Corporate membership is open to any organisation which has some sort of legal basis. This could be a limited or unincorporated company, a partnership, a club, a charity and many others. First and foremost, this requires that your organisation be part of the “common bond” for the credit union; in our case, that means that you operate in Devon, Cornwall, or the Isles of Scilly. (If you don’t qualify, try the Find Your Credit Union site to find out which credit union covers your area.) To join, you need to complete an Application Form (print it out or obtain one from a Service Point) to be accompanied by a copy of the document(s) which make your organisation a legal entity, such as an Article of Association or a Charity Constitution. Unless already a member of the credit union, we also require some personal identification information for each signatory on the account (we recommend a minimum of two as corporate savings withdrawal forms normally need two signatures for obvious reasons). Known as “Know Your Customer” or KYC checks, this is a requirement placed on all financial institutions, including banks, building societies and, of course, credit unions. It’s part of the government Money Laundering Regulations and is necessary to prove the identity and address of the signatories. In most instances, we will be able to do this online (this will not affect your credit rating), but sometimes it is not possible or convenient, in which case we will inform you that we will be carrying out the checks ourselves. If this happens, you will need to provide a minimum of two forms of identification for each signatory, one from each of the following lists. In all cases we need to see ORIGINAL documents, not photocopies. If you are applying by post, we will return them with your membership welcome pack. The same document can’t be used to prove your Name and Address. We cannot accept any liability for documents lost in the post.
Please don’t send the application form as an email attachment as we need original signatures on the form and, as email is an insecure communication medium and many of the forms contain sensitive information, could lead to data protection issues.
- Become part of your local financial cooperative
- Help support your local community
- Low membership cost – one off £10 fee on joining
- Low Annual Membership fee – just £5
- Savings protected by FSCS
We realise that sometimes it is not possible to provide documents from the lists above. In this case, please contact us, we may be able to accept alternatives.
And finally, before your organisation can become a member, you will need to pay a minimum of £5 into your savings account and pay the Corporate Membership Fee of £5 – this is to cover the administration costs of joining you up.
Any change of name or address, change of e-mail address or change of telephone or mobile number of any signatory must be notified to us immediately. If you do not do this we may charge your account with the cost of locating you. Proof of change of name or address may be required.