deposit accounts for churches and Christian charities

Stewardship is regulated by the Charity Commission rather than the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Please note that Stewardship is not a bank. As a charity we are not covered by the FSCS (this protects Bank Customers for up to £85,000). However, Stewardship has existed since 1906 and has a strong balance sheet with net assets of over £100m. We take a cautious and responsible approach to investments and have liquid cash deposits of £39m as at 30 September 2017. Our charity number is 234714 so feel free to look at our accounts on the charity commission website or at stewardship.org.uk/about-us/our-accountability. Stewardship is also a registered company number 90305.

Our latest interest rates can be found on our website at stewardship.org.uk/deposit-accounts

Our deposit account services is available to churches and Christian charities, with a minimum opening balance of £5,000.

Simply complete our application form, and send a hard copy to our offices by post. Please ensure you read our information sheet prior to completing your application to ensure you are eligible for this service. We aim to complete all applications within five working days of receipt.

To update the details of your deposit account, including, but not limited to, contact details and a change of signatory please complete our deposit account update form available at stewardship.org.uk/deposit-accounts. You  are only be required to complete the relevant sections you wish to update. Please note all new signatories will be required to complete an identity check authority form, and any changes to bank details should be supported by original bank stationery.

You can deposit money either by bank transfer (details are included in your welcome letter) or a cheque made payable to Stewardship, and can do this at any time. Please remember to quote your deposit account number which is provided to you when opening an account. This all helps to ensure your charity funds go to the right place.

We would prefer that withdrawal requests are made by email. Email enables us to efficiently and quickly deal with your request, but letter or telephone request are also possible. We will require the deposit account number, and of course the amount to be withdrawn (a minimum of £500) –as you would expect for security purposes we will only action requests from a registered contact, and process to the nominated bank account. We would recommend that requests for withdrawals are made from your registered email address to ensure we are able to deal with all enquiries as efficiently as possible.

We offer a flexible service, withdrawal requests of up to £50,000 (within a 30 day period) are available on instant access, but we reserve the right to require a 30 day notice period for any requests over and above this value. However, please note that we will process your request to withdraw funds as a BACs payment which will clear within three working days.

In the event that you wish to withdraw all funds from your deposit account, a closing amount of interest will be calculated and the balance in full returned to you by same day transfer. The £NIL balance account will then be closed and you will receive a closing statement for your records. We request that the minimum balance held in your deposit account is £2,500, so any withdrawal requests which would take your balance below this value would similarly require the whole balance to be withdrawn, and the account closed. We will always confirm the proposed closure of an account with you before withdrawing funds.

Although we do not have any online facilities for our deposit accounts at present, we are available from 9.00am to 5.00pm each working day to deal with any queries you have. We would recommend that requests for withdrawals and statements are made by email at [email protected] to ensure we are able to deal with all enquiries as efficiently as possible.

Quarterly statements are sent by post, for the periods ending March, June, September and December. If you require an up-to-date statement or confirmation of your balance please email [email protected] from your registered email address, complete with your account number and password if applicable. We will then email a statement back to you by the next working day. Please note that statements send via email shall be encrypted using Egress Switch and details about using Egress are provided upon receipt of an encrypted email.