Take revenue in, pay contractors and suppliers, and work across currencies from the early stages, with the business account in the company's own name rather than a founder's own. Applying is online and opening is subject to KYB review.
It is an account held by the business for its day-to-day operations: the money customers pay in, the money that goes out to contractors and suppliers, and the record of both. The point of it is separation. Business money sits apart from the personal finances of the people who founded the business, which is what makes the books, the tax return and any future due diligence possible. Every startup needs that line drawn on day one, and most draw it late.
Underneath, a business account is a few working parts. There are payment details a customer may be given. There are balances, which may be in more than one currency if the business earns in more than one. There is an IBAN where the business needs to be paid by other people. And there are the settlement rails a payment travels once it goes out, which differ by destination and by currency. None of this is complicated, but a startup that does not know which part does what tends to buy the wrong service.
Convenient for a month, expensive later, and no bank treats it as a business record. Personal and business money mix, the accountant reconstructs the year from card statements, and an investor doing diligence sees all of it. We open business accounts for registered legal entities only, never for founders personally, and that rule does not bend for an early-stage company.
A bank offers services a payment account provider does not: lending, overdrafts, cash handling and deposit protection. This is not a bank account and it does not replace one. Traditional banking covers the balance-sheet side of a business; this account covers the operational side, and many startups need both at once. Corporate banking and this service answer different questions, so compare them on that basis rather than on price alone.
The business account a company needs on the day it registers is not the one it needs a year later. Four stages, and what changes at each.
The job is separation and the first incoming payment. Traditional banking rarely helps here, because a bank wants history the business cannot show. What the business needs is details it may put on an invoice, and somewhere for founder contributions and early revenue to land that is not a personal card. No advanced service is needed on day one, but getting this wrong creates the bookkeeping mess that shows up a year later, usually on the day an investor asks for the numbers.
Now incoming payments start arriving, sometimes in a currency the business does not spend in. What matters is that each one may be matched to an invoice, that references survive, and that the month closes without a day of detective work in a spreadsheet. This is the stage where online invoicing and the account stop being separate problems.
Contractors, a designer, an outsourced accountant. Money starts going out on a schedule, which means a second user who needs to log in, roles that separate preparing a payment from releasing it, and a record of who approved what. This is usually the day a single-founder setup starts to hurt, and the help a business needs here is structural rather than technical.
Customers in a new market, suppliers in another. The business needs balances in more than one currency, transfers along the corridors those markets use, and a view of the whole position without logging into three services to assemble it by hand. Growth may also change which corridors a business needs, so the account has to move with it.
A business account application is turned down because the company is young, or because the founders are registered abroad, and the bank explains neither. Banks price a track record, and a startup does not have one yet.
A founder's personal card becomes the operating account, and by the day that gets unwound it has touched the tax return of the business.
Revenue lands in one currency while the costs of the business are in another, so every month starts with an unplanned conversion at whatever rate that day happens to offer.
Reconciliation happens in a spreadsheet, by hand, because the statement arrived without the references the invoices were issued against.
One service takes incoming payments, a second service sends payouts, a third does conversion, and the real cash position of the business lives in the founder's head.
The document check drags because the pack went in incomplete, and each missing item costs another round of email that nobody at the business has time for.
Founders rarely start from nothing. Most have a banking relationship already, or are queuing for one, so the real question is not banking or this account but which job each one does. Traditional banking is where a business keeps deposits, borrows against them and handles cash. Business banking of that kind is priced around a track record, which is the one thing a startup cannot show in its first year.
The operational side is different work: holding the currencies a business earns in, paying the people it owes, and being able to show who approved what. Corporate banking does parts of that, and a startup with a patient bank manager may get there, though the setup usually arrives in a form of banking built for larger and older companies. What sits here is the day-to-day layer instead, and it is the layer a young business touches every week.
So the practical answer for most founders is a banking setup with two halves. Your bank holds the relationship a lender will care about later. This account holds the operating flow: balances, incoming payments on an IBAN, payouts, conversion and the export at month end. Nothing here is a substitute for banking of the first kind, and it helps to be plain about that before an application rather than after one. A founder who is clear on the split also has an easier conversation with a bank later.
