Interpolitan Money Plc
London · Dubai · Mumbai · Toronto
A United Kingdom account with Interpolitan Money For non-residents and cross-border structures, with the application prepared and documented by your lawyer
Interpolitan issues named accounts with United Kingdom account details and a sort code, holds and moves funds in more than 50 currencies across more than 160 countries, and runs escrow, paying-agent and project structures alongside them. It is branchless, and it works with private clients, international companies and their professional advisers.
You instruct me. I do not act for Interpolitan and Interpolitan does not instruct me. What I do is the lawyer’s part of the application: read the structure before anything is filed, assemble and certify the documents, write the source of wealth narrative, and answer the compliance questions in writing. Whether an account opens is Interpolitan’s decision alone, and I promise no outcome.
The background
The problem is rarely the client. It is that banks now decide by category, and a sound, lawful file gets caught by a rule written for someone else.
Holding and moving funds offshore, across more than one country, is an ordinary part of international business and investment. The difficulty is that traditional banks increasingly read it as a reason to decline.
A traditional or regional bank is built around one country and a settled local customer. An offshore or cross-border file, several currencies, or a company structure behind the account, no longer fits the template. The account is declined, delayed, or later closed, often with little explanation.
This is no longer rare. In the United Kingdom, account closures recorded on financial-crime and AML grounds rose by more than 700% in five years, a control that sweeps up compliant clients alongside genuine risk. The European Banking Authority now lists this kind of de-risking among the most significant problems facing consumers across the EU, with cross-border clients among those most affected.
What was once called offshore banking is, in practice, regulated cross-border banking, and it remains a normal route for international investment. In Cyprus the same caution shows up as onboarding that runs for weeks, sometimes months, and as whole sectors and jurisdictions turned away at the door.
The regulators’ own position is the opening: refusing an entire category of clients, without looking at the individual case, is treated as unwarranted. The bank judges the category. Someone has to put the individual case back in front of it.
That is the work I do: a regulated account with Interpolitan Money that does not rest on a single high-street bank, with the file prepared, documented and managed by your lawyer.
Before anything else
How client funds are held
Most pages about alternative providers leave this out or bury it in a footer. It is the first thing I put in writing to a client, because it decides how the money is protected if anything goes wrong.
Interpolitan is not a bank and your balance is not a deposit. It issues electronic money, and client funds are held in segregated safeguarding accounts, kept apart from the firm’s own money and other assets, and neither lent out nor invested.
Funds received from clients are separated from the firm’s own money as soon as they arrive, and are held either in dedicated safeguarding accounts with tier-one banking partners at authorised credit institutions, or in secure, low-risk assets approved by the FCA. An insurance policy or a bank guarantee payable in full on insolvency is a further permitted alternative.
The institution must at all times hold enough to cover one hundred per cent of the electronic money it holds on behalf of clients.
A bank deposit is protected differently, by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which pays out quickly but stops at 85.000 GBP per depositor per institution.
Safeguarding is not that scheme and does not replace it. It covers the whole balance rather than a capped part of it, and it works through segregation rather than through a guarantee fund.
The FCA’s strengthened safeguarding rules for payments and e-money firms came into force this year: daily reconciliation of safeguarded funds, monthly safeguarding returns, an annual safeguarding audit, and a resolution pack designed so that client money can be identified and returned quickly if a firm fails. The regime is tighter now than it was twelve months ago, and the FCA has consulted on, but not yet implemented, an end-state regime that would place safeguarded funds on statutory trust from receipt.
Both arrangements can be entirely sound, and for cross-border work this one is frequently the better of the two. You are simply entitled to know which one you have before you move anything into it, and to hear it from your lawyer rather than read it in a footer.
The core work
Opening the account
What the account gives you, and what I actually do so that the application opens cleanly rather than sitting in a queue nobody is in a hurry to clear.
What you get
- Named multi-currency accounts with local IBANs across several jurisdictions
- Pay, collect and hold in more than 50 currencies from one platform
- SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments, BACS and local rails across more than 160 countries
- A named relationship manager rather than a ticketing system
- Direct debits, mass payouts and multi-currency collections
- FX risk management, including forward contracts to fix a rate for a future payment
- No minimum investable assets, no minimum balance and no turnover thresholds, with account opening and monthly fees applying
- Accounts opened with multiple signatories where the structure needs it
What I do
- Read the structure first and say plainly whether the application is worth making
- Assemble the pack: corporate certificates and registers, ownership chart, identification, proof of address, source of wealth and source of funds
- Certify the copies myself, since a lawyer registered with a national professional body is an accepted certifier under Interpolitan’s own requirements
- Write the business profile and the source of wealth narrative so that each statement in it can be checked against a document
- Answer the compliance questions in writing, in the form the reviewer needs to close the file
- Stay on the relationship afterwards: signatories, beneficiaries, limits, statements
My engagement is with you. Anything capable of affecting my independence is disclosed to you in writing before you instruct me, and my advice on where an account should be opened is never conditional on any particular provider.
Client types
Who this is built for
Different documents, and the same three questions behind all of them: who is really behind the money, where it came from, and what will move through the account once it opens.
Private clients and family offices
Relocation, property abroad, business interests, investments and family arrangements. Accounts aligned to holding companies and special purpose vehicles, escrow for a purchase or a sale, and work done alongside your accountant or trustee rather than around them.
