Yes.

All bank accounts provided by our partner Cashplus Bank are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) This provides individual account protection up to £85,000.

Additionally, due to the requirement by deputies for large deposits to be made initially (due to compensation awards, periodic payment orders or transfer of investments for example), the bank accounts have extended FSCS protection up to £1 million for the first 6 months. This enables deputies to have ample time to plan for investment arrangements to be put in place.

This enables deputies to have sufficient time to plan for investment arrangements to be put in place.

This enhanced protection was introduced in 2020 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to offer further protection to consumers and further information about this and the FSCS eligibility criteria can be found on the FSCS website here.

Absolutely. The accounts are individual, segregated and FSCS protected and are opened in the name of the client. The deputy or attorney’s details can be linked to the account also. This enables solicitor deputies to meet their SRA Accounts Rules 2011 (SARS) and obligations under the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The OPG released this Practice Note in 2016 providing clarification of their stance in respect to solicitor-client accounts.

Direct debits and standing orders can be easily set up, managed, amended and cancelled when logged into the bank accounts. Standing orders can be set up to leave the accounts 7 days per week and also on bank holidays.

This  365-day functionality is very useful in ensuring that vulnerable clients can receive spending monies every single day of the year to ensure the stability and continuity of routine.

Yes, of course. The Money Carer Foundation pioneered the concept and launch of carer cards back in 2012. Issuing cards for carers is an integral part of the platform and the system allows deputies and attorneys to put in place spending and balance parameters to safeguard clients.

This is very helpful to demonstrate that deputies have suitable due diligence and oversight of client funds made available to carers of case managers.

Bank account statements can be generated simply and easily and in real-time from either your online partner account or simply from our smartphone or tablet app. Statements have been designed to be ‘OPG friendly’, to enable you to enter the client reporting period dates for the statements you wish to generate for annual supervision reporting purposes.

You are also able to view all of your client’s bank accounts in one place and generate multiple statements from your online partner account should you wish.

Emergency cash payments can be made in two simple ways.

Option 1: Send an instant email or text message from your Monika account so that a client or carer can receive a barcode that can be shown at any PayPoint outlet (there are 28,000) in exchange for cash up to £100.

Option 2: Send an instant text message to a client or carers mobile phone using our CashbyText facility so that they can withdraw cash from an ATM machine without a card using their mobile telephone number and secret code. There are 10,500 ATM machines across the UK that can be used and cash withdrawals up to £500 can be accessed immediately.

Both of these options are great to have if a cares card or client budget card has been lost for example and emergency funds are required. All payment methods are fully auditable within Monika

The Monika platform enables users to ‘store up’ payments throughout the day and then securely send them at regular intervals via the Faster Payments network. Users can simply add payments that need to be made to the queuing system for them to be disbursed in bulk at the convenience of the team or organisation.

A payment or creditor library is available in Monika and users will simply choose which organisation or individual needs to be paid and for what amount from within a number of payment points in the platform. This easy yet highly secure and auditable facility drives efficiencies for users and makes what has often been a time consuming and overly complicated process simple.

Each partner will be given their own secure bulk payments login with Cashplus Bank and is integrated into Monika as part of our service.

Due to our long-established partnership with GoCardless, Money Carer has developed a new, ‘high-value transaction’ direct debit service to assist deputies and attorneys in a very practical way.

Our Client Funds Access Service (CFAS) enables you (as deputy or attorney) to instruct us to transfer funds from your client’s personal bank accounts (HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, Nationwide etc) into the Cashplus Bank accounts we will open for you on the Monika platform in your client’s name.

Upon receipt of the relevant certified documents (deputyship court order, and the deputy’s ID documents) we are able to set up a single, high-value direct debit of no more than £50,000 with the funds being deposited into a Cashplus Bank account opened on your behalf in your client’s name on the Monika banking platform.

This truly game-changing innovation enables deputies and attorneys to access client funds within 7-10 working days as opposed to the many months it typically takes to access or close your client’s bank account with the major banks. This simple, important, innovation enables the deputy or attorney to pay care or other bills without the long delays that can often put clients’ care arrangements at risk.

The transfer process is fully compliant and, importantly, it is triggered in the system by the deputy and is fully transparent with individual transaction statements generated for reporting purposes. In short, you are in charge and our systems simple make the transfer happen seamlessly.

For examples of how the CFAS innovation benefits our partners, clients, local authorities and care providers read some of our case studies.

