How to open an account in a bank or EMI in EU, England, UAE, Hong Kong. Open Merchant account.

Open an account in a bank or E-money institution in Europe, UK, UAE, Hong Kong or other country that is other than your home country becomes more difficult every year. The reason is the affords of international financial monitoring aimed at combating terrorism financing and money laundering. It leads to toughening up requirements imposed by international directives to financial institutions, as a matter of fact banks and EMIs employ risk appetites assessment and thorough due diligence of their customers. Having long experience of work with foreign financial institutions and profound knowledge of banking legislation in developed European, Asian and American countries, SOWA Consulting specialists can help businessmen to get an access to international banking and e-money services.

How to open a bank account abroad

The verification procedure of the new client is regulated by national laws of the country of bank and therefore in each case has its own specifics, but, as a rule, the applicant is required to document its reliability, solvency and transparency of income received. In particular, the bank may request:

• complete information on the beneficiaries, directors, counterparties and partners;
• confirmation of experience in relevant type of business;
• justification of the purpose for account opening in a particular bank;
• submit declaration/confirmation of source of funds and source of wealth, etc.

During the verification of the client's application to open an account and check of documents provided, banks also double check information on beneficiaries and directors on the Internet, sanctions lists, and do a background checks.

The final decision often depends not only from formal availability of all requested documents, but on its completeness, correctness and absence of internal inconsistencies in the information provided. Our company's team will prepare the necessary package of documents, forms and questionnaires with maximum regard to the requirements of a particular financial institution, conduct a preliminary check, give useful recommendations that will avoid additional questions in subsequent communication with the bank.

Benefits of Accounts in payment institutions – EMI, SEMI

The main reasons that prevent non-resident companies to open a full-fledged account in a foreign bank include:

• absence of a physical presence (substance) in the country of the bank;
• unreliability of beneficiaries or related persons, sanctioned bodies in a company structure etc;
• bank does not support the activity of the company (for instance high risk activities);
• country of origin connected risk (client may originate from grey list of black list country, or restricted country).

For those clients who can not meet the requirements of the banks a good alternative in is licensed Payment Service Providers, EMIs, SEMIs. Accounts in E-money institutions allows for settlements in EUR, GBP, USD and other currencies, SWIFT and SEPA payments, direct debit. EMIs are more dedicated to non-residential clients and have lower risk appetites in comparison with the banking sector, customer monitoring makes PSPs available to almost any business structure, in addition, their advantages include:

• availability of mobile applications;
• simple and intuitive interface;
• reliability and speed of payment processing;
• support of crypto-currencies;
• card emission;
• personal 24/7 client support.

SOWA Consulting has strong partnerships with trusted PSPs, dully authorized by financial regulator, and will help you open an account quickly for any type of business.

Internet-Acquiring

SOWA Consulting will help you to set up with internet acquires to accept card payments, popular e-wallets, open merchant account and build non-stop solution for online commerce that work globally in many currencies and regions.

You can also get:

• plastic and virtual prepaid cards;
• e-wallet with Skrill, NETELLER, Wise, etc;
• crypto e-wallets.