The Charities Aid Foundation

In the past two weeks they completely messed up the transfer of account holder for our charity, leading to me spending nearly two hours talking to people who never seemed to have the full picture. Just got that sorted and the 'upgrade' is turning into a complete mess, meaning I can't make payments which are due. Have made repeated attempts to activate my new user ID and password today, without success. Unable to get any response to phone calls.

Ros M Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

CAF launched a new online banking system on Monday. I had previously received an email with a username, informing me that my temporary password would be sent by SMS. I waited until launch day but still no password. I called CAF customer services at various times on Monday and Tuesday to learn that they weren't accepting phone calls. There was simply a recorded greeting telling customers to call back later. Presumably they had messed up the launch of the new system on such a massive scale that they were being inundated with more calls than they could manage. Today, on Wednesday, they are now accepting calls. In the time I have been waiting, I have done my dishes, cleaned the kitchen, cooked and eaten a meal, responded to correspondence, and set up a charity fundraiser. At the time of writing, I have been waiting for 2 hours and 14 minutes. Tomorrow, I am expecting news that means my charity will need to engage in a number of financial transactions, so I cannot wait for the 5-day estimate turnaround on their online support form that I filled in on Monday. EDIT: I was connected shortly after submitting this review. It turns out the reason I didn't receive the SMS with my password is because they sent it to my old phone number. I changed my number in January last year and updated it with CAF. They have been successfully sending me messages to my new number for 15 months, but for some reason, with this new online banking system, they have managed to dig out my old number from somewhere and use that instead. The only positive thing about the whole experience was the agent who immediately identified and resolved both this problem and the problem that led to my last review of CAF.

Cyprian Astley Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

Unfortunately despite helpful staff (when you get through to them) currently their phone message since 9am says call back later. They haven't responded to emails either. I appreciate they are swamped, but currently I cannot pay our suppliers as the person authorising can't gain access.To top it off, the 'historical transactions' are showing the dates out of order, with no way of sorting, and the balances are incorrect. I can no longer connect to QuickBooks, none of our group payees have been brought over (which requires adding them again, and the new group template will not allow selection of beneficiaries yet. To top it off user interface wise it's actually worse than the last platform!This is not down to the staff, but the developers and it is an absolute mess. It clearly wasn't ready to launch. Had no updated emails from CAF as to progress.

Sonia Baker Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

Some comments on the new Online Banking system....Why, oh why, have you removed the basic bank account format of credit and debit columns. Instead you have merged them into one column with positive and negative numbers. This means that downloads of transactions to put into my own accounts system need significant extra processing to split out that column into the usual two columns. You have also changed the order of transactions - used to be oldest at top and newest at bottom...now it is reversed. Once again a significant impact on end user systems.I've had to manually sort out "historical transactions" between 2nd June and 6th June - the data provided was not in date order but was all scrambled up.On-line statements are not available post April 2025...I wait to see what these are like - hopefully a credit and debit column version like we used to receive (and which all other banks produce)!

David Wilson Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

CAF Bank launched a new online system this week. They provided me with a new username but have failed to provide a password for me or my colleagues. We have no access to our bank account this week, and can not make payments which will soon be overdue. The CAF Bank telephone system has a recorded message saying they can not answer calls and please call back later. This is absolutely the worst service possible.

Phil Lawler Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

APPALLING BANKWell well well, what a surprise, CAF BANK you have excelled yourselves this time. 9th June 25, NEW improved log ins, system etc. SADLEY doesn’t work, for 3 days now have not been able to access our charity funds. Absolute shambles of a bank. Thankfully no longer rely on this appalling company as our main bank. Said it before will say it once more. STEER CLEAR OF THIS BANK.

T Westlake Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

Edit 16/06/2025To add insult to injury CAF have now taken their monthly £5 bank charge 3 times in June with a strange narrative - capitalise. The new online system seems to have been written by developers with absolutely no knowledge of banking. After several attempts at creating a bulk payment template followed by a bulk payment request I managed to create one for approval yesterday but the first OTP code did not activate the continue button and I had to request a 2nd OTP that did work. I have 40 years accounting experience and used numerous online banking systems over the past 20 years and NEVER have I seen anything like this. Unable to do anything in new online banking as it doesn't work. Creating new bulk payment templates doesn't work despite now being able to see some of the beneficiaries. Unable to authorise payments due to failure to transfer all users to the new platform. Looks like they've used old data or some sort of scrambled data. Clearly launched without testing at all. For those who have already posted saying they didn't receive a temporary password - I managed to find mine with this guidance from CAF bank:If you are an Android phone user & have not received your text message:Please check the ‘Spam & Blocked’ folder on your phone. To access this folder:Go to your ‘Messages’Tap on you profile pictureClick on ‘Spam and Blocked’Look for a message from ‘cafbank6039’ If you are an iPhone user & you have not received your text message:Please check whether or not you have a Filter set. To access this filter:Go to your ‘Messages’If there is a filter, this will appear in the top left cornerIf you see this displayed, please click to show ‘Unknown Senders’Look for a message from ‘cafbank6039’ If you are an iPhone user & you have deleted your text message:Go to your ‘Messages’If there is a filter, this will appear in the top left corner. If not, it will show ‘Edit’Click on ‘Filter’ or ‘Edit’ in the top left cornerSelect ‘Show Recently Deleted’Look for a message

Janice Bailey Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

Yes, a total shambles with the changeover. We have been unable to pay any bills all week as 2 or us have not received passwords, or at least ones that work. And no response from CAF to completed forms and emails to resend passwords, only an email to say check my junk folder. Surely if they can send that email, they can just as easily send a password. Who on earth thought they could do this changeover and take the old system offline in a matter of days, leaving no time to sort out issues? Did anyone test this system before implementation? It doesn't seem like it.Update 16.6.25After several emails and a week of trying, I've got a password and can now get into the system, as can our other users. Thanks to Ben Jowitt of Client Relations Dept. for sorting this out.One noticeable issue, though, is that there's no way to get 'Beneficiaries' (they're Payees, aren't they?!) into alphabetical order, which is a pretty basic requirement.

Andy D Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

Since the CAF system upgrade on 9 June 2025, we’ve experienced serious failures, particularly with outgoing payments. The most critical is that payment references are no longer passed on to recipients. This means our suppliers—many of whom rely on invoice-matching via these references—are unable to reconcile payments.Even when entering both our reference and the supplier reference into the system, no reference appears on the receiving bank’s side. We flagged this immediately on 10 June and were told it was being looked into, but no warning or guidance has been sent to other users. This is not a minor glitch—it’s a major operational failure that affects audit trails, payment matching, and potentially statutory payments to bodies like HMRC, where correct payee references are required by law.It’s unacceptable that CAF hasn’t proactively communicated this fault. Every organisation using this system should be warned now. The lack of transparency is adding to the chaos caused by this poorly tested upgrade.

JOHN STORR Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot

After the online change we have lost all our payee history (we have over 150). I’ve tried manually adding a couple and each one requires a separate Pin via phone authentication. It’s so clunky and slow.I tried phoning, emailing - mostly don’t answer or reply - latest email says they’ve fixed the payee history problem - but they haven’t !!! I’m stuck - can’t pay invoices. Avoid this bank.

John Nicholls Donor · Mar 26, 2026 Trustpilot