Charities Aid Foundation Reviews 152

I cannot believe how terrible the new so-called "better banking" is. What used to be a simple process to pay a group of people - selecting a pre-made list, ticking the ones you wanted, entering the amounts, clicking on "submit", now takes ages and requires lots of completely unnecessary steps. The bulk payment templates are a complete disaster. Fine if you make the same payments to the same group of people everytime, but impossible to adapt easily or quickly. I can't add new beneficiaries to a bulk payment - yes I'm told there will be a delay but I've been waiting a week. The search doesn't work. Multiple steps and wasted time to do something simple. Who on earth designed this process? Did they test it with actual users? I can't believe anyone said "hey, that's definitely better banking"! And that's before you try to download transactions from the site - what used to be a one click now requires editing of CSV files just to get it into a usable format. And what's with sending loads of text messages to every user late at night? Come on CAF, surely you can do better than this. Please (1) acknowledge the design mistakes made and (2) set our a roadmap / timescale for re-instating something that is usable and works. We are a small charity and our volunteers are not going to last for long when what took them minutes is now taking hours. This change is having real negative impact and needs to be addressed fast.

This banking upgrade from CAF has been a complete disaster. Not being able to make payments and with deadlines to meet for payments is annoying and embarrassing, having to pay out of my own pocket to avoid losing services we are committed to. Not able to get a response when calling for help and resorting to emails only to receive standard apologies just isn't good enough. 15 days and no ability to pay anyone.

The new portal and online banking process is very poor, indeed it is downright amateurish. I need to pay staff & suppliers, but having set up/requested the payments, the person approving has been unable to do so,or even to see clearly what he is trying to approve. One payment he believed he'd approved, is still showing as pending approval on my screen. Result, delayed payments, unhappy suppliers and a two hour wait to speak to someone for help. I am typing this whilst in queue postion 12. I have experienced other bank system transitions in previous existenses, but nothing that is as creaky, unclear, unintuitive or amateurish as this one. The email I received explaining there were teething problems, and asking me to hang on in there, does not really help. I would like to see when it is expected these problems will be fixed, not simply as soon as possible. Perhaps someone should explain, what was wrong with the old system and why it need changing. CAF is a great bank. Its staff are wonderful. This is a great shame.

Utterly appalling piece of system design. Inadequately tested and conceptually poor. As a counter-signatory it takes me 8 steps to check and approve each individual payment and I have to enter my 5-digit pin number every time. I have better things to do.

Everything that every other customer has complained about, i have pretty much had the same issues with. I waited patiently for 1 hour and 58 minutes last Thursday for my call to be connected. Eventually it was, and the lady who helped and assisted me was great. Her name was Shona and she was an absolute star, talked through all my queries and did her best to help resolve them. I do feel sorry for the front line staff who are taking all the flack from callers but they are learning the new software just like customers are. A big thank to Shona at CAF who helped me.

Now into 3rd week of being unable to login to web account. "Solutions" from Customer Services don't work; bank has now given up even answering phone calls

The launch of the CafBank "upgrade" on 9th June 2025 has been nothing short of a disaster. Opening balances did not agree. csv statement downloads contained no data, Beneficiaries have disappeared. Bulk payment templates have disappeared along with the associated bank details. The arrival/input of OTP codes via text is flaky and often doesn't work. I'm getting very worried as I am trying to set up salary payments for tomorrow and this is proving to be extremely difficult. I have never been put in this position before - it's a disgrace!

Further to my earlier comment, would it not be a good idea if the CAF Bank Chairman, Ms A Taylor, drafted a letter of apology and explanation which we customers could send on to our suppliers and payees who are having to wait for payment? My old boss would have said "someone should be fired!". Hmm, not a bad idea; might focus a few minds on essentials.

Dreadful Dreadful Dreadful

Though we continue to have problems thankfully my organisation is not affected as much as some here. There are too many issues that require to be fixed by a management team that is incapable of keeping the phone lines running let alone fixing the big problems and it is abundantly clear that the new system will not be fully functioning within the time all CAF Bank customers need it to be. The old system should be reinstalled immediately and whoever authorised this catastrophe should resign.

Absolutely appalling. This continues to be a significant waste of my time for the charity. There is a direct financial impact on a small charity that cannot afford it.

A shockingly poor 'new website'. We are told it has "thorough testing" before launch. No, it didn't. How many people took part in the testing? How many people tried to get a list of transactions out of their account. How many people tried the new payments section? How many said what a fantastic new website. I feel sorry for the customer service people, as this is a management issue. But I would expect to receive an email back with the week, but i am still waiting.