What your banking relationship is for. Lending, deposits and cash over a counter sit with a bank, and no payment account provider replaces that half of business banking.
What an operating account is for. Currencies, incoming payments, payouts and the record behind them, which is where traditional banking tends to be slowest for a young business.
Where the two meet. A bank transfer moves money between them, so the banking side and the operating side stay reconciled instead of drifting apart in the accounts.
What to keep in your own hands. Which bank you use, what you tell it and when you switch are decisions for the business, and a provider that pretends otherwise is worth a second look. Your banking history belongs to you, not to whoever holds the operating account.
Every business account opens through know-your-business review. For an established company that review leans on history: years of turnover, filed accounts, a track record a reviewer can read. A startup has none of that, which is the whole difficulty and the reason the questions a young business gets asked look different from the ones a bank asks a ten-year-old company.
With no trading history to look at, weight shifts onto two things: how clearly the business explains what it does and how it earns, and how legible its ownership is. A business that can describe its model in plain terms, name its owners without a diagram nobody can follow, and say where the first money is coming from is straightforward to assess. One that cannot, is not, however good the idea may be. That is the part founders may control, and it helps more than any covering letter.
None of this is a formality to get past. The same information decides which currencies and corridors are enabled on the business account, so a vague answer at this stage tends to produce a narrower service later, whether the file sits with us or with a bank. Getting the pack right the first day helps more than anything else a founder may do, and it is the one part of the review the business fully owns.
The online application, the document upload and the follow-up questions all run online. A reviewer looks at the file rather than a scoring form, and the outcome of that review decides whether the business account opens. No online form promises an answer it cannot give.
Hold what the business earns in the currency it arrived in, and move between balances when the rate suits rather than on the day a customer happened to pay. See multi-currency accounts for how the balances work.
Where clients, platforms or investors need to pay the business, an IBAN account gives it details of its own to put on an invoice. This is the part of the service that makes revenue collection work at all.
Send money out to contractors and suppliers over SEPA, SWIFT or
internally between Fenryx accounts. Saved beneficiaries mean the second month's
payout run costs a fraction of the first day spent on it.
Add the people who need to log in: a co-founder, a finance lead, an outsourced accountant with view-only rights. A payment may require release by a second person, and everything waiting sits at Waiting for approval until somebody authorised acts on it.
Every payment carries a status you may check any day, with the transaction detail behind it. The export is what an accountant needs at close, references still attached to the lines they belong to, which helps more than any dashboard.
Two different things, and confusing them is how a startup's first invoice goes unpaid for a month.
It is a balance the business owns and funds itself. Money reaches it from accounts in the business's own name, quoting the Business ID so it may be matched on arrival. It is where funds sit, convert and wait to be paid out, not where a customer sends payment.
It carries payment details of its own, much like the details a business quotes from a bank account, so clients, platforms and investors may pay the business directly. If the business needs to be paid by anyone other than itself, this is the part of the service that makes that possible.
For most startups the answer is both: an IBAN account so revenue may arrive, and currency balances behind it so what arrives may be held, converted and paid out. Which combination a business needs is settled when the account is configured, and it helps to say at the application stage who will be paying you.
Tell us what the business does, where it is registered, who owns it and which currencies it needs to work in. The form is online and takes a single sitting when the details are to hand.
The pack goes in, the review runs, and anything missing is requested with a reason rather than drip-fed over days. Uploading it online in one go does more to help than sending items as they surface.
Balances, users and access are configured as agreed during review, so everyone at the business who needs to log in may log in.
Where the business needs to be paid by others, the IBAN account is ordered and its details issued for invoices.
A customer or investor pays the business, the balance updates, and the reference stays attached to the transaction.
Contractors get paid, statuses update as each payment goes out, and the period exports for the books.
Subscription revenue arrives from more than one market, in more than one currency, on cycles the online platform sets rather than the business. An IBAN account collects it and the balances keep each currency apart until there is a reason to convert. Hosting, online advertising and contractor costs then go out of the balance that already holds the right currency.
Clients are invoiced in their currency and a bench of freelancers is paid in theirs, every month, on the agreed day or the freelancers go elsewhere. Saved beneficiaries turn the run into a routine task instead of an evening of retyping details. Approvals mean the founder is not the only person at the business who may release a payment.
