1. Agreement for your business current account
These terms and conditions (T&Cs), together with additional product-specific T&Cs which you agree to, form the agreement between you and us.
When we use you and your in this agreement, we mean the person (engaged in a business, trade or profession) identified in the account opening process via our mobile app and who we’ve agreed to provide a product to.
When we use we, us, our and OakNorth in this agreement, we mean OakNorth Bank plc.
You should make sure that you read this agreement carefully as it contains important information, which relates to your business current account.
If you need a copy of our agreement, you can ask us for this at any time while you have an account with us. You can also find a copy of the most recent terms on our website: https://oaknorth.co.uk/legal/terms-and-conditions/business-current-account-terms-and-conditions/.
From time to time, we will make additional products and services available to you, which may be provided by third parties under separate terms. Additional products may include, among other things, credit or debit cards for use with your account.
2. Opening business current account(s) with us
To apply for a business current account:
For the purposes of these T&Cs, and unless you tell us otherwise, we will treat the individual who initially applied to open your business current account as the Primary Applicant.
We’re not able to offer accounts to all applicants, including where your circumstances would require us to put in place additional infrastructure or systems, to process additional information or to incur additional regulatory obligations in order to service your business current account.
To meet our obligations under UK law, we will require information on your business before we can provide a business current account to you (including details of your directors, shareholders or members). This may also include evidence confirming the Primary Applicant’s authority to set up a business current account and enter into these T&Cs. This will most likely involve (but is not limited to) us asking you to provide documents, which verify your or their identity. Once we have opened your business current account, you must let us know as soon as possible if any of the information you have provided to us changes and in any event within 30 days of the change occurring.
We may also, from time to time, request additional information from you in relation to your business, including (but is not limited to) information about your directors, shareholders, members, business activities or the operation of your account. You must provide us with all information that we request within 10 business days – if you do not do this, we may suspend or close your account(s) and end our agreement.
3. Use of your data for payment services
We will access, process and retain any personal information that you provide to us for the purposes of providing payment services to you. This won’t affect any rights any of us have under data protection laws. We need to do this to enable us to fulfil our contractual obligations to process your transactions and fulfil our legal obligations to prevent and detect money laundering and fraud.
Please see our Privacy Policy to understand how we will process your data.
4. How this agreement applies to your business
UK law (including the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (PSRs)) and the rules imposed by our regulators require us to treat businesses that meet the definition of “micro-enterprise” in the same way that we would treat our personal customers if we were offering them the same product(s).
This means that different terms may apply to you depending on the size of your business.
The PSRs say that you can agree with large businesses that various regulations do not apply to their agreement. If you are a large business, you agree that the information requirements for payment services in Part 6 will not apply to you and, to the maximum extent possible, the rights and obligations in relation to the provision of payment services in Part 7 won’t apply to our agreement. We can also agree different terms with large businesses which don’t relate to requirements under the PSRs.
We explain throughout the agreement where terms differ if you are a large business or small business.
You must tell us as soon as you become aware, and at most within 30 days, that you stop meeting the criteria to be a small business.
5. How we might change our agreement
We may make changes to this agreement for the following reasons:
In all such cases, we shall promptly notify you of such changes, but we may not always do so in advance.
For all other changes (particularly where these may be of detriment to you), we will notify you in advance of the change(s) taking effect:
You will have the option to close any of your business current account(s) by contacting customer support and end the agreement (without charge) before the changes come into effect. If you elect to close any of your business current account(s), we will return your balance (if any) to a UK bank account held in your name, which you have notified to us, within one (1) business day of receiving such request or to another business current account you have with us. If you do not notify us of your refusal to accept the change before the date that the change takes effect, we will assume that you accept the changes we have made.
If you do not notify us of your refusal to accept the change before the date that the change takes effect, we will assume that you accept the changes we have made.
6. How you or we might end our agreement
If you have had any of your business current account for only 14 days or less, you may be able to, in respect of such business current account, cancel your agreement with us without charge via our mobile app. This shall not affect your agreement in respect of other business current account(s) you have with us.
