Banking & Payments
Bank Account Opening
Banking support for international and high-risk businesses: banks and EMIs that fit your model, a file built for due diligence and help through periodic reviews.
Typical deliverables
- Shortlist of banks and EMIs that fit your model, with rationale
- Bank-ready onboarding pack with a compliance summary for due diligence
- Business model and flow-of-funds narrative a compliance team can follow
- Account structure plan for operating, safeguarding and client money accounts
- Due diligence Q&A log that keeps answers consistent across reviews
Overview
Why it matters
Your business needs banking that works: accounts at institutions that understand your model, structured around how money moves, and kept through periodic reviews. Banks and EMIs assess gaming, crypto, forex, payments and other high-risk businesses with extra caution, and what they probe is predictable: the ownership chain, the clarity of the business model, the fit between licence and activity, and whether compliance works in practice.
We shortlist banks and EMIs whose appetite fits your business, prepare the onboarding file the way their compliance team reads it, answer due diligence questions and design the account structure your licence and contracts require. Once accounts are open, we support you through KYC refreshes and periodic reviews, and help you respond if an institution restricts or closes an account.
Scope
How we organise your banking
Institution shortlisting
Banks and EMIs matched to your sector, jurisdictions, currencies and volumes, with a candid view of their likely appetite, so effort goes where your model fits.
Onboarding file
Corporate documents, ownership and source-of-funds evidence, a business model narrative and compliance summaries in one consistent pack that answers the questions compliance teams ask.
Due diligence responses
Answers to follow-up questionnaires and interviews that stay consistent with the file, the licence and your website.
Account structure
Operational, safeguarding and client money accounts separated in line with regulatory and contractual requirements, and organised around how your funds actually flow.
Periodic reviews
Support with KYC refreshes and periodic reviews, to help keep accounts in place once opened.
Restrictions and exits
Responding to account restrictions or closure notices, planning the transition of payments and balances, and preparing a stronger file for replacement accounts.
Considerations
What banks focus on
- Transparent ownership, up to the ultimate beneficial owners.
- Consistency between the licence, the website and the actual activity.
- Source of funds and source of wealth for the owners and the initial capital.
- The quality of the AML/CFT framework and the people who run it.
- Expected volumes, currencies, counterparties and jurisdictions.
Jurisdictions
Supported across jurisdictions
Bank account opening is one of the services we support across the jurisdictions in our directory. What banks and EMIs require differs by jurisdiction, institution and sector, and we prepare each file for the institution that will review it.
- Europe18
- Asia & Middle East4
- Americas & Caribbean11
- Africa & Indian Ocean6
Industries
Where we apply it
- iGaming & GamingB2C operators, B2B suppliers, platforms, aggregators and affiliates.
- Fintech & PaymentsPayment and e-money institutions, PSPs and acquirers, payment facilitators and embedded finance.
- Crypto & Digital AssetsCASPs and VASPs, exchanges, custodians, wallets, token projects and crypto payments.
- Forex & InvestmentsForex and CFD brokers, investment firms, trading and investment platforms.
- Digital Platforms & MarketplacesOnline marketplaces, digital platforms, multi-sided platforms and digital service operators.
- IT & SaaS BusinessesIT and software development companies, SaaS providers, IT outsourcing and cloud services.
Questions
Frequently asked
What improves our chances of opening an account?
Applying to banks and EMIs whose appetite fits your model, with a file that answers their questions completely and consistently. The decision is the institution's; our work is to prepare that file, handle due diligence questions and see the process through.
Our bank has closed our account. Can you help?
Yes. We review the reasons given, if any, and the file the bank held, address the weaknesses and approach replacement institutions with a stronger file. Where a closure notice sets a deadline, we plan the transition of payments and balances against it.
Related
Part of Banking & Payments
- Banking & PaymentsBank account opening, merchant accounts, acquiring, payment flows and safeguarding for international businesses, including gaming, crypto, forex and other high-risk models.
- Merchant Account / Acquiring SetupMerchant applications, acquiring structure and negotiated terms for online and high-risk merchants that need stable card and local payment acceptance.
Opening new accounts or replacing a closed one?
We discuss your business, licence, currencies and payment flows, and where your banking stands today. You then receive a written proposal with scope, timetable and fee.