International companies
Groups whose suppliers, customers and entities sit in several countries. Operating accounts by entity, cross-border collections and payments, currency exposure managed rather than absorbed, and project or escrow structures where a transaction needs them.
Non-residents
People who need an account in a country where they have no residence, no local salary and no credit history, which is exactly the profile a domestic institution is least equipped to price. Onboarding runs from more than 160 countries, digitally or by video call.
What usually brings someone here
An account withdrawn
Closed or restricted elsewhere, usually with no reason given and no useful person to ask.
Political exposure
A politically exposed person, or someone connected to one, facing enhanced due diligence as a matter of course.
Harder corridors
Counterparties in countries that attract additional scrutiny, where the trade itself is entirely lawful.
A deadline
A purchase or a sale completing through a company in another country, with the account on the critical path.
A structure, not an entity
Several companies in several places that no single domestic institution will take on as a whole.
Why applications like these are refused
Five drivers account for most refusals of non-resident and multi-entity applications. None of them is mysterious, all of them are documented, and every one of them is easier to answer before it is asked than after.
Ownership that cannot be traced to a person
Holding companies layered across several jurisdictions, nominee arrangements, or a trust whose beneficiaries are not identifiable. Where the chart stops short of a natural person, the risk score rises on its own, without anyone forming a view about you.
What answers it An unredacted ownership chart running down to every individual at 25% or above, with the registers and constitutional documents behind it, prepared before the application rather than in response to it.
A company with no visible substance
A non-resident entity with no premises, no staff and no local activity matches the shell-company indicators every institution is required to screen for, whatever the commercial reality behind it.
What answers it A description of what the company actually does, for whom and where, supported by contracts, invoices or accounts rather than by adjectives.
Source of wealth asserted rather than evidenced
The commonest single reason. A bank reference, a self-certified balance sheet or an unsupported loan agreement is not evidence of how wealth was accumulated over a working life.
What answers it Audited accounts, sale contracts, tax filings, dividend records, whatever the actual history requires, set out in an order that follows the money and does not quietly skip a decade.
Exposure to a country under additional scrutiny
Suppliers, customers or directors connected to grey-listed or higher-risk jurisdictions. The activity is usually lawful. An automated screen does not know that yet, and a reviewer who finds it before you disclose it reads the whole file differently afterwards.
What answers it The exposure identified and explained in the file at the outset, counterparties named, the trade documented.
Political exposure and the cost of monitoring it
Institutions decline politically exposed applicants where the ongoing cost of enhanced monitoring is out of proportion to what the account will earn. That is a commercial calculation, not a finding about your character, and it is worth knowing which of the two you are dealing with.
What answers it Enhanced due diligence material assembled in advance so the file is cheaper to review, and a realistic view, said out loud, of which providers are worth approaching at all.
These are the drivers documented in the European Banking Authority’s opinion on de-risking and in the FCA’s review of financial crime controls at challenger banks, not my impressions of them. Which is also why the work is legal rather than administrative: each one is answered with documents, in an order that survives a second reading.
Beyond the account
Escrow, project money and currency tools
What the same relationship can carry beyond payments: escrow for a transaction, money that must sit with neither side, ring-fenced project accounts, currency cover, and a place for balances between uses.
Escrow
FCA-regulated client money and escrow accounts, with milestone-based agreements, beneficiaries in more than 160 countries, settlement in more than 50 currencies and local virtual IBANs available within 48 hours. Used for litigation settlements, real estate, construction, mergers and acquisitions, corporate transactions and pooled investments.
Third party managed accounts and paying agent structures
For money that has to sit outside both sides’ own accounts and move only against verified conditions rather than instructions. The question that decides everything is who is authorised to certify that a condition has been met, and that is settled in the drafting, not afterwards.
Property and project accounts
Project money ring-fenced from the developer’s own accounts and released against verified completion events, with an audit trail investors and lenders can actually read. The practical value is that the payment infrastructure of a live project stops depending on one banking relationship surviving to the end of it.
Currency exposure
Live rates, spot execution and forward contracts that lock a rate today for a payment due later, which matters when a price is agreed in one currency and funded from another.
Balances waiting to be deployed
For professional clients, a solution regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority that places surplus dollars in US Treasury-backed overnight repo, with a minimum of $100.000. Professional clients only, capital at risk, returns not guaranteed, and regulated in the DIFC rather than by the FCA. I do not give investment advice and I am not recommending it. I mention it because clients rarely price what a large idle balance costs them while a transaction waits.
Forward contracts and the credit facilities that go with them sit outside FCA regulation, because forwards entered into for a commercial purpose fall outside the investment rules. On a forward you carry credit risk on the firm itself.
Escrow, in sequence
How the money is actually held
Escrow is where the two halves of this work meet. The agreement is a legal instrument before it is a payment instruction, and most escrow disputes turn out on inspection to be drafting disputes.
Agreement
The terms on which funds will be held and released: who pays in, what has to be proved, by whom, and on what evidence.
Verification
Due diligence on every party to the arrangement, the law firm included, before any money moves.
Account
A client-specific account is opened to safeguard the funds deposited under that agreement and no other.
Hold
The deposit is receipted and held for the term. Neither side can reach it, which is the entire point of the structure.
Release
Funds go to the beneficiaries on the agreed schedule once the conditions have been satisfied.
The stage that decides everything is the first one. A release condition drafted as “on completion” and a release condition drafted as