You may also withdraw the remaining balance by transferring it to a UK bank account of your choice within 30 days from when you tell us you are cancelling. If you do not withdraw the remaining balance, we will return the balance (if any) to a UK bank account held in your name or to another business current account you have with us, which you have notified to us, provided that there are no charges outstanding, and nobody has disputed the closure. If you have not and do not notify us of a UK bank account (held in your name), we will still close your account and hold your funds internally without interest until such a time where you do notify us of a UK bank account (held in your name).
If you have had your business current account for longer than 14 days or if you are not able to cancel, you can close your account(s) with us and/or end this agreement by giving us notice. You may then withdraw the remaining balance by transferring it to a UK bank account of your choice or to another business current account you have with us within 30 days from when you tell us you are cancelling. If you do not withdraw the remaining balance, we will return the balance (if any) to a UK bank account held in your name or to another business current account you have with us, which you have notified to us, provided that there are no charges outstanding, and nobody has disputed the closure.
Only a Primary Applicant or account Admin (defined below) may close your account(s) with us and/or end this agreement.
We may suspend or end this agreement:
7. Contacting each other
We’ll always use English to communicate with you.
If you have any questions about this agreement or you need to speak to us for any other reason, you can contact us either by:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0330 380 1181 (9am-5pm Monday-Friday, excluding Bank Holidays)
If you have any difficulty with hearing or speech, you can contact us using the Relay UK service. Please see Relay UK’s website to find out how you can use this service (which is free of charge).
Post: OakNorth Bank plc
6th Floor, Ship Canal House
98 King Street
Manchester M2 4WU
We’ll contact you via mobile app push notifications or by using the email address that you gave to us via our mobile app. You must let us know as soon as possible if you change your contact details – we will ask you to complete security checks including making transactions, using biometric confirmations and/or providing documentation before your details can be updated.
8. Conditions which apply to your business current account
There are certain conditions, which we apply to all customers which open business current accounts with us – if you no longer meet these conditions, you need to tell us as soon as possible.
You can only use your account for business purposes, which means that your deposits must belong to you and derive from your business activities; must not be used for personal /investment purposes; and must not belong to your customers.
9. Operating and accessing your business current account(s)
The Primary Applicant can nominate other individuals to operate your business current account by completing:
Once you have completed the Mandate (and we have accepted it), we may issue separate security credentials for each new Authorised Person to access your account on the mobile app.
Each individual nominated by the Primary Applicant shall be treated by us as an Authorised Person, which means that they are entitled to use your business current account, including to instruct payments. The Primary Applicant is automatically nominated as an Authorised Person.
An Authorised Person may be appointed as either: (1) an Admin or (2) a User.
An Admin is an Authorised Person to whom we have granted full access and control over your business current account, which means that they may:
We are entitled to act upon any communications and/or instructions received from an Admin via the online platform or our mobile app. We will treat such communications as authorised by you without conducting any further verification – whether or not the information contained in the communication is, in fact correct or the communication is authorised.
A User is an Authorised Person to whom we have granted limited access in relation to your business current account, which means that they may:
Changes to those permissions can only be granted by an Admin or Primary Applicant.
We may, from time to time, refuse to execute payment instructions from Authorised Persons, for example, when instructing certain high value payments. In such situations we may require additional authorisation(s) from more than one Authorised Person.
We will rely on the instructions provided by an Authorised Person (subject to their designated permissions) until you notify us that they are no longer authorised to act on your behalf.
10. How your business current account(s) work
When we refer to business days in our agreement, we mean Monday to Friday but not UK bank holidays.
When we refer to business hours in our agreement, we mean between 9am and 5pm (UK time) on a business day.
Ways you can access your account
You can access your account(s) using our mobile app. More information on the services available via the app (and how to download) can be found at https://oaknorth.co.uk/business-banking-property/.
Payments into your account
You can only make payments into your designated account in pound sterling (GBP).
You must use or give whoever is paying money to your business current account your sort code, account name and account number.
