General T&Cs (Business Banking customers)

Table of contents:

General info

Our agreement

Banking with Atom is straightforward, so we give you information when it’s relevant to you. At this point, our contract with you consists of your secured loan application and these General T&Cs. Please ensure you read them so you understand the terms of our agreement with you. If you have any questions or concerns, you should ask us or seek legal advice.

These T&Cs detail the agreement between ‘you’ (each person or entity in whose name the relationship is being opened and all of you together if there’s more than one of you) and Atom (‘we’/‘us’).

Where we refer to a ‘relevant person’ we mean any owner, director, shareholder, trustee, guarantor, member, beneficiary or attorney of your business or entity or other person with significant control or an authorised signatory on the account forming part of the relationship with Atom.

Each condition of these T&Cs operates separately. If any court or competent authority decides that any of them are unlawful or unenforceable, the other conditions will remain in full force and effect.

Eligibility & residence

Your business must be domiciled and operating within the UK and be either a Limited Company, PLC, Limited Liability Partnership (LLP), Partnership or Sole Trader.

Each relevant person will need to be at least 18 years old, and mustn’t currently be a disqualified director, bankrupt, subject to bankruptcy proceedings or legally prevented from entering into any form of contract.

Alternative format

Corresponding with you in a digital format goes a long way towards achieving full accessibility, but if you need these T&Cs supplied in another format, or if we can help you to use our service in any other way, simply contact us via secure email at customersupport@atombank.co.uk or call us on 0333 399 0665.

Your data

Your customer record

When you apply to become an Atom customer, we will collect your first name, surname, date of birth, email address and mobile phone number and the business’s name, address, email address, phone number and unique identifier (e.g. company number). We will also require the same information for any relevant persons connected with your business or any person granting a personal guarantee. This data will be used to set up your customer record.

Verifying your identity

When you apply to become an Atom customer, we’ll ask you for some personal data so we’re able to verify your identity. We will also do this for any relevant persons. The nature of this data will vary depending on the type of product you apply for but will always include information like your full name, address and date of birth and essential information about the structure and nature of your business.

To complete the identification and verification (or ‘ID&V’) process, we will run an electronic search with a credit reference agency. If you apply for a secured loan, it will leave a ‘credit footprint’ on your file which means other providers will be able to see that we’ve run a search.

We’ll also comply with any ‘Know Your Business’ and ‘Know Your Customer’ identification procedures. You and each relevant person must supply us with any documentation and other evidence we request so we can comply with those procedures.

There are times when we may ask you or a relevant person to complete ID&V again (e.g. to keep our records up to date).

Protecting your data

We hold your data in a secure environment and use security measures to protect it from unauthorised access and ensure it is accurate and is used appropriately.

We treat the information you give us with the greatest respect and will never share it with anyone else for marketing purposes.

We’ll only use your data:

To administer your accounts and provide appropriate services.
To complete the identification and verification (ID&V) process.
To obtain, develop and maintain credit-scoring profiles.
To suggest Atom products or services that may be of interest to you.
To complete troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, and for statistical and survey purposes.
To comply with regulatory, tax or audit obligations.
To carry out fraud prevention checks when opening new accounts. If false or inaccurate information is identified, we’ll pass it on to the credit reference and fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement departments may access and use this information.
To prevent fraud and money laundering. The information provided to fraud prevention agencies may be used when checking applications for credit, credit-related or other facilities or for managing these accounts; for recovering debt; for checking insurance proposals or claims; and for checking details of job applicants or employees. Other organisations may also use your information for these purposes.
To carry out any credit reference agency search on you that we may require from time to time. To complete these activities, we may need to share some or all of your data with our trusted partners, including fraud prevention, anti-money laundering and credit reference agencies (whose details we can share with you on request), law enforcement departments, regulators, executive agencies, government departments (e.g. HMRC) and the providers of our sales or servicing platforms. Take a look at our Privacy Policy for more information about how we protect your data.

Your data rights

Once you have registered your details with us you have certain rights which apply, depending on the stage of your application, the information you’ve shared with us and our regulatory obligations relating to it. Your rights include:

The right to access your data.
The right to ask us to erase your data.
The right to share or move your data (sometimes called ‘portability’).
The right to ask us to correct any mistakes. Take a look at our Privacy Policy for more information about your data rights and how they apply to you.

Keeping us informed

It’s important that we have your correct contact details at all times. So if you (or a relevant person) change your name, address, mobile number or email address – or if there’s a material change in the nature of your business or the structure of the entity – please tell us via secure email.

