[Osmf-talk] OSMF looking for a bank account

[Milo van der Linden]

In recent years, two so called "green" banks have emerged in the
Netherlands;

Tridios[1] and ASN[2]

I am currently with ASN and receive a monthly magazine on their spendings
clearly showing they analyse the companies they invest in thoroughly. They
are also into micro-credits.

My gut tells me these banks would at least be open to discussing the
options as social benefit is part of their mission and to me openstreetmap
is clearly a global social enabler.

Just my two cents.

[1] https://www.triodos.com/en/about-triodos-bank/

[2] https://www.asnbank.nl/zakelijk/financieringen/finance-by-asn.html

On Aug 19, 2016 10:40 PM, "Frederik Ramm" <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>    the OSMF currently banks with Barclays Bank in the UK, and we also
> have a PayPal account.
>
> We continue to have issues with both these accounts which sometimes seem
> to stem from money laundering regulations, but mostly from how banks
> implement these.
>
> I'd like for the OSMF to open up a secondary bank account in Euros,
> ideally with a bank that is willing and able to carry accounts in all of
> our major currencies EUR/GPB/USD so that if the EUR account works well
> we can maybe move all our banking there.
>
> The biggest issue for us at the moment is that
>
> (1) whenever we want to grant access to our bank account to a new
> person, that person has to physically show up at a Barclays branch and
> identify themselves with suitable paperwork (and sometimes Barclays in
> England don't agree with the non-England branch about exactly what
> paperwork is required). This makes the process of transferring treasurer
> obligations to a new board member unnecessarily difficult and expensive.
>
> (2) whenever there is any new member on the board, that board member has
> to fill out a "personal information" form and send to Barclays even if
> that board member doesn't access the bank account; Barclays will
> otherwise threaten to freeze our account.
>
> In addition, the total amount of bank charges we pay is relatively high
> (transfers to the Eurozone cost £5 and bank transfers to e.g. Canada
> cost £25; incoming monies also incur a fee).
>
> (Paypal isn't much better, and also very twitchy when it comes to
> locking our account - one time I tried to make a transfer to Russia and
> the account was promptly locked and they wanted me to submit a document
> that proves I really live at our company address before unlocking the
> account...)
>
> I'm wondering: There must be a better way for an international volunteer
> organisation to bank? Not everyone is wealthy enough to hire an
> accountant and let them do all the bank interactions. Frequently
> changing board members can't be *so* unusual really?
>
> We've talked to two banks in Germany and one in Switzerland and neither
> had anything easier to offer. (I have a suspicion they might have had an
> offer if we were 100 times our actual size...)
>
> Does anyone have a recommendation of which bank I could try and talk to?
> Ideally one in a country where you don't have to fear for your money, too
> ;)
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
> _______________________________________________
> osmf-talk mailing list
> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20160820/64b5cd98/attachment.html>