Where payments are made electronically into your account, we’ll credit money paid electronically to your designated account immediately, and no later than one business day from when we receive it (subject to our internal checks). Where you or a third party make a payment into your designated business current account by Direct Credit, we will display the payment as a pending transaction in our mobile app until the funds are credited to your account.
We reserve the right to send payments back to source where they do not comply with relevant payment messaging standards (e.g. full sender name and account details).
When we can refuse to accept payments into your account
We can refuse to accept a payment into your account if we reasonably consider that doing so may:
We won’t be liable to you for refusing a payment into your designated account in any of these circumstances. For example, if you try to pay money into your account in any currency other than sterling, we will reject this payment and we will not be liable for any fees you are required to pay the sending payment services provider.
How you can take money out of your account and make payments
Withdrawals can be made via our mobile app only.
You can make a payment to another person in the UK (and/or another account which you hold with a UK bank) using:
You need to provide us details of the account you wish to pay within the mobile app, e.g. sort code and account number. This might also include the name or reference of the account holder so that we may check it matches the account you’re paying. You must ensure the details are correct before asking us to make a payment, including taking steps to ensure the recipient of the payment is who they say they are, as we’ll send it using only the details provided by you.
Note. For BACS Direct Debit instructions, we will notify you one business day before the payment execution of the pending transaction. If you do not have funds available on the day of execution, the debit will be reversed and we will not try to send the payment again. As a Direct Debit is an arrangement between you and the payee (merchant), we cannot change the terms of your Direct Debit – you can only do this by contacting the payee (merchant) directly.
When we can take money out of your account
There may be circumstances when we need to debit your business current account; if we can, we’ll let you know before we do this. We may debit your account where, for example:
Authorising payments
We treat a payment as authorised when you follow the procedures required for the type of payment you are making.
When payments will reach the recipient’s bank
Domestic payments (payments to UK accounts in sterling)
The table below shows how long payments take to reach the recipient’s bank (subject to any relevant checks including on large payment instructions as per below, or processes recipient banks may need to complete in which case withdrawals may take longer) after we’ve received your instruction.
You will find our daily withdrawal limits on our website. However, you can only withdraw up to a total of £25k outside business hours.
| Withdrawal value | When we receive your withdrawal request | Method for withdrawal request | When we will action your withdrawal request (subject to internal checks) |
| ≤ £25,000 | During business hours | Mobile app | Same day |
| > £25,000 | By 1pm on a business day | Mobile app | Same day |
| > £25,000 | After 1pm on a business day | Mobile app | Next business day |
| ≤ £25,000 | Outside business hours | Mobile app | Same day |
| > £25,000 | Outside business hours | Mobile app | Next business day |
| Payment Type | When it reaches the recipient’s bank (once approved by us and subject to the above noted withdrawal
scenarios) |
| Sterling transfers to sterling OakNorth account. | Immediately (business current account to Earn account only) |
| To accounts at other UK banks – Faster Payments Service | Usually within 2 hours |
| To accounts at other UK banks – CHAPS | Usually on the same business day where request received before 1pm on a business day, otherwise usually the next business day |
| BACS Direct Debit and Direct Credit | On the day requested for receipt |
Cancelling payments
You can’t cancel or change a payment transfer request (whether via FPS, CHAPS or Direct Credit) which you’ve authorised us to make via our mobile app.
To cancel a Direct Debit, you need to cancel it in your OakNorth business banking app at least two business days before the payment is due.
Confirmation of Payee (“CoP”)
Confirmation of payee is utilised on both inbound and outbound payment transfers to reduce the risk of payment errors and fraud. You can opt out of CoP and opt back in at any time, however you will be automatically opted into CoP when you open a business current account. To opt out or opt back in, please use the contact details in section 9.
Payment Charges
We may charge you for some transactions. Please refer to our website for further information.
How you can access your statements
You can obtain monthly statements via the mobile app which will include details of payments and transactions made via all Debit Cards. We do not provide any documentation or correspondence via post.
You should regularly check your statement(s) and tell us as soon as possible if you think there has been a mistake, including whether there has been an unauthorised payment or Debit Card transaction. We will then take steps to investigate and keep you updated throughout.
