Five Tips to Simplify Bank Account Opening for Trustees

Our clients tell us they are asked for their inside leg measurements just to open a bank account — and that it takes forever. Often they come to us holding a closure letter, with an existing relationship already being wound down and the clock running.

The frustration is justified. But the problem is rarely the structure. It is how the file reaches the bank. Across active mandates we see the same five mistakes, over and over. None of them are complicated. All of them are avoidable.

1. Treat compliance as the starting point, not an obstacle

Background checks and documentation are not the bank being awkward. They are the price of entry. Treat regulatory requirements as a box to tick at the end and you invite rejection — or worse, an open account that later attracts a closure letter. Build the compliance position first. Everything else gets easier from there.

2. Prepare the file before you go anywhere near the bank

Most of the delay is self-inflicted. UBO, source of wealth, source of funds, purpose of the account — organised, consistent and complete before a banker sees a thing. A file assembled reactively, one information request at a time, drags on for months. The same file prepared properly up front clears in weeks. Do the work once, in the order the bank needs it.

3. Know the bank’s appetite before you knock

Appetite for complex and international structures shifts constantly. A bank that welcomed a structure last year may have quietly shut the door this year. Submit blind and you waste everyone’s time and add a refusal to the file. Knowing which doors are actually open — for that structure, in that jurisdiction, right now — is half the job.

4. Don’t throw the kitchen sink

Under pressure, the instinct is to send everything. It is the wrong instinct. Burying a relationship manager in paper does not get the account opened sooner — it buries the relevant points and sends the file straight to a high-risk committee. Stay focused on what matters: a clean structure map, dense trust documentation translated into plain compliance summaries, and any red flag dealt with in the narrative rather than left to ambush you three rounds later.

5. An EMI is not a bank

Trustees bill time. Banks do not. An electronic money institution is not a bank either — and a trustee should never confuse the two. Both have a role in payments, but the difference bites at exactly the moment it is tested: when funds need to be held securely, when correspondent lines shift, or when an institution simply fails. We place accounts with fully licensed banks only, in the name of the underlying entity, never pooled. For a fiduciary structure that is not a preference. It is the point.

In practice

We recently took a structure of more than forty entities and centralised its banking with a single new institution — by doing exactly this. Compliance-led. File-ready. Matched to current appetite. Presented cleanly. Placed with a licensed bank. An open-ended headache became a managed process.

Recognise these five and act on them before you approach a bank, and trustees, fund administrators and CSPs dramatically improve the odds of opening — and keeping — the accounts their structures depend on.

Working with iKYC

We are a dedicated banking advisory practice for regulated trustees and CSPs, with more than 30 banking relationships across 12 jurisdictions. Tell us about your structure and your requirement and we will assess it against our network. The initial assessment is complimentary and returned within one business day.