[gentoo-trustees] New bank account

[Donnie Berkholz]

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Over the past couple of weeks I've been researching a new bank account
that would allow us:

1) to get verified with Paypal so we could actually get our money out of
there without a limit; and

2) to allow international trustees to have access if they wanted it.

At the FLOSS summit a couple of weeks ago, the Eclipse Foundation's
director mentioned that it uses Bank of America, which has a number of
enhanced online banking features beyond what most banks have.

I've met with bankers at the Bank of America twice now, and I think they
can fulfill our needs.

What regular banks to that gets Paypal to verify them is get everyone
who has access to the account to sign a signature card. This means that
the signature card would need to get sent all over the world, to each
trustee who wants access to the account. It would be useful to minimize
this, so I propose that only our officers do this and therefore have
access to the account.

For the international case, the signature card would be mailed to the
local U.S. embassy or consulate, and our trustees would need to go in
and have their signatures notarized there.

The enhanced online banking, called "Online Business Suite," [1] runs
$15/month. What this gets us:

1) Separate logins/passwords for each person with access to the account;

2) A big list of financial features, some of which we may use, some not.
One of these is direct deposit to employees, which we might be able to
leverage to send Gentoo devs money for their funding requests, but it
looks like this could cost another $10/month.

Point 1 is probably the most important here. We want to be able to
identify exactly who's doing what with our money.

If you'd like to read more, go to bankofamerica.com and click the "Small
Business" link at the top.


Technical details on opening the account:

While the signature card's being sent around, only the signers present
at the initial account opening have access to it. Since Corey and I are
both in Corvallis, it would make sense for both of us to sign it so we
have a little insurance.

What we need to open an account:

1) Person authorized to act on behalf of the foundation as indicated in
its corporate resolution;

2) The foundation's tax ID number;

3) The foundation's Fictitious Name Certificate, or the Certificate of
Trade Name if the account name is different from the corporate title;

4) The articles of incorporation;

5) The IRS ruling letter of tax exemption, or a notarized statement from
the officers or directors on Gentoo letterhead, saying the foundation is
exempt from tax reporting under 501(c).

They will not accept a document that hasn't been filed with the
appropriate state official.

We don't need an official storefront to open an account; we can just
give a home address.

We need $100 to open the account.


Technical details on using the account:

In Europe, Deutsche Bank ATMs can be used for no fee;

Debit-card purchases are free, but credit-card purchases are assessed an
additional 3% of the transaction;

They're having an ongoing special called "Business Deal Days" where the
usual $2500 minimum balance is waived forever if you open an account
during this time. If we open an account outside this special, we need to
meet a minimum daily balance of $2500, or some other, larger monthly
average balance, or pay $9/month.

The type of account we want is called "Business Economy Checking."

The banker I've been working with is Erica Lewis, at the Corvallis
branch. It would be nice to open the account with her, if we do open it,
because she's been quite helpful in answering my questions.


I'm heading out for two weeks to get married and go on a honeymoon, so I
won't be able to reply until then.

Thanks,
Donnie

1.
http://www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/accountaccess/index.cfm?template=acct_obs.cfm
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