Our sweep service enables deputies, attorneys and appointees to automatically sweep funds between accounts on the platform.

For example, if you have set up carer shopping funds accounts you can specify the maximum or minimum balances to be made available on the accounts. For a high balance sweep setting, you may specify that you don’t want the balance to go above £300 or for a low balance setting, you may want the account to always maintain a balance of £30.

Similarly, you can use the sweep settings in exactly the same way for your client’s personal spending monies or you may wish to sweep excess funds into a savings or investment account that you manage for your client.

Automated sweep settings are simple to set up and easy to alter or change from within your Monika account within seconds.

In order to instruct us to debit your client’s bank account, we will need to be provided with the following information:

• A certified copy of the deputyship order or registered LPA
• A certified copy of the security bond (if applicable)
• Certified ID documents of the deputy or attorney for KYC purposes (drivers license, passport, utility bill etc)

Upon receipt of these documents, we will be able to start the bank account direct debit process within Monika and you will receive an email to provide explicit consent and to authorise the transaction. You will be notified of the progress at all stages and this will also be visible within your Monika account as well.

When the transaction has been completed an individual transaction statement can be generated within Monika for your records and reporting requirements.

Sweeps are automated to occur in the early mornings before any regular payments take place. Sweeps can be set to happen on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and are processed as bulk payments through the Cashplus bulk payment portal linked to your Monika account.

So long as the accounts you wish to sweep funds into accept payments via the Faster Payments network then, yes, Monika’s sweep facility can be used for this purpose as well.

A shared carers card is a card that has been designated for use by different carers or support workers.

This is a very popular service used by thousands of carers who support the clients of The Money Carer Foundation and each carer is verified within the Monika system as an authorised user as part of the clients ‘circle of care.

Deputies, attorneys and appointees are able to also able to use the shared carers card service in the same way, however, the carer verification process is undertaken by each organisation separately and the liability of any fraudulent activity or misappropriated funds remains with that organisation. A disclaimer statement is required for this purpose.

We recommend that deputies, attorneys or appointees make use of the Monika sweep system so that balance controls (and hence a simple risk reduction policy) can be put in place to demonstrate due diligence and oversight.

Not at the moment, however, this payment facility is in the development pipeline.

Yes, each bank account comes with a fully functional Mastercard which can be used worldwide and online. You are also able to choose which functions you wish to be made available on the cards or not. An example of this is whether you wish the ATM cash withdrawal facility to be turned on or off.

We are also able to support deputies, attorneys and appointees with additional security functions to ensure that shared card users can buy items online and receive Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) verification messages in a fully compliant way whilst being convenient and practical for carers and support workers.

Our banking platform is integrated into the Cashplus Bank multiple (bulk) payment portal. Each Monika partner is provided with their own portal access where multiple, secure payments can be disbursed in payments runs at the convenience of the partner organisation.

The payments are made via the Faster Payments network and funds are typically credited within minutes into the destination bank accounts. This facility saves partners a significant amount of time as payments are simply requested easily within Monika throughout the day and then queued for bulk release whenever the organisation wishes to release them. Some organisations may opt to have one payment run per day whilst others may choose to have several payment runs per day depending on the amount of urgency of the payment disbursements.

The release of the payments is convenient yet highly secure with multiple stages of authority options built in to cater for each partner’s preferences when it comes to internal compliance around the release of client funds.

Access the Bulk Payments Portal Here

The client funds balance report provides a breakdown of the money held in each bank account along with a total combined balance by the individual client and an overall position of the total funds held in all accounts.

This report is presented in CSV or PDF format and is also displayed in chart format to give an easy look snapshot of the status of balances over a 24-month period (default setting) or the option of displaying the balance movement data between two dates (for OPG reporting date purposes for example)

Staying on top of expected welfare benefit payments can be a task that requires constant manual checking and, as such, can be easily overlooked.

This built-in missed welfare benefits report reduces risk by using machine learning to understand which of your client’s benefits are due and to provide alerts if the expected welfare benefits payment does not arrive or if a lower (or higher) than expected payment is received.

The report is broken down by benefit type (PIP, ESA, State Pension etc) and can be directed to the nominated individual or fee responsible for overseeing a particular clients day to day money management affairs.

Yes. So long as the account has a sort code and individual account number then the funds in the account can be accessed via direct debit.

In some cases, individual restrictions may be in place, however.