Business bank account, partner lives abroad

tryin

Hi,
I'm thinking of opening a business with a partner from abroad. It will probably be a limited company. Which bank will let me set up a business bank account without my partner having to come in personally? And what are the best banks for business accounts for a very small business?
Thanks.

jonesMUFCforever

To be honest no bank will open a bank account for you in the situation as described.
Banks have to 'know their customers' a legal requirement so how could they verify your partner?..and if your partner started paying money in from abroad how would they verify where it came from.
If it is a very small business do you need to be limited? (Not that it matters when it comes to opening an account).

tryin

.jonesMUFCforever said:
To be honest no bank will open a bank account for you in the situation as described.
Banks have to 'know their customers' a legal requirement so how could they verify your partner?

Is there no bank which would do that online? The app-based banks always verify customers online! And there must be banks which offer accounts for foreigners.

If it is a very small business do you need to be limited? (Not that it matters when it comes to opening an account).

Its a small company at the moment, but we hope to scale up sometime in the future. Then it is a big advantage for taxes for it to be limited

jonesMUFCforever

I was advising you about high street banks. I have no knowledge of app based ones - you could try and ask them?

J_B

We have a business a/c with Starling and we have never met Mrs Starling, nor she met us

It was a bit of a battle to get the account set up, but we got there in the end BUT ... we already had a Ltd Co AND a business bank account, which I suspect the OP maybe doesn't (?)

tryin

J_B said:

We have a business a/c with Starling and we have never met Mrs Starling, nor she met us

It was a bit of a battle to get the account set up, but we got there in the end BUT ... we already had a Ltd Co AND a business bank account, which I suspect the OP maybe doesn't (?)

What do you mean? You opened an account with someone who is not a UK resident?

J_B

tryin said:

J_B said:

We have a business a/c with Starling and we have never met Mrs Starling, nor she met us

It was a bit of a battle to get the account set up, but we got there in the end BUT ... we already had a Ltd Co AND a business bank account, which I suspect the OP maybe doesn't (?)

What do you mean? You opened an account with someone who is not a UK resident?

Nope, I didn't mean that, we are a UK Ltd Co with UK based directors

tryin

J_B said:

tryin said:

J_B said:

We have a business a/c with Starling and we have never met Mrs Starling, nor she met us

It was a bit of a battle to get the account set up, but we got there in the end BUT ... we already had a Ltd Co AND a business bank account, which I suspect the OP maybe doesn't (?)

What do you mean? You opened an account with someone who is not a UK resident?

Nope, I didn't mean that, we are a UK Ltd Co with UK based directors

Well I'm looking for an account for a UK LTD company in which one of the directors is a UK resident, and the other is not.
Does anyone have experience with this?

jonesMUFCforever

tryin said:

J_B said:

tryin said:

J_B said:

We have a business a/c with Starling and we have never met Mrs Starling, nor she met us

It was a bit of a battle to get the account set up, but we got there in the end BUT ... we already had a Ltd Co AND a business bank account, which I suspect the OP maybe doesn't (?)

What do you mean? You opened an account with someone who is not a UK resident?

Nope, I didn't mean that, we are a UK Ltd Co with UK based directors

Well I'm looking for an account for a UK LTD company in which one of the directors is a UK resident, and the other is not.
Does anyone have experience with this?

Unless you have a very strong relationship with a Business Manager at a bank (which you probably haven't as you would not be asking on here) it will not happen due to 'Know your customers' and Anti money laundering rules as per my post of 21st May.

born_again

A lot could depend on where said Non UK person lives/payes taxes.