Who we serve
Accounts for the holding company and everything under it
A named IBAN for the HoldCo and for each company below it, so dividends, management charges and intercompany transfers reconcile themselves.
The problem, honestly
A company owned by another company is harder to open an account for than a company owned by people. Corporate shareholders mean the ownership chain has to be traced up through every layer to the individuals at the top, and plenty of providers would rather decline the application than do that work. Holding companies that do not trade hit the same wall from the other side: no trading activity, no obvious answer to "what does this business do", and the file stalls.
The tracing still has to happen here, because it is a regulatory requirement rather than a preference. What changes is that it is your documentation being assessed, not the shape of your structure being held against you. A HoldCo that arrives with its ownership chain evidenced and a clear description of what the money will do is an ordinary application.
- Trading CoRevenue and supplier payments
- Property CoRent in, mortgage out
- IP CoLicence fees, ring-fenced
One group, one set of ownership evidence
The work in opening accounts for a group is rarely the accounts. It is proving the same ownership four times to four onboarding teams.
Each company in the structure is a separate legal entity, so the institution’s checks apply to each one. What does not have to be separate is the evidence behind them: the ownership chart, the ultimate beneficial owners, the incorporation documents and the director identification are one pack, gathered once and applied across the applications rather than assembled from scratch each time.
That is the practical difference between opening a group’s accounts and opening four unrelated ones, and it is the question worth asking any provider before you start.
- Trading Co
- Property Co
- IP Co
Why the accounts stay separate even when the group is one
Consolidation is a reporting exercise. Money is not.
A holding company that runs everything through one account creates a problem it will pay for later: intercompany balances that nobody can evidence, a corporation tax position that takes days to reconstruct, and an audit that turns into archaeology. Each entity holding its own account keeps the boundary where the law already puts it.
- An account per company, each in that company’s own name, with its own records.
- Inter-entity movements executed as payments with a trail, rather than as journal entries after the fact.
- Multi-currency where a subsidiary trades in another currency, so conversion stays a decision rather than a default.
- One relationship and one specialist across the group, instead of four onboarding queues.
What you get
An account in each company’s own name
Named IBANs for the holding company and for each subsidiary, rather than everything pooling through one account you have to unpick later.
One specialist for the whole structure
Your specialist maps the group once and stays your contact, so you are not explaining the same ownership chain to a different person for every entity.
Intercompany movements that reconcile
Dividends, management charges and intercompany loans move between named accounts, so each leg is attributable in your ledger and in the audit file.
Multi-currency where the group needs it
Hold 23 currencies and pay across 170+ countries on the group payments network, whichever company in the structure is doing the paying.
How matching works
Tell us your situation
Your model, markets, volumes and history. A specialist responds, typically within 24 hours.
Matched & underwritten
We match you to the right institution in the network; underwriting assesses your business on its merits.
Live in as little as 48 hours
Subject to all relevant documentation. Your specialist stays your contact after go-live.
Holding companies: your questions
It can, and usually should. A holding company is a legal entity in its own right: it receives dividends from its subsidiaries, may hold assets or intra-group loans, and needs somewhere for that money to sit that is not a subsidiary’s account. Mixing the two is what makes the structure hard to unwind later.
Yes, subject to the institution’s checks. What changes is the evidence: with a corporate shareholder, ownership has to be traced through each layer to the individual beneficial owners at the top. Bring the structure chart, the incorporation documents at each level and the ID for the people at the end of the chain, and it is a normal onboarding.
It is a question, not a problem. A dormant or non-trading HoldCo still has to explain what its account is for: which subsidiaries pay dividends up, what intercompany movements are expected, and roughly how often. An account with no expected activity at all is harder to justify, and we will tell you that before you apply rather than after.
Special purpose vehicles are assessed the same way as any other entity in a structure: on the documentation, the ownership chain and what the money is going to do. A single-purpose company with a clear mandate and evidenced ownership is straightforward; one that cannot explain its flows is not, whatever it is called.
No, and the difference matters for a treasury decision. These are e-money accounts issued by an FCA-authorised institution in the group: your funds are safeguarded under FCA rules rather than covered by FSCS deposit protection, and they carry named IBANs and the day-to-day function you need. Which means your money is held separately from the institution’s own and is not lent out. That is a different protection from a bank’s, and it is explained in full before you commit.
Two things are worth separating there. The £85,000 figure is out of date: the FSCS limit rose to £120,000 per eligible person per authorised firm on 1 December 2025. And it does not apply to these accounts anyway, because the FSCS covers deposits at banks, building societies and credit unions, and an e-money account is not a deposit. What applies instead is safeguarding, and there is no limit to it: the whole balance is ring-fenced rather than a capped portion being insured, so it is never lent out and exists to be returned in full. It is a different protection rather than a weaker one, and the honest answer is that they fail differently: the trade-off is that there is no compensation scheme behind safeguarding if something goes wrong with the ring-fence. Read the full comparison on our safeguarding page before you move treasury cash.
Each company is a separate legal entity, so the institution’s checks apply to each one; the ownership evidence behind them is the same set of documents and is not re-gathered from scratch each time. Your specialist scopes exactly what each entity in your structure needs before anything is submitted.
Check if we can help
Tell us what you need. You’ll deal with one team, with the group’s licensed institutions behind it, and get a straight answer either way.