11. Restrictions on payment transactions
Transaction limits
You agree that we may, where we reasonably consider it appropriate, apply limits to the amount you are able to spend, withdraw or send through your account, and we’ll tell you if we do so. For example, if we reasonably think it would help manage the risk of fraud or financial crime in a proportionate way. In deciding whether and which limits to apply, we may consider your individual usage patterns, and customer and payment risk profiles, amongst other reasonably relevant factors.
When we may refuse your instruction
Once you’ve instructed us to make a transfer from your designated business current account, we’ll process the transaction unless we reasonably think:
If the balance in the Account goes below zero, this is called an ‘unarranged’ overdraft’. If You go into an ‘unarranged overdraft’, OakNorth will let You know the amount You will need to repay before the end of the day, which You will need to do as soon as possible but no later than 5 business days of the date on which the Account balance went below zero.
If the balance in the Account goes below zero, this is called an ‘unarranged’ overdraft’. If You go into an ‘unarranged overdraft’, OakNorth will let You know the amount You will need to repay before the end of the day, which You will need to do as soon as possible but no later than 5 business days of the date on which the Account balance went below zero.
Where permitted by law, we will notify you by email if we’ve refused or declined a transaction and, if possible, provide our reasons for doing so, as well as anything you can do to correct any errors that led to the stoppage.
Suspending use of your account
We may suspend use of your business current account if we reasonably believe that:
If we can, we’ll tell you before the suspension (along with our reasons for the suspension). Otherwise, we’ll tell you immediately after. However, we won’t tell you if doing so would break the law or compromise our reasonable security measures.
If we suspend one or more of your business current account, all associated products including any Debit Cards associated with the relevant account(s) will also be suspended until the suspension has ended.
We’ll stop any suspension as soon as we can after the reason for the suspension has ended.
12. Your Responsibilities
You must notify us immediately of any changes relevant to the agreement, including:
13. What to do if your account and/or security details are compromised
You must take all reasonable security precautions to prevent misuse of any of your business current accounts, and any security details, including account details, security codes or secure personal information.
We may also write to you to suggest other security precautions, which you should take. Failure to take reasonable security precautions may result in access to your accounts or additional services being blocked and you being liable for any and all losses.
Reasonable security precautions include:
We may ask you to provide us with information or other assistance in connection with the loss or misuse of your security details.
14. Unauthorised or incorrectly executed payments
Unauthorised payments or Debit Card transactions
If a payment is fraudulently or mistakenly paid into your designated business current account, you should tell us as soon as possible. We will then take steps to investigate and take certain steps, which may include placing the funds on “hold” or transferring them out of your account.
You can ask us to refund a transaction that someone has made from one of your accounts or using your Debit Card without your permission, so long as you’ve told us (please do so using the details on our ‘get in touch’ page) about the problem without any undue delay of it happening or, if you are a small business, no later than 13 months of it happening.
If we agree to refund you, we’ll do this before the end of the next business day after you tell us, or sooner if we can. We’ll refund:
We may refuse your request for the refund where:
we reasonably suspect you’ve acted fraudulently;
you’re a large business and you, your Authorised Person (or your employees) failed to keep your security details safe, failed to keep your Debit Card and associated PIN safe, failed to take reasonable steps to prevent misuse of your security details or Debit Card or either were lost or stolen, and the payment was made before you told us;
you’re a small business and you or your Authorised Person intentionally or with gross negligence failed to keep your security details or Debit Card and associated PIN safe.
However, there are a few exceptions to this:
If we refuse your request for the refund, where permitted by applicable law, we will provide you with our justification for refusing the refund.
Where we are required to refund a transaction that someone has made from one of your accounts without your permission, we will do so as soon as practicable and no later than the end of the business day following the day on which you notify us of the transaction.
You shall be liable for all losses in respect of an unauthorised transaction where you have either acted fraudulently or, deliberately or with gross negligence, failed to take reasonable security precautions.
If you are a small business and have not acted fraudulently,
Incorrectly executed payments
If you make a mistake when sending us a payment instruction:
If we make a mistake in handling your payment (e.g. we send to the wrong person):
If you’re a small business, we’ll be liable to you for any charges and interest you must pay, as a consequence of us not making the payment, defectively making it or making it late.