If you (or a relevant person) don’t tell us that your details have changed we’ll continue to use the information we hold. If this results in confidential information being misdirected, we won’t be responsible. If we lose contact with you and have to try and find you, we may charge you for any costs incurred, so please keep us up to date.

Communications

We’ll use digital channels to communicate with you wherever possible. We’ll use secure email to contact you and to send you all your important documents; so when you apply for a product with us, we’ll ask you to validate yourself as a user of our secure email portal. For your own security, we encourage you to use the secure email portal to communicate with us, though you’ll also be able to contact us by phone.

We may ask you to send original documents in the post and send you formal notices or correspondence by post.

We won’t send you marketing communications unless you specifically ask us to.

Your account

Opening an account

You can apply to open an account via one of our panel intermediaries. The intermediary will access the relevant application forms, complete them and submit them on your behalf using our digital portal.

Multi-party accounts

Atom business accounts can be operated as a sole account (just you) or as multi-party accounts (you plus other people, such as partnerships).

If one of you tells us that you’re in dispute, we’ll need all of you to agree to any changes made in relation to the account until the dispute is resolved. For your protection we’ll need all of you to confirm that the dispute is resolved before we can lift any account restrictions.

If an account holder wants to be removed from a multi-party account, we’ll need all of the account holders to confirm this.

Operating your account

If you need someone else to operate your account, we may be able to register a Power of Attorney (POA) for you. If we do this, your Attorney, rather than you, will receive all of the information about your account.

At this time, we’re only able to register a POA if you’re an existing Atom customer i.e. if you have one or more open accounts. If you have an account with us and need to register a POA, your Attorney should send us hard copies of the relevant documents to verify their identity. We’ll then send them a link to the secure email portal, so they can access information and administer your account via secure email.

If you need any support to operate your account due to a temporary or permanent change in your circumstances, get in touch and we’ll do everything we can to help.

Contacting us

Getting in touch

If you experience any technical difficulties with opening or operating secure email or your account, our customer support team is available to help.

If you need to tell us about something or ask a question, please contact us via secure email or call us on 0333 399 0665.

Got a complaint?

Our aim is to get everything right first time, all of the time, but no one’s perfect.

If you’re unhappy with any aspect of our service or want to complain, please go to https://www.atombank.co.uk/how-to-complain and we’ll guide you through our complaints procedure. We’ll do our best to resolve your concerns, but if we can’t, or if we don’t deal with your complaint within 8 weeks, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) may be able to help.

The FOS is an independent organisation, which helps to settle disputes. You can find out more on their website.

Your right to cancel

Your right to cancel any arrangement you enter into with us will be based on the type of product you have. This is explained in detail in the product T&Cs.

The legal stuff

Changes to these T&Cs

If we need to change these T&Cs, we’ll give you 30 days’ notice so you can consider the changes in advance, except where they’re to your advantage when we’ll make them straight away. In most cases you’ll be able to repay your loan within three months of the date of the notice if you’re not happy with the changes.

We’ll only make changes to these T&Cs:

To reflect developments in our proposition (including our products and services);
To respond proportionately to changes in the law or decisions of the Financial Ombudsman Service;
To meet regulatory requirements;
To reflect new industry guidance or codes of practice which raise standards of borrower protection;
To proportionately reflect other legitimate cost increases or reductions associated with providing the particular product or service you use;
To ensure we are being fair to all our customers; and/or
To respond to changes in general banking practice for the benefit of all consumers.

Our right to terminate

We can end our agreement and close your account immediately (whether sole or multi-party) if we reasonably believe you have:

Seriously or persistently broken the terms of our agreement;
Given us false information at any time;
Put us in a position where we might break a law, regulation, code or other duty that applies to us if we continue to maintain your accounts;
Committed or attempted fraud against us or anyone else;
Used any account illegally or for criminal activity;
Inappropriately allowed someone else to access your accounts; and/or
Behaved in a threatening or abusive manner towards our staff.

Copyright and trademarks

Liability

We’re not responsible if we don’t comply with any of the T&Cs as a result of:

Abnormal or unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which would have been unavoidable despite all efforts to the contrary; and/or
Our obligations under applicable law.

Applicable law

These T&Cs are governed by the laws of England and Wales and if there’s any disagreement about them, or between us about your account, we each agree that this will be dealt with by the Courts of England and Wales.

“Atom bank”, “Atom” and “Digital Mortgages by Atom bank” are trading names of Atom bank plc, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 08632552. Registered office: The Rivergreen Centre, Aykley Heads, Durham DH1 5TS.

Atom bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA. Our Financial Services Register number is 661960.

General T&Cs (Business)_v1.2. Effective from 03/07/21.