Charities Aid Foundation Reviews 

I would give zero stars if possible. We were already looking at moving to a new bank prior to their system 'upgrade' due to very antiquated systems - paper forms etc. Since changes have been made I am still waiting for a May statement, the figures that have been provided are not in date order and can not be reconciled with the end of April and start of June statements. The wait time on the phone is down to half an hour now but they just take your details and a list of the issues and promise a call back which doesn't materialise. We will be changing to a new bank as soon as I have accounts up to date. However I am starting to think that CAF simply do not have and will never have this data. For this chaos to be continuing for months is shockingly bad.

Have truly never seen anything as chaotic and terrible as the roll out of the new online banking system. The platform itself is somehow even worse, even more clunky and antiquated than the previous one. And has been full of bugs and broken parts since in the roll out. Took weeks and weeks for everyone who needed access to get access to the online banking after the roll out. Now a few months down the line and still buggy and difficult to use.

Would genuinely be quite interested to know what's going on inside the organisation as it's hard to understand it's possible to mess up rolling out a new online banking system THIS badly.

We're a tiny organisation so it's a headache to change banks but I'm hoping to do so as soon as we have time!

Very disappointed that I am unable to log in once again. I put in my ID number and password. I have been waiting for a text with OTP and not received anything. I have tried 3 times tonight and am losing patience with this bank.

Have had a terrible experience with all aspects of a large retail bank, our Trust moved to CAF Bank. I have found the opposite when speaking to people at CAF Bank as we opened an online account - polite, very helpful and very effective. I appreciate they have had difficult times, but courteous behaviour is so much better than the lack of response or interest from our previous bank.

CAF Bank is probably the worst banking experience in the UK, from the log-in process that is impossible to use, the long wait times on the helpline and their inability to fix their problems.

As soon as practical, I will be leaving CAF Bank

Very basic problems still persist over 3 months after banking platform move. (1) gocardless receipt reference drops characters in the transaction report so can’t be auto matched in accounting system (2) our payments out to another CAF account does not include our payment reference so they can’t match their receipt to our group! (3) previous payment approval audit trail has disappeared. All the above are resulting in significant manual work arounds. For the most elemental things needed from a banking service. And no idea when or if they will be fixed!

The Crampton Locomotive Trust opened an account with Cafbank in early 2025, attracted by the facilities on offer, particularly regarding the management of donations.
However, almost immediately we were beset by logging in difficulties. Despite repeated resets of password, the amended arrangements were not accepted only a day after resetting.
These repeated failures have resulted in postponement of the launch of a new website, and in failure to solicit donations both large and small. They have also wasted 3 months of volunteer time.
Having also read distressing accounts of poor service to numerous other CAFbank customers,we will now close our CAFbank account.

Mike Pease
Crampton Locomotive Trust

There seems to be a problem with my account - I rang the customer service person didn't seem to know much more than me and was not at all competent. Issue was not resolved.

I have been trying to get a new password for our charity new debit card. Have been calling for 3 weeks , have left reviews, have done what was advised, emailed and looked for information. Unhelpful service and still we are not able to operate. No one answered the emails sent but they took time to answer my previous reviews and still not received any help.

Atrocious banking since the new system came into play. We've struggled to authorise payments to our valuable staff, and are repeatedly locked out of the system. An easy fix would be to call customer service but queues of quite literally HOURS prevent this avenue too. How on earth this is still going on nearly two months after the 'upgrade' I have no idea! Shocking level of service.

We have been a client for 10 years. 2 years ago we tried to change the bank mandate and we have still not been able to change it. The 1 star is for the helpful customer service individuals, but the systems at CAF are utterly outdated, slow, unintuitive and unhelpful. They have only presented us with problems in our attempt to change the mandate and after two years of back and fourth letters (rather than emails) they have not held our hand to try to fix the issue. They have continued to put the ball back in our court. We are now looking elsewhere for banking options as CAF have proven themselves utterly out of touch with the times and incapable of updating themselves.

The new IT system implemented by CAF Bank over a month ago is still not fit for purpose. Me and my team have spent hours (if not days) on the phone trying to get through to sort out issues. Sometimes we couldn't even join the queue, and when we were able to, it was at position 90+. The time on hold has routinely been over 2 hours. When we eventually do get through the staff are good. But enough is enough - the cost of the hours wasted by my staff now outweigh any syebenefits of banking with CAF. I am now actively looking at moving our account.

