FAQ – Pre-approval for opening a company bank account in Europe
Why do you need the pre-approval service when opening a bank account in Europe?
Under the pressure of various institutions that regulate the operation of banks around the world, central banks, requirements, laws and global de-offshorization, banks have now made compliance procedures when opening an account stricter and started to closely monitor potential non-resident clients and their business.
A variety of factors can be the reason for refusal to open an account for your company in one of the European banks: the type of activity of the company, the beneficiary nationality, the location of partners and clients, the sources of financing of the company and many other aspects that you should know and take into account before you decide to open an account with a European bank of your choice.
The influence of most of the above factors can be avoided by selecting one or more banks that will be happy to provide their services to clients with a profile like yours.
Our international banking consultants who have been performing a thorough analysis of European banks on a daily basis for the past eight years in order to meet the needs of our clients will be happy to help you choose a bank to open a non-resident account.
When opening an account on your own, you may spend a lot of time and effort filling out bank forms, certifying documents and still run the risk of being refused by the bank to open an account, even if you potentially qualify as a client of the bank.
However, it is possible to obtain prior approval from the bank in order to minimize the likelihood of refusal to open an account. To that end, you should start cooperation with a bank carefully selected depending on your activity after obtaining prior approval for opening an account.
In this regard, IB-IA Group UAB offers a pre-approval service, which means preliminary approval of the business model of your company with the selected bank, taking into account the country of residence of the beneficiaries.
What is pre-approval for a non-resident bank account?
Pre-approval is a unique opportunity to get preliminary consent or refusal from banks carefully selected for you by our specialists to consider a full package of documents for opening an account for your company.
In this case, regardless of whether the decision of the bank is positive or negative, you will benefit from it. If you obtain prior approval, you will be able to start preparing documents for opening an account. Clearly, prior approval does not mean that the account will be opened 100%, since the bank compliance department will make its final decision only after receiving a complete set of company documents; however, your chances to get it significantly increase due to the fact that the bank, after reviewing your business model taking into account information about you as a beneficiary, has already approved it. In case of refusal, you can choose other European banks offered by our specialist, without wasting your time waiting for the completion of the procedure for reviewing your package of documents and spending your money for certifying new sets of documents of the company for the bank and sending them to the bank. It may take more than one month to review the documents submitted, and thus the period of use of your certified documents (three months from the date of receipt) may expire.
How much does the pre-approval service cost?
The pre-approval service fee charged by IB–IA Group UAB is EUR 900 for corporate accounts and EUR 500 for personal non-resident accounts. The cost of the pre-approval service will be calculated by the consultant on an individual basis, depending on the compliance department requirements of the selected bank. The base pre-approval fee includes the service provision with regard to one, the most suitable, bank.
In case of refusal from all the banks selected for you (possibly due to the high-risk activity of your company), the amount paid is non-refundable. It is important to note here that you can be sure of our full transparency. We neither mislead our customers nor promise to do something that is obviously impossible to accomplish. We will not offer you banks for submitting a preliminary application if we are sure in advance that you will get a refusal. Furthermore, provided that opening an account with any bank is certainly impossible, the pre-approval service will be unavailable to you. In this case, the reputation of our company and your loyalty are our priorities.
Procedure for providing the pre-approval service in 5 steps
First, you fill out a form on our website and enter information about the company applying for opening an account and details of all its beneficiaries.
After filling out the application form, an automatically generated invoice for the provision of the pre-approval service will be sent to the email address specified by you.
Against invoice payment, the banking specialist analyzes the form filled out by you and, according to the data submitted, selects the most suitable banks/payment solutions for your company.
After agreeing with you on the most suitable option, your personal manager starts working on pre-approval of your application by the bank of your choice. The application processing time is 2 business days. The bank response time depends on the selected banks and the operating speed of their compliance department, and usually varies from 5 to 15 business days.
After receiving the application approval from the bank, you are redirected to a bank specialist who will finalize the procedure for opening an account for your company.
Who is recommended to use the PRE-APROVAL service?
The pre-approval service is recommended by our company for activities that are considered high-risk by banks. Please keep in mind that most banks are not interested in providing their services to such clients, and choosing the right bank and opening an account for your company will take a lot of effort and time. The use and payment of the pre-approval service is recommended for companies engaged in the following activities:
The use and payment of the pre-approval service is also recommended for company chief executives and individuals who, while having a transparent business model or type of income understandable to banks, value their time and money. Such clients usually strive to make sure that they are a desirable client for the selected bank before proceeding with opening an account, preparing/certifying/sending a full package of documents of the company and paying for account opening services in full.
The use and payment of the pre-approval service will be useful if you have chosen a bank on your own, without taking into account the recommendations of our consultants, and want to first make sure that it is possible to open an account with the bank of your choice. This service is also applicable to banks our company does not cooperate with, since the procedures for opening an account with a European bank are quite similar.
What guarantees does the pre-approval procedure provide?
Obtaining prior approval from the bank does not mean that the account will be opened 100%. This important point must be understood and agreed on before starting cooperation. Applying for opening an account will take place in two stages.
At the first stage, the business model of your company is verified by the AML department of the bank for compliance with the bank’s criteria. At this stage, a decision is made whether the bank is ready to provide its services to your company and whether the bank is satisfied with your business model. The completion of this initial stage is guaranteed to you after your pay for the pre-approval service. A certain decision the AML officer of the bank will make after reviewing your pre-approval application cannot be guaranteed to you; however, since the bank is initially selected taking into account the business model of your company, IB–IA Group UAB can guarantee that the bank will most likely make a positive decision.
At the second stage, your company is verified by the bank’s security service (compliance department). You can proceed to the second stage in case of a positive decision of the AML officer of the bank and fulfillment of all the cooperation requirements of the bank selected from those for which a positive pre-approval was obtained. At the second stage, the account opening service can be provided to entities and individuals who submitted a full package of filled out bank forms and certified documents to the bank and made a deposit to the account (as necessary), provided all other requirements of each specific European bank are met. At this stage, whether the bank will make a positive decision directly depends on the accuracy of the information provided by you since all other aspects have already been agreed on at the first stage; obviously, guaranteeing you the opening of an account under these conditions is overconfidence, if not a misleading, which is unacceptable according to the policy of our company. The bank always has the last word.
What are the advantages of cooperation with IBIA Group UAB?
In case of cooperation with IB–IA Group UAB, you can be sure of a detailed review of the business model of your company and the fulfillment of our obligation to send relevant requests to a bank specially selected for you in good faith. Furthermore, you will certainly save your time, which, without pre-approval and preliminary selection of a bank in a professional manner, will be spent on finding the right bank, filling out applications/forms, preparing documents, waiting for a decision from the bank on whether you can open an account (in case of refusal, you will have to start all over again). But even in case of a preliminary refusal, you will certainly save your money, which would otherwise be spent on certifying documents, sending documents to the bank, and, in case of refusal, for re-certifying documents and sending them to other banks since the period of use of a previously certified set of documents will expire (3 months from the date of receipt).
Important final points
The pre-approval service is only provided for the purpose of opening current bank accounts (personal and corporate).
The information specified in the pre-approval form must be accurate and true. Please bear in mind that in any case the bank reserves the right to request additional supporting documents both at the stage of opening an account and in the course of operation.
It is important to adhere to the information provided in the pre-approval form. If during the second stage of opening an account the compliance department reveals that the data is inaccurate, there will be an increased risk of being refused to open an account and you will have to go through the process of re-selecting a bank and agreeing on a modified business model and, as a result, incur additional financial and time costs.