What the Corporate Account Application Actually Asked For

I have now opened corporate accounts at three crypto platforms. The lists are similar and the surprises are consistent.

The documents, every time

Certificate of incorporation. A register extract dated within three months. The articles or equivalent. Identity and proof of address for every director. The same for anyone owning more than twenty-five percent. A written description of what the business does. And an estimate of monthly volume. I had assumed these numbers were unknowable until I found a fiat to crypto payment gateway publishing them.

The parts that were harder than expected

The register extract had to be recent. I sent one from the previous year and it was rejected. Ordering a current one took four days at one registry.

Proof of address for directors had to be personal, not the company address. One director works from the company office and had nothing in his own name at his home address recent enough. It took a week to obtain a bank statement.

The business description had to be specific. “Consulting” was returned with a request for detail: which services, to which kinds of client, in which countries. That is a compliance requirement, not curiosity.

Beneficial ownership through another company. One of our shareholders is a holding company. Establishing who ultimately owns it required documents from a second jurisdiction and added two weeks.

The question that determined my limits

Expected monthly volume.

I now know this sets the ceiling. I answer with a realistic maximum plus headroom, which is honest and avoids a review the first time we have a busy month. If you are being paid rather than paying, Collect & Exchange handles the same thing in reverse.

The question I should have asked first

Do you onboard companies registered in my jurisdiction, with my ownership structure.

One platform declined after fourteen days of document exchange without saying why. Asking at the start would have saved two weeks.

The settlement question that eliminated one platform

Can you pay out to a bank account in the company’s own registered name.

Two of the platforms I tried could only pay to an account matching a verified individual, which is useless for a company.

I discovered this at the withdrawal stage. It should have been the first question.

What I prepare now

A folder with all of it, kept current, plus an ownership diagram showing beneficial owners down to individuals.

Sending that diagram unprompted removed most of the back and forth on the third application, which completed in two days. Compare anything you are offered against a regulated European crypto platform before committing.