Insight
Published August 2025 · 2 min read
In 2025, Aregentex — a firm listed on the London Stock Exchange — collapsed, leaving thousands of corporate clients with funds frozen in virtual IBANs they had been treating as primary bank accounts. For the trustees, CSPs, and family offices caught in the fallout, the experience was a sharp lesson in the difference between a licensed bank account and an e-money arrangement.
Aregentex operated as an e-money institution. It held client funds not in segregated bank accounts at licensed deposit-taking institutions, but in pooled arrangements typical of the e-money model. When the firm failed, access to those funds was suspended immediately. Clients could not make payments, could not receive funds, and in many cases could not meet obligations to beneficiaries, tax authorities, or creditors.
The speed of the collapse left no time to arrange alternatives. Structures that had relied on a single virtual IBAN as their sole banking arrangement found themselves operationally paralysed.
E-money institutions and payment platforms serve a purpose. They are fast to open, low in friction, and useful for transaction processing. But they are not banks. They do not hold a banking licence, are not subject to the same capital adequacy requirements, and do not provide depositor protection in the way that licensed banks do.
For trust structures, foundations, funds, and family offices, placing primary operating funds with an e-money institution is a structural risk that is easy to overlook and difficult to recover from when it crystallises.
In the immediate aftermath of the Aregentex collapse, iKYC was engaged by a trust company administering twelve structures that had used Aregentex as their primary banking provider. The mandate was to secure replacement licensed bank accounts for each structure under the same entity names, with full payment capability restored as quickly as possible.
All twelve structures were placed with licensed institutional banks within the required timeframe. Funds were released and operational capability was restored.
Every structure we work with should have at least one account at a licensed, deposit-taking institution. E-money accounts can supplement that arrangement. They should not replace it. If your structures rely primarily on virtual IBANs or payment platforms, we can assess whether a more secure primary banking arrangement is achievable and how quickly it can be put in place.