Money comes in from buyers and goes out to sellers, which makes the business account two flows rather than one, and one online platform to run them from. Statuses on each payment help the support team answer a seller asking where their money is that day. Separate accounts per flow keep reconciliation legible while volumes are still changing shape month to month.
Stock is bought in one currency and sold in another, so the business is exposed to the gap between them whether it plans for that or not. Holding both balances means conversion happens on a day the business chooses rather than automatically on arrival. Supplier payments go out of the balance that already holds what the invoice is denominated in.
Most early-stage businesses have no finance team and no in-house service desk, just a founder and a bookkeeper who appears at month end. Roles help by letting the accountant log in and see what they need without the ability to move money. The export does the rest, which is usually the difference between a close that takes an afternoon and one that takes a week.
| Item | For your account |
|---|---|
| Account opening fee | Quoted for your business before you sign |
| Monthly fee | Quoted for your business before you sign |
| Incoming payment fee | Quoted per rail on the accounts you hold |
| Outgoing payment fee | Shown in the summary before you confirm |
| Currency conversion | Rate and cost shown before you confirm |
| Limits | Set during onboarding and reviewed as volumes change |
| Currencies | Agreed per account, see currency accounts |
| Settlement timing | Depends on the rail used and the beneficiary bank |
A note on reading any of this as a startup: the monthly fee is the number founders compare, and it is rarely the one that matters. What matters is what the business account costs at the volume you will actually run, which means the cost per incoming payment, the cost per payout, and the conversion margin applied each time money changes currency. A low monthly fee with an expensive conversion is a worse deal than the reverse for any business earning in a currency it does not spend in. Banks and providers alike quote the headline; ask instead for the numbers against your expected volumes, and ask what happens to them as the business grows.
Business accounts are opened for registered legal entities. We do not open personal accounts, we do not onboard sole traders, and we do not open an account for a business that does not exist yet. The company has to be registered before there is anything to verify.
Beyond that, availability depends on where the business is registered, what it actually does, how its ownership is structured, which corridors it needs to pay into, and the outcome of KYB review. A young business is not a problem in itself; an activity outside our risk appetite is, and so is an ownership structure nobody may trace to a person.
Industry acceptability is assessed case by case. That means we cannot tell a business in advance that it will be onboarded, and any bank or service that says otherwise before looking at the file is describing a sales process rather than a review.
A summary rather than the full list, which is set out in our AML Policy.
Eight things worth checking against any bank or provider, including this one, before a business moves its money onto the service.
Incoming money from third parties. May clients, platforms and investors pay the business directly, and into what exactly? This is the question that decides whether the company may invoice at all.
Currencies and conversion. Which currencies the service holds, and what moving between them costs a business doing it monthly rather than once.
Rails and corridors. Which schemes the business account reaches, and whether they cover the markets you already sell into.
Roles and approvals. Whether a second person may be added and log in, and whether preparing a payment is separated from releasing it.
Reporting and export. What comes out at month end, and whether it helps your accountant rather than needing rebuilt by hand.
Industry restrictions. Whether the sector a business trades in is assessed up front or discovered after everything has moved across.
What happens as the business grows. Whether limits, currencies and corridors may be revisited when volumes change, or whether you will need this search again in a year.
How it sits with your bank. Whether the service expects to replace your bank or to work beside it, and whether moving money between the two is an ordinary bank transfer or a small project every time.
It feels efficient in month one and costs the business real money at the first audit, tax filing or diligence process. Separate the two before there is anything to untangle.
The first foreign customer always arrives sooner than planned. A business account set up for a single currency turns every one of their online payments into a conversion nobody chose, at whatever the bank rate happens to be.
When only the founder can log in, month end waits on the founder and so does every payment. Add a second user who can log in and a view-only role before the business needs it urgently.
Half a pack does not start a review, it starts a queue of emails. Ownership, activity and source of funds get asked every time, by a bank and by us alike, so prepare them once, properly. It helps every application the business makes afterwards.
An application to a bank and an application here sit in separate queues, and a business may be in both at once. Holding one back until the other finishes costs a startup weeks, and it does not help either review. Run them in parallel and keep the paperwork identical across the two.
