Despite all the advantages of opening an account in one of the European banks, you need to pay special attention to the following.
Providing a package of documents. European banks carefully review documents provided by clients, and in some European countries there is, unfortunately, still quite a lot of bureaucratic procedures.
In the practice of IB-IA Group UAB, there were refusals when opening an account in one of the European banks due to improperly prepared documents: the documents of the company contained errors in the names of its members and numbers (date of birth, identity document number and expiration date), the director and the beneficiary of the company were mixed up. Sometimes, the compliance department of the bank did not like the use of the black ink pen when signing documents, while the mandatory rule is the use of the blue ink pen.
For this reason, before sending documents to the bank, IB-IA Group UAB recommends using the 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, and approval of a full package of necessary documents to meet the requirements of the selected bank. As a result, you will save costs for preparing and sending additional documents, mitigate the risk of refusal and significantly reduce the bank response time.
Describing business activities. Due to the adoption of the most recent European Union Directives, European banks are paying particular attention to companies engaged in high-risk activities, which means companies that are highly likely to encounter various difficulties, including legal issues and customer dissatisfaction, or go bankrupt.
As a result, European banks and financial institutions may refuse not only to grant a loan to a company with such types of activity, but also to open a business account, in order to avoid the risk of being fined or even losing their license due to sanctions of the regulator. Banks and financial institutions consider business to be high-risk in the following areas: gambling and any activity in the field of gambling, trade in medicines, any cryptocurrency transactions, trade in precious metals/precious stones, trading activities, and 18+/adult industry.
Confirming sources of funds. When opening an account in one of the European banks, individuals can provide a tax return from the country of residence, an account statement, property purchase and sale agreements, employment contracts, inheritance documents, etc.
Companies need to submit the same documents as individuals (in case of new companies with a large share capital). In most cases, a company must be able to provide its financial statements, a list of partners, contracts, CV/resumes of directors and beneficiaries, confirmation of the list of employees from the tax department, and a bank statement (if the company has an account with another bank).
Providing a proof of residence of the applicant/members of the company. According to the current AML/KYC policy of European banks, clients from non-European countries are considered ‘risky’. After receiving an application to open an account, some banks refuse to provide services to such clients. Therefore, the pre-approval procedure 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, taking into account your residence.