Because of the continuing impossibility of logging-in to authorise payments, our charity is having to go back in time and pay our service suppliers by cheque - remember cheques? Significantly, the branding of the new system has changed from "Better Banking" to "New Banking". Here, new is definitely not better! It may well be impossible for CAF to revert to the previous system, and I can see little option but for the bank to announce its closure as I cannot imagine that anyone will have any confidence in it any more.

It has been over 5 weeks since this debacle started and there has been almost no improvement. The fact that it is still difficult to get through on the phone would suggest that lots of people are still having the same awful experience. I said it before and I'll repeat it now - it is time to give up on this new online platform and go back to what there was before

Like every other charity that banks with CAFBank we're all experiencing the same difficulties with their new website. The trustees being locked out of it, unable to make BACS payments and unable to call any staff at the bank as it constantly says "we're busy call back later"...
Surely, they should revert back to the old website until this new one can function properly?

Terrible bank not fit for purpose. Unable to make payments internationally, unable to speak to anyone, amateurish online system. I want to close the account asap and switch to a real bank

As a charity that depends on accurate, efficient, and secure banking, we are extremely disappointed in CAF Bank's rollout of the new online banking system. The update appears to have been launched without sufficient testing, placing our organisation—and others like us—at considerable risk.

Since the transition, we’ve experienced numerous issues that have made routine financial management a nightmare:

Inaccurate account balances being shown on the system.

Difficulty reconciling accounts, leading to delays in our reporting and operations.

Bulk payment errors, where the totals don’t match the input—an issue flagged with customer service, only to be told “you can proceed at your own risk.”

Multiple calls to customer service resulted in contradictory responses, including “we are not sure about this problem.”

We’ve been left on hold for over 5 hours just to speak to someone, which is unacceptable and unsustainable for any organisation, especially one run largely by volunteers.

Telling customers that there are known issues—but encouraging them to process payments anyway—is not only negligent, it's reckless. We are handling donations and community funds, and we cannot in good conscience proceed with a system that lacks transparency and reliability.

Before launching a new banking platform, a responsible institution should:

Conduct rigorous end-to-end testing, especially for critical functions like balance accuracy and bulk payments.

Perform pilot testing with real users, including charities and businesses who rely on these features.

Provide clear documentation and training resources.

Ensure customer service is adequately staffed to support users through the transition.

Communicate clearly and frequently about known issues, with timelines for resolution—not vague disclaimers.

Instead, CAF Bank has left our charity with more work, more risk, and far less confidence. We are now forced to consider alternative banks—ones that respect the importance of their role in supporting the social good, and don’t treat community funds like a beta test environment.

We trusted CAF Bank with the financial backbone of our mission. That trust has been broken.

Never choose CAFbank as your organisation's bank, they are rank amateurs. They were never much good but have tried to implement an upgrade that has gone disastrously wrong, for example a simple password reset takes well in excess of 1/2 hour.

The New CAF Bank software was rolled out before being adequately tested, it crashes, OTP's are not always accepted, you get locked out, it is a nightmare, worse still 2+ hours to get through to customer support to get your account unlocked, The Chairperson is gaslighting implying the new software needs familiarity and offering solace that some payments are going through, and many customers are getting through to customer support. The reality is from a customer point of view this is an absolute financial nightmare and paying suppliers is Russian roulette. Whoever is responsible at CAF for this fiasco should hand the reign's over to someone capable to better serve the customers and sort this disaster.

More Information requested.
The roll out occurred a month ago, (bear in mind even the initial access code texts to many android phones because of their bulk nature went to spam), even now at 10 July 2025 the software does not work, you get an OTP and the software at times doesn't accept it, CAF customer support are overwhelmed because issues are widespread, there is an automated message telling you they are too busy and call back later; this is soo frustrating, if your call is accepted the waiting time on hold can be hours.
The software is slow and hangs on occasion requiring a hard close and restart.
The cut off time for bulk pays is too early It was 1pm.
Despite reading a huge amount of instruction detail the software compared to other bank software is clumsy and overcomplicated.
Even a month on, paying suppliers which should be a basic function is not guaranteed, the software even prepopulates dates with an American format and if you do not amend the payment gets rejected; for the first few weeks this was an absolute nightmare.
If CAF want to evaluate this disaster, the senior management should go on the help desk frontline or try to phone in as a customer, or even use their software.
Kind regards
Mark

In addition to being locked out of on-line banking and much worse functionality on the new platform, we are unable to do our normal bank reconciliation as the pdf bank statements give incorrect bank balances and the download of transactions also is incorrect for the month in question. We cannot trust this bank with our money.