If we need to refund you, we’ll do so before the end of the next business day after you tell us, and sooner if we can. However, we won’t refund you if:
If you’re a small business and your payment arrives late, please contact us. We’ll contact the other payment service provider and ask them to treat the payment as if it had arrived on time. If you’re a large business, you agree that regulations 79, 80, 91, 92 and 94 in Part 7 of the PSRs don’t apply to your agreement with us. These are the provisions that require us to provide refunds to small businesses as set out above. However, we will do what we can to trace the incorrect payment and to tell you what happened.
If you are a small business, and we get a payment for you from another payment service provider that we don’t credit when it should have been, we’ll immediately credit your designated account with the right amount and make the money available to you. We’ll also refund any charges you’ve paid and refund or pay any interest we owe you as a result of the amount being credited to you later than it should have been. You’ll then be in the same position as if you’d received the payment when you should have done.
If we fail to send a transaction on time, you can contact us to ask the recipient’s bank to pay the recipient the interest (if applicable) on their account that would have been paid if the transfer you made had arrived on time.If either we, or the third-party you want to pay, make a mistake with your Direct Debit, you’re entitled to a full immediate refund under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme.
If you are a small business, you may ask us to refund a Direct Debit or Debit Card transaction if you satisfy all of the following conditions:
We may ask you for such information as is reasonably necessary to enable us to understand whether the above conditions are satisfied. We will pay you the refund (or provide our justification for refusing your refund) within 10 business days of your request.
In addition to your rights above, we’ll refund a transaction if the law requires us to.
Disputing Debit Card transactions
In addition to the above, in the following scenarios we may be able to initiate a dispute on your behalf with the merchant:
In these instances, you must first contact the merchant and see if they can resolve this issue for you. If the merchant is unable to resolve your issue; please contact us (using the details on our ‘get in touch’ page). You’ll need to tell us within 120 days and give us any information we reasonably require to investigate. We will attempt to resolve the issue on your behalf with the merchant and will notify you of the final outcome.
15. Liability
If your security details are used with your permission by someone else or because you either:
If you have any reason to think we have made an error, you must tell us as soon as possible. If we make an error in administering your account(s), as soon as possible after becoming aware, we will tell you and put it right, restoring the accounts to the state they would have been in had the error not taken place. In resolving any error, we may make the necessary correcting entry(ies) to the account(s) without having to seek your prior approval.
For any payments that are unauthorised or go to the wrong payee, you shall indemnify us where you have been fraudulent. If you are a large business, you shall also indemnify us where you have been negligent unless we have been negligent or have wilfully defaulted in carrying out your instructions.
We will not be responsible when failure is caused by circumstances beyond our control or which we could not reasonably have foreseen.
We will not be responsible to you for any loss or costs which you may incur as a result of us breaking this agreement due to:
We shall only be liable for direct loss suffered as a result of us failing to perform our obligations with reasonable care and in circumstances where the loss is reasonably foreseeable by us. We shall not be liable for any indirect or consequential losses or loss of profit, loss of business or loss of reputation.
16. Disputes
If you inform us or we become aware of a dispute within your business (for example, between partners/directors/shareholders/Authorised Persons) that may impact the ongoing use of your business current account(s), we reserve the right to introduce the following processes for all your current account(s):
Should any existing direct debit / standing order mandates be in place, these will continue (irrespective of any dispute) unless informed otherwise by all account Admins in writing.
We may request evidence to confirm that any such dispute has been resolved.
17. Where we also lend you money, we can deduct any repayment amount from your business current account balance
Where you are also a customer of our lending business, we may at any time with no notice, set-off any matured obligation due from you to us against any obligation owed by us to you, including any balance held in your business current account(s).
The nature and extent of the right to set-off would be any matured obligations (being a loan repayment) due from you to us against any obligation (being a business current account) owed by us to you.
