Important information
What is our registered address?
Who regulates us?
Standards of Lending Practice
MoneyHelper
Provide feedback or make a complaint
How do you protect my information?
What law is applicable to my contract with you?
Bribery and corruption
Our disclaimer
Email security
Credit reference agencies
Faster Payment System
Who regulates us?
The Co‑operative Bank p.l.c. is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (No. 121885). Credit facilities are provided by The Co‑operative Bank p.l.c. and are subject to status and our lending policy. The Co-operative Bank p.l.c. reserves the right to decline any application for an account or credit facility. The Co‑operative Bank p.l.c. subscribes to the Standards of Lending Practice which are monitored by the Lending Standards Board.
MoneyHelper
MoneyHelper has impartial information and tools to help you when budgeting, borrowing money, taking out a mortgage or opening a savings account.
For more information please visit the MoneyHelper website.
How do I provide feedback or make a complaint?
Your opinion is very important to us. What you say helps to shape our products and services to build a better banking experience that you are proud to be a part of.
If we get something wrong you can make a complaint. Be assured that we treat all complaints seriously and promise to deal with them fairly and promptly. We try to resolve complaints straight away.
How do you protect my information?
The privacy of Co‑operative Bank customers is very important to us, and how we deal with personal information is outlined in our terms and conditions. We hope the way in which we gather and use your personal information addresses and respects any concerns you may have:
We will only use the personal information we gather:
- In the normal course of our business to provide the products and services you have requested
- To identify you when you contact us
- To determine if we can offer you a better service or more relevant products
- To send you e-mail updates of service changes which are important to you or which we feel may be of interest to you
- For credit assessment, to review the conduct of and to administer/operate your accounts
- For statistical analysis, including automated techniques (e.g. behaviour and credit scoring) and to monitor and analyse our business.
We will disclose your personal information only to:
- Our agents and sub-contractors to administer and operate your account or to conduct our business
- The insurer of any payment or card protection cover which you take out in connection with your account
- Our licensed credit reference agency who may keep a record of any search we make and your personal information may be shared with and used by other lenders in assessing applications from you or members of your household
- Any person to whom we transfer our rights or obligations under this agreement
- For debt tracing or fraud prevention
- To help desk advisers, minicom/typetalk operators or their equivalent
- If required or compelled to do so by law.
Our disclaimer
We have taken the greatest of care to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this website, but cannot accept responsibility (to the extent permitted by law) for any inaccuracies, omissions, or errors whether in respect of the information provided on our website or on any to which our website may be linked. We are a United Kingdom bank and its products are only available in the United Kingdom (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) to United Kingdom residents.
The information on this website may only be used by UK residents and expatriates for their own purposes. Permission must be obtained from us for any other use.
Credit reference agencies
When you apply to open an account with us, we have to decide if you appear to be an acceptable credit risk. To do that, we use a variety of information:
- The details you have given us
- How you have operated your accounts in the past
- Information from one or more credit reference agencies.
The application is only approved if all the information we receive is acceptable. We use a method called credit scoring to assess applications to open an account or borrow money, although our decision is not necessarily based on credit score alone. We also use credit reference agencies to help us to make the decision.
For full details of how your information may be used for credit reference and fraud prevention purposes by The Co-operative Bank and the credit reference agencies, please read our guide on the use of your personal data (PDF).
Faster Payment System
The Faster Payment System is an electronic payment method, which in most cases the money will be available within two hours. You can use the Faster Payments service to make either immediate or future dated transfers and bill payments, as well as standing orders. Standing order and future dated payments will only be processed Monday to Friday. In most cases, the funds will be available within two hours. Note: Direct Debits are not part of the Faster Payment service. All smile accounts are able to send and receive Faster Payments.
Sending Faster Payments
If you are making a payment using the Faster Payment System you should check that the account you are sending money to receives Faster Payments.
- If you wish to make a funds transfer or bill payment (Single Immediate Payment) then the maximum you can send is £19,999 online or in the app, or up to £100,000 over the phone or in branch
- If you wish to make a Standing Order then the maximum you can send is £100,000
- We may adjust the sending payment limits for Faster Payments at any time.
Receiving Faster Payments
- smile will accept Faster Payments up to scheme limits. However, some banks may have lower limits in place.
Key features include:
- The Faster Payment service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, other than during periods of essential maintenance (except for payments made by standing order or future dated payments)
- Payments will be transferred between participating financial institutions and, in most cases funds will be available in the beneficiary’s account within two hours.
Although in most cases the Faster Payment System will speed up electronic payments, there are a few important points you should be aware of:
- Payments are made almost immediately, so they cannot be stopped and the sending bank is unable to retrieve the funds
- It is essential that you provide us with the correct sort code and account number and name of the person or business for the bank account receiving your payment
- Most other banks sort codes are able to receive Faster Payments; however this does not apply to every sort code
- The Faster Payment System will only operate in sterling and is only available for UK payments.
There are circumstances which may prevent payments going via the Faster Payment System; therefore payments cannot be guaranteed to reach the recipient the same day in all cases. If your payment is time critical we would recommend using CHAPS (for which an ancillary charge would be levied). Please contact us to discuss.