What Should a Company Bank Account Resolution Cover?

Start with the business decision: opening an account, changing its operating instructions, replacing a signatory or adding a banking service. Identify the company, the intended bank and branch, the account type and, for an existing account, enough account details to avoid confusion.

Separate permission to open the account from permission to operate it. Decide who may complete the application, submit supporting documents, communicate with the bank and certify the resolution. These administrative tasks should not silently carry unrestricted payment authority.

The Companies Act places the board's powers within the Act and the company's governing documents. The official statutory sources below support that principle. Ask your company secretary to check the approval route for the actual proposal, rather than assuming every banking decision follows the same process.

List each proposed signatory clearly, with their designation and the authority intended for them. Then consider online users separately. Someone who downloads statements need not be able to release payments; someone who prepares transfers need not approve them.

• Statement access: who should view transactions and download records?
• Payment preparation: who should enter payment instructions?
• Payment approval: who should approve or release those instructions?
• Account administration: who should request user changes, manage access or communicate changes to the bank?
• Physical instruments: who should sign cheques and other paper instructions?

Use these questions to agree the intended permissions, then ask the bank which roles its service supports. Do not assume a job title, shareholding or directorship automatically gives someone the account access the company intends.

Operating instructions explain how authorised people may act: individually, jointly or in specified combinations. Use wording that leaves no doubt about whose approval is needed. If authority varies by transaction value or service, document the intended boundaries and confirm how the bank can implement them.

Distinguish an internal approval rule from a restriction implemented by the bank. If the company requires an additional approval that the banking service cannot enforce, establish a separate control and make that responsibility clear.

Keep delegated powers specific. Consider document execution, cheque-book requests, statement requests, beneficiary management, account closure and acceptance of banking-service terms separately. Give each power an owner and a clear boundary instead of relying on an unrestricted instruction to do everything necessary.

Also decide whether an authorised person may appoint someone else or change another user's powers. If that is not intended, avoid wording that appears to permit it. Keep the authority to administer access distinct from the authority to approve transactions.

Ask the bank for its current account-opening or mandate-change checklist and proposed resolution wording before seeking approval. Compare that wording with the company's actual decision. Mark clauses that introduce additional services, borrowing powers, account closure or authority to change users.

1. Confirm the account, services, signatories and operating arrangement the company wants.
2. Check the proposed approval against the company's governing documents and applicable requirements with your company secretary.
3. Resolve differences between the bank's wording and the intended authority before approval.
4. Ensure the approved resolution, application forms and online-access requests describe the same arrangement.
5. Ask the bank to confirm what it has implemented, and check the resulting permissions before routine use.

A bank's format helps identify what it wants submitted. It does not answer every company-law question about the underlying decision. Equally, a resolution drafted for another company may describe powers or signing arrangements that your business does not want.

The Companies Act requires board proceedings to be recorded in minutes. Keep the banking decision within the company's board-record process, with the supporting papers needed to understand what was approved. Have the company secretary check the applicable preparation, signing and certification requirements.

As a practical record, retain the approved wording, the copy supplied to the bank, submitted mandate forms and the bank's confirmation. For a replacement mandate, record which earlier authority is being changed or withdrawn. Keep a clear distinction between the company's approval and the bank's implementation.

The post-incorporation compliance checklist provides related context for organising company records. The monthly bank reconciliation guide covers the separate routine of checking bank movements against the books once the account is operating.

Treat a personnel change as an access review as well as a paperwork exercise. Check signing authority, online permissions, registered contact details and any authority to administer other users. Ask the bank how each removal will be completed and confirmed.

• ✓Identify the previous authority being replaced and the authority that should continue.
• ✓Submit the required change documents through the bank's approved process.
• ✓Request removal of obsolete access and confirm completion with the bank.
• ✓Check that replacement users have only the permissions intended.
• ✓Keep evidence of the instructions sent and the changes confirmed.

Do not use a departed user's login as a temporary bridge. Arrange individual access through the bank. Plan the handover around pending payments so that removing access does not leave the company relying on an unauthorised workaround.

• Copying a sample without checking the account, services, signatories and delegated powers.
• Using vague joint-signing wording that leaves the required combination unclear.
• Giving every online user payment-release or administration rights.
• Assuming an internal payment policy is enforced by the banking system.
• Treating board approval as evidence that the bank has already changed access.
• Adding borrowing, guarantee or security clauses without reviewing the separate approval requirements.

This checklist addresses an ordinary company banking mandate. It is insufficient on its own for borrowing facilities, security documents, disputed authority or special account arrangements. Check the current statutory position on the official portals below and obtain company-secretarial advice; ask your CA about accounting implications where relevant.