Opening an Account for a Crypto Company

Opening a bank account in Europe for your company, if it is working with cryptocurrency activities, is quite a laborious process. Despite the fact that every year, the number of companies whose activities are directly or indirectly related to cryptocurrency has been growing steadily, problems with opening bank accounts for crypto activities in Europe still exist. The companies are facing this problem directly dealing with cryptocurrencies and digital assets, and any traditional business that gets payment for its cryptocurrency goods/services.

Why don’t the majority of banks want to work with crypto assets?

The practice of recent years shows that entrepreneurs who decided to launch a cryptocurrency project faced serious problems when opening an account in European banks. The basic reason for such a situation is that cryptocurrencies have not yet been regulated at the legislative level in most European countries. The main reason for the refusal of banking institutions to cooperate with firms operating cryptocurrencies is, on a regulative base, lack of regulation approved by the regulator how to control such cryptocurrency activities, and to which asset/ value class virtual currency belongs. In general, almost all banks and financial institutions regard cryptocurrency business as a high-risk activity.

Even when some banks do cooperate with cryptocurrency companies, they tend to be very choosy regarding their clients and work only with easily understandable business models and well-established companies. Hence, opening an account for a cryptocurrency-related business may become even more difficult for an innovative business model like mining, staking, portfolio management, cryptocurrency loans/credits, etc.

Yet, some innovative European countries have already embraced this advance in technology and introduced laws that regulate cryptocurrency activity at the state level and consider it legal.

How to open an account for a cryptocurrency company?

The first step to be taken by a company is to select a European country where regulating the issue of cryptocurrencies is effective, and then choose a bank or financial institution (payment service provider, electronic money establishment, etc.) that will agree to cooperate within this country. At this stage, the following should be considered: does the bank allow receiving and sending money between accounts related to cryptocurrencies; does the bank allow using an account for a cryptocurrency business;

• Does this European bank/financial institution accept and send assets to crypto exchanges?
• Does the bank currently service an existing company with a similar business model to yours?
• Must this bank include the word ‘cryptocurrency’ in the description of payments?

Although the number of financial institutions that serve the cryptocurrency business is growing, not all offer the full range of services required by the international crypto business. For example, most European banks offer only a SEPA payment account (Single Euro Payment Area), while usually virtual currency companies would want to open a cryptocurrency account and get a full package: SWIFT payments, multi-currency accounts, and payment cards. It saves customers’ precious time and gets all the necessary means of banking for a cryptocurrency business. Banking professionals from Regulated United Europe offer, as a unique opportunity, a Pre-Pro service approval, which means obtaining preliminary consent or a waiver from carefully selected banks by our experts in order to consider a full set of account opening documents for a crypto company.

The other responsible step in such a way is a proper approach to filing the application. To the question about opening an account for a cryptocurrency company, it is necessary to provide complete information: all corporate documents of the company, copies of passports of beneficiaries, agreements with customers and suppliers, and a short description of the business model. If your activity is licensed, attach confirmation of a license. What has been repeatedly overlooked, however, is the fact that documents have to be presented in a form acceptable to the country of registration of the financial institution. In other words, most documents have to be translated into English or the language of the European country in which the bank is registered and regulated, and notarized and apostilled, providing evidence that the documents are valid.

Nowadays, any company is also bound to have anti-money laundering procedures; hence, internal AML procedures and due diligence reports, and possible external audits have to be stated. While planning an account opening for a crypto company in a European bank, note that since cryptocurrencies are considered more risky assets, this means that banks should perform an extended comprehensive check (EDD) in accordance with anti-money laundering legislation. The key requirement here is the understanding of the source of funds and the source of wealth of the firm and its UBOs.

Documents about the source of funds of the company or any of its UBOs should be verified. This also forms part of the EDD process, wherein an analysis of how the company collects and maintains customer data is done. Bank officials should verify, before opening an account for the company’s cryptocurrency activities, that the company has developed procedures to identify the risks associated with possible money laundering and that these procedures have been suitably implemented, in accordance with the money laundering instructions. In order to prevent the need to repeat the process of preparing a complete package of documents at the outset, our company is prepared to offer you an advance coordination service.