Charities remain locked out of CAF Bank online accounts

SECURITY

A week into shutdown, 14,000 customers still have no restoration date and some are struggling to pay staff

A week after suspending online banking, CAF Bank still has no timetable for restoring access to its 14,000 UK charity customers.

The bank updated customers on Thursday about the outage, which has disrupted payments to staff and suppliers.

Little had changed. In a message seen by The Register, CAF Bank said it was not yet able to restore the service safely.

As it had earlier in the week, the bank said it detected attempted fraud on some accounts and acted quickly to stop it. Its investigation uncovered a previously unknown vulnerability in the connection between its systems and third-party software. CAF Bank said its technical team was working around the clock with suppliers and external experts on a fix.

The Register understands that no timetable has been set for restoring online banking.

Earlier this week, CAF Bank CEO Alison Taylor apologized for the disruption. “The core bank is not affected. We are acutely aware of the impact this has on our customers and want this to be fixed as soon as possible, but we cannot restore access to the online service until we are assured the issue is safely resolved,” she said.

Since The Register first reported the story earlier this week, the BBC has spoken to charities struggling to make essential payments, including payroll.

Kevan Hodges, chief executive of Down’s syndrome charity 21 Together, told the BBC the outage was “appalling.”

“People are concerned that wages won’t get paid because of this, and that’s just stressful when they have bills to pay. My team have wasted days trying to get through to [CAF Bank], but all in vain,” he said.

Bali Rodgers, chief executive of Safer Communities Alliance, told the BBC the grassroots organizations it represents were slowly losing trust in the bank.

CAF Bank also came under fire last year after the introduction of a new banking platform left customers unable to log in or make transactions. The bank later apologized but has not disclosed how much it spent on the system.

CAF Bank held £1.45 billion ($1.93 billion) in customer deposits at the end of its 2024/25 financial year. ®