South East charities unable to pay staff after online fraud alert

“It’s just not good enough,” she said.

“Many of the grassroots organisations I represent – churches, YMCAs, vets – have CAF as their bank, but they are slowly losing trust in it.”

Rodgers added that she had received “no reassurance” about the current situation from the bank, while any information had been “very inconsistent”.

“It’s especially sad that this has happened in the summer when lots of extra projects are up and running,” she said.

“People are unable to access their own money and have been left feeling powerless – it makes me really angry.”

In a statement, chief executive Alison Taylor said: “I am very sorry for the disruption this has caused for our customers.

“On Monday we informed them that the online banking service will be unavailable until further notice.

“We are working with external experts to fix an issue we identified with third-party software related to our online banking portal. Importantly, the core bank is not affected.”

Taylor added: “We appreciate how difficult this is for our customers and want this to be resolved as quickly as possible, but we cannot restore access until we are assured the issue is safely resolved.

“We are still able to support as extra teams are available on the phone, and we are prioritising time-sensitive payments such as payroll.”

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