Business Banking UK

[JSEcoin]

Our accountant has been trying to setup a business bank account for the last month in the UK. Unfortunately every bank we've tried has refused us a bank account because the company is cryptocurrency based.

There have been some threads previously which have mentioned Fidor a German bank with a UK branch but they only offer personal accounts and do not provide business accounts in the UK.

It seems our options are to open an offshore account and maybe base the company offshore as well or alternatively setup a holding company with a generic name and website then try to get a bank account for the holding company. Either way seems risky as it could cause problems further down the line.

Does anyone here have experience with UK banks/Offshore banks for cryptocurrency businesses?

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

[shield132]

Don't know that tasks well but bitcoin gambling websites are using curacao license and have no problems so if you base company offshore, it will be safest way of course (but that's not so easy). But personally I don't like offshore based companies because if something happens, they can feel free.
Also setup a holding company fot that isn't safe way if you don't have strong back.

[gentlemand]

Forget any UK operation. It simply isn't going to happen. Fidor will be your only hope but there's no sign of business accounts on the horizon and the personal accounts are barely usable.

I believe coinfloor uses a polish bank and coinbase uses an estonian bank for their gbp.

You could lie which is what previous uk businesses have done but it's not going to last long.

[JSEcoin]

Thanks for the replies.

We've decided to look at offshore options as it seems the UK banking sector is anti-crypto/anti-competitive. The reason we've been given is that a large fine was given to one of the banks because they were involved in some money laundering scheme that involved cryptocurrencies. I did ask how many money laundering schemes had involved US dollars but alas... Apparently anything related to cryptocurrency is "high risk", we've even been told horror stories about people getting personal accounts closed because they had transactions going to popular bitcoin exchanges.

It gets even more bizarre because the banks are openly working on cryptocurrency projects.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/hsbc-and-barclays-join-project-to-build-cryptocurrency-for-banks-2017-8
"Barclays, CIBC, Credit Suisse, HSBC, MUFG and State Street, building alongside founding financial institutions UBS, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Santander, NEX and blockchain startup Clearmatics."

London is the self-proclaimed fin-tech hub for Europe and most techys will agree blockchain technology is the future of fin-tech. I can't help but think the banks are pushing out all the promising startups to register and bank offshore when they should be embracing and encouraging the cryptocurrency industry.

Anyway rant over, thanks again for the replies and good luck to any other UK members.