UPDATE - As for the reply below I have tried phoning several times, and am always told by the automation to phone back another time as you are 'so busy'. Still had no response from emails either. I'll try the new one and see if I get any success.

I would give them zero if I could. This relates to the 'upgade' of their system. I have still not received log in details for our bank account 2 weeks after the transfer, I have asked 3 times. The phone line is closed. No consideration given that charities have to make payments to suppliers and staff. As primary user I am unable to access our account.

I have the same problems as other reviewers report with the new online banking system. It takes much longer to do anything now. I found a payment wasn't made even though the log says it was input and approved in the dual payment process.

Furious. Lost annual leave and days off trying to sort this, in order to ensure that my team will get paid. Still no guarantee of this. We still can’t link to quickbooks (hasn’t worked since this was rolled out on the 9th). Can’t complete vital reporting for funding. Missed a funding deadline as we can’t provide all of the information and no one will answer the phones to help. Absolutely sick of this bank now. You are destroying charities in what is already a difficult climate at the moment.

Disgraceful customer service and certainly not treating customers fairly. Transactions not able to be approved, customer services message 'call back later' and then 3 days later a 2 hour wait to get answered. I've never know a new system launch take so long to fix the glitches. I'm wondering if the system was authorised to go live against the wishes of the IT experts who perhaps warned it was not ready yet.

I first posted my concerns 10 days go - nothing has changed and given the scale and diversity of the issues being reported I think its going to take a long time to solve - by which time some charities may fail ………

New system is a catastrophe. It seems unlikely that any of us are going to get paid this month. No chance of getting through to an advisor, emails aren't answered. Stressful doesn't begin to describe it. It was bad before the 'new system' but now it's 10 times worse. How can this not have been tested? If you are considering becoming a customer, I would gently suggest that putting your hand in a blender would be more pleasurable than dealing with this shower of a bank.

Update: replying to every review with a cut and paste response doesn’t really help. I do feel extremely sorry for all the staff at the moment though.

If it ain't broke..

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, but if you do an upgrade and it breaks, work hard to fix it. I feel this update was designed as a school project. I have never known a system to be so badly upgraded and then handled. The call centre was unprepared for the avalanche of calls and I got cut off. Bulk Payments which we rely on are now so complicated and the templates you have to set up don't save the date you wanted to be paid. I can't believe anyone actually tested this system. The videos they put out are next to useless so you can't tell if it's a user error or not. We've been debating using the metro bank for our charity but delayed as it is a strain on our administration. After this update and the appalling time trying to get it sorted we are not hesitating to move from CAF. What once was great is now terrible. We've had payments and beneficiaries go missing, and for what? A complicated redesign that's had catastrophic impacts on charities, just look at the comments on here and socials. I would avoid using CAF Bank and if you do, I would look around for bank with an interface that works.

Bulk payments doesn't work, I have managed to set up 3 individual payroll payments at which point it said it can no longer send OTPs to my phone and to ring them. Guess what, phone lines are busy so cannot take my call. I go on holiday after tomorrow, I am not available until tomorrow afternoon to ring by which time it will be saying "we can't take your call". To be honest if my boss doesn't change banks my resignation will be pending because I cannot do my job with this dire software. PS, the files I am importing into Xero are still in dollars..... thankfully I know how to change it but only because I live with a software developer. PPS, his advice is you don't move everyone over lock, stock and barrel. You test it on a few people at a time...... oh and don't bother messaging me asking for a phone number then a week later that call still hasn't been made to me, messages just go unanswered as does the phone. This is really not good enough.

The new online banking is atrocious. It is incredibly slow and have to click confirm several times just to do anything.
The search for payees does not work so have to bring up list of all beneficiaries, and when do this there seems to be multiple copies of each one.
Critically I am still unable to set up bulk payments - I can at least now add all the beneficiaries but cannot get beyond the following screen - get told I need to add a reference which I've already done. It is getting worryingly close to the date when need to process payroll and this is going to make it a nightmare at what is already a very busy time of year for our organisation.
I also get a flood of text messages every time I put on some payments but as they don't tell me what they relate to other than that I've made a payment they are useless for notifying me of payments I do not recognise.
If I try to phone up I get told that very busy and should try later so I cannot report any issues and I've no way of knowing if these problems have been picked up and are due to be resolved.
Seriously considering moving banks but know that would also take ages but need to see some improvement soon.