18. Complaints
Please visit https://www.oaknorth.co.uk/complaints/ for details of our complaints procedure. If you (or any of your Authorised Persons) would like to contact us to discuss or make a complaint, please call, email or write to our Customer Services Team using the contact details on our website. If your complaint is regarding your Debit Card product, we may ultimately refer you to the third-party provider to resolve this.
If for some reason we have not been able to resolve the complaint within the maximum time stated in our complaints procedure, or you are not satisfied with the resolution, you may be entitled to refer its complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (an independent organisation that helps to resolve complaints). To find out more about the service and whether you might be eligible, visit http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/. The Financial Ombudsman Service will not usually accept or consider a complaint (a) until we have issued our final response; or (b) more than six months after we have issued our final response to the complaint.
TheFinancialOmbudsmanServicecanbecontactedbywritingto:
The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London E14 9SR
Alternatively, you can call them on 0800 023 4567.
19. What protections apply to your accounts
OakNorth is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which is a deposit guarantee scheme that protects the total amount of deposits held by eligible customers up to a certain limit if we cannot meet our financial obligations to them. The limits prescribed by FSCS are per eligible customer per bank. This means irrespective of the number of current accounts you hold with OakNorth, your compensation will be subject to overall per customer limits prescribed by FSCS. You can find out more in our FSCS information sheet.
Any eligible deposits the Business holds above the FSCS limit are unlikely to be covered.
For further information about the compensation provided by the FSCS (including the amounts covered and eligibility to claim) please contact us, or refer to the FSCS website www.fscs.org.uk or contact the FSCS on 020 7741 4100 or 0800 678 1100, at [email protected] or at Financial Services Compensation Scheme, 10th Floor Beaufort House, 15 St Botolph Street, London, EC3A 7QU. Please note, only compensation related queries should be directed to the FSCS.
20. Other terms that apply to our agreement
No rights for third parties. Except where expressly provided otherwise, no express term of this agreement (nor any term implied under it) is enforceable pursuant to the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise by any person who is not a party to it.
Assignment/Transfer. You cannot transfer any of your rights or responsibilities under the agreement to any third party/parties.
We may assign any or all of our rights under this agreement to any third party/parties. We may also transfer our rights and/or responsibilities under this agreement to reflect a change of control provided that:
Non-enforcement. We may choose not to enforce our rights against you and make this contractually binding against us by giving you a notice which expressly states that we have chosen to do so under these terms of the agreement. In all other cases, if we choose not to exercise rights against you, we can still do so later.
Severability. If any part of this agreement is disallowed or found to be ineffective by a court or regulator, the rest of it shall continue to apply.
Law and Jurisdiction. The laws of England & Wales will decide any legal questions about this agreement, and our dealings with you leading up to when you entered into this agreement, and the courts of England & Wales will also be able to deal with any legal questions connected with this agreement.
Data Privacy Notice – please refer to our Data Privacy Notice on our website for how we collect and use your personal data.
21. How we treat dormant accounts
If we lose contact with you despite repeated attempts through all possible channels (i.e. phone or email) for 24 months we may treat your business current account(s) as being inactive to help mitigate the risk of fraudulent activity. This means that we will stop contacting you.
To reactivate your account, you can contact us using the details on our ‘get in touch’ page. We will require a director or partner of your business (as listed on Companies House) to provide proof of identification and proof of address and/or other documentation. You can find details of which identification documents we accept on the ‘Identification Requirement’ page on our website and how to get them certified can be found on the ‘Certifying Document’ page on our website.
If a total period of fifteen years has passed with no contact from you, we will treat your account as dormant. This means that we can transfer the funds to an authorised reclaim fund, which is a separate organisation authorised to accept unclaimed money in ‘dormant’ bank accounts and distribute it for the benefit of the community, while protecting the rights of customers to reclaim their money. You will be entitled to claim your money back from the reclaim fund and you can contact us (using the details on our “get in touch” page) to help you with this.
22.About us
OakNorth Bank plc is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 08595042 with its registered office at: OakNorth Bank plc, 57 Broadwick Street, London W1F 9QS.
OakNorth is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (Financial Services Registration No. 629564).