Opening and managing your business savings account

Please note

If your organisation has a turnover of £10 million or more, you’ll need to speak to a member of our Corporate Savings team.

Who can open a Business Saver account?

Nationwide Business Savings accounts are for businesses and organisations with an annual turnover of less than £10 million. They must also be established and operated in the UK.

Our Business Savings accounts are for your short and long term needs. They aren’t suitable for use as a business current account or the day to day transactions of running a business.

See the table below for a list of eligible and ineligible business and organisation types.

Business Savings eligible business and organisation types table
Eligible business and organisation types Ineligible business and organisation types
• Limited companies
• Charities
• Partnerships
• Sole Traders
• Housing Associations
• Clubs & Societies
• Parish Councils

• Banks/Building Societies
• Insurance Companies
• Corporate Trust
• Borough Council
• Cash/Liquidity Fund
• Company Pension
• Friendly Society
• Life Policy
• Investment and Unit Trusts
• Government/Political Party

If you can’t see your business or organisation type in the table and you’d like to check if your eligible, please contact us.

How to open an account

Our Business Savings accounts can only be opened by applying online or you can contact us.

Nationwide branches can’t open a Business Savings account for you, however, if we’ve asked to see copies of ID after you’ve applied for a Business Savings account, you can take your ID in to your local branch to get it checked.

If you’re looking to add an additional account, you’ll need to go to our Additional Account page.

To open a new Business Savings account with us, follow the three steps below.

Step 1 - Choose your Business Savings account

Take a look and pick one of our Business Savings accounts. You’ll then be able to find more information, read our eligibility criteria, see our terms and condition and apply online.

You can also download a copy of our rates and accounts below.

Business Savings rates About our Business Savings accounts

Step 2 - Send us the information we need

To help us open your savings account(s) as quickly as possible, we've listed all the information you'll need to provide in our printable checklist.

Please note: your application may be delayed or you may need to reapply if any information is missing.

We’ll need details about your organisation’s Beneficial Owners, Business Officials and Authorised Signatories. Here’s how we define these:

Owners, officials and authorised signatories required
  Beneficial Owners Business Officials Authorised Signatories
Definition Anyone with a controlling interest or shareholding of 10% or more in the business. They ultimately own the business and the deposit for the company’s savings account. You can ignore this if no one person owns more than 10%, or the organisation is owned by someone else. Anyone who has the authority to act on behalf of the company – such as a director, partner, member or trustee. You can ignore this if you’re a sole trader, or there is only one such official who is also the Beneficial Owner. Anyone who’s able to sign off transactions or make decisions about the savings account.
What we will need from each of these people (as applicable) are
  • Residential address
  • Time lived there
  • Place of birth
  • Nationality
  • Tax residence

At least two of the below, unless you’re a sole trader or there’s only one Business Official.

We’ll need details of all Beneficial Owners of the organisation.

• Residential address
• Time lived there
• Place of Birth
• Nationality

Dual Nationality Status Business Officials

• Residential address
• Place of Birth
• Nationality
• Dual Nationality Status

 

Your nominated account details

We also need details of the bank account you’ll use for all your withdrawals. This is known as your nominated account and should be in your business or organisation's name.

Your business details

You’ll need to tell us your organisation’s annual turnover – the income (or donations if you’re a charity) received each year. You will also need to include the number of full and part-time employees and your total assets.

For businesses with complex ownership structures, we may ask at a later date for a structure chart.

Step 3 – How to prove your identity

Once we’ve received your application form, we’ll aim to verify your identity electronically. If we need to see some original documents too, we’ll be in touch.

We may carry out electronic searches through credit agencies in line with UK Money Laundering Regulations, to help us identify you and confirm that the information you’ve provided is correct. These searches won’t affect your credit score and won’t be used by lenders to assess any credit applications.

For more details, please read our Use of information statement.

Managing your account

We’ve produced a helpful guide on using our Business Saver account. Please click the link below to download the guide:

We’ll keep you informed about how your savings are performing in the following ways:

Monthly statement

We’ll send you a statement when you open your account. If you have an Instant or notice account, we’ll send you a monthly statement if there have been any deposits on the account, and a statement as soon as any withdrawals are made (see your account terms and conditions for deposit and withdrawal limits).

If no deposit or withdrawal is made, and you’re receiving monthly interest, a statement will be sent on the 1st of the following month.

Annual statement

We’ll send you an annual statement every April.

If the entire balance of the account is withdrawn, the account will be closed. Once the account has been closed, further deposits would require a new account to be opened.

If you have one of our Business or Corporate Fixed Rate Savings accounts, we’ll contact you before your account matures to help you arrange the next step for your savings.

If you’re unable to decide what you’d like to do next by the time your account matures, we’ll transfer your closing balance into a Maturity Reserve account which has a variable interest rate.

Additional support