Banks and providers differ on which industries they serve. Finding that out after moving the business payments across is the most expensive way to learn it.
Having no trading history is normal at this stage and is not a reason on its own for a decline. What the review leans on instead is a clear description of the business, a traceable ownership structure and a straight answer on where the first money comes from. No bank or provider can promise the outcome before that review, and neither do we.
No. There is no requirement to incorporate somewhere specific or to appoint a director in a particular country, and no requirement to hold a local bank account first. What matters is that the business is properly registered wherever it sits, that its owners can be identified, and that the jurisdiction and activity fall inside the service we can offer.
No. A business account belongs to a legal entity, so the entity has to exist first. Until the business is registered there is nothing to verify, no owner to identify and no name to put the account in. Register the company first, then apply online.
More than one, and a business needs that set up early. A typical arrangement is a founder who may release payments, a second person who prepares them, and an outsourced accountant who can log in with view-only access for reconciliation.
Incoming payments from third parties, investors included, arrive through an IBAN account rather than a currency balance. Larger amounts may prompt questions about source of funds, which is ordinary practice at any bank or provider, so having the paperwork behind the round ready helps.
No. Fenryx is a payment account provider, so lending, overdrafts, cash handling and deposit protection are not part of this service. Plenty of startups keep a business bank account and a banking relationship for those, and run the operational side here. The two are complements rather than alternatives.
Ask which category the decision fell into: jurisdiction, activity, ownership or an incomplete file. The last of those is fixable and often is. The others usually mean the business needs a service whose appetite covers that sector, and it helps to find that out early rather than after moving anything.
Traditional banking is built around holding deposits and lending against them, and that is where a bank earns most of its money. This service is narrower: it holds the balances a business trades in and moves money in and out of them. Most startups end up with both, because a bank covers the balance-sheet side while the operational side sits here. Fenryx is not a bank, does not take deposits and does not provide banking services.
No, and most founders should not. Keep the bank account the business already has for anything that needs a bank behind it: a credit line, cash over a counter, or a domestic direct debit your bank runs on your behalf. Funding an account here is an ordinary bank transfer from that one, and money moves back the same way. Running both is the normal banking arrangement for a startup rather than a compromise.
Often they do. Alongside incorporation documents and proof of ownership, a reviewer may ask for recent bank statements showing where the business has been receiving money so far. A company young enough to have none should say so, because that is an ordinary starting point for a startup and the review works around it. Complete documents at the first attempt help more than a chase afterwards, whether the file goes to us or to a bank.
The application is online, documents are uploaded online, and an approved business works from a browser afterwards: users log in, prepare a payment, release it and pull the export. What is not automated is the review itself, where a person reads the file. If something is missing, support will say what is missing, and answering in one go helps more than sending it across piece by piece.
The smallest one that covers the business: a currency account for what it holds, an IBAN account if third parties need to pay it, and a second person who can log in. The best time to add roles, approvals and another currency is before a raise closes rather than during it, because the paperwork is calmer beforehand and the account is already open when the money lands.
Start with the status on the payment and the transaction detail behind it, which shows what was sent and when it left us. If it has left and the beneficiary bank has not credited it, support can help chase from our side, though what happens next sits with the receiving bank. We publish no arrival times, so a business gets a status rather than an estimate it cannot rely on.
In a narrow but useful way. Every payment carries a status, approvals leave a log of who released what, and the export gives an accountant a file rather than a screenshot. It replaces neither an accountant nor a bookkeeping service, and it is not meant to. What it removes is most of the back and forth a small business has at the end of a month.
Questions about the account, the status of a payment, a document the review has asked for, or a user who cannot log in. What support will not do is advise on tax, company structure or which jurisdiction a business should register in, and nobody here can say what your bank will decide about an account it holds. For those, ask an adviser whose service is exactly that.
Tell us what the business does, where it is registered and which currencies it works in. Opening is subject to KYB review.
Fenryx is operated by Globally United Tech Corporation, a money services business registered with FINTRAC in Canada, Vancouver, BC. Fenryx is not a bank and does not provide banking services. Account availability, currencies and limits depend on jurisdiction, business activity and the outcome of KYB review.