lose your passbook please contact our savings team immediately and we will register it as lost or stolen. They will send you a lost passbook form and you simply return to us with two forms of identification and then a new passbook will be issued.

The easiest way to get a statement of your account is to register for Bath Online. It’s simple to do and available 24/7.

Alternatively please contact the team.

Interest is calculated daily and either applied on 31st December annually, or on maturity of a Fixed Term Deposit. You can request for interest to be compounded to your Bath Building Society account, or to a nominated account.

We may change our interest rates to respond to changes in the Bank of England base rate or changes in law, to meet relevant regulatory requirement, or to respond to changes to codes of practice or changes in our costs.

In the case of an increase to interest rates, we will inform you by placing notices on the website and in our Branches & Agencies.

When there is a reduction in interest rates we will give you written notification to the change 30 days before it comes into effect.

As of May 2020, some banks and building societies in the UK began offering a service called Confirmation of Payee (CoP), it will help protect you when you’re making payments by checking that the account, sort code and name of the account match.

Bath Building Society account details cannot be verified using CoP as we are not part of the service yet, so when you go to make a payment to us for the first time you will might get  a ‘no match’ or ‘unavailable message’.

If this is the case we request that you first check that you have correctly entered the sort code and account number. After you have confirmed that you’ve entered the correct details, ask your bank or building society to proceed with the transfer.

If you open a new Business Savings account or you have existing account(s) these Business Savings account(s) will be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) providing you meet the eligibility criteria.

There are various ways to close your account.  If you manage your account via Bath Online you can follow online instructions to close your account.  If you have an email authority in place you can email instructions to our customer service team to close your account, or you can write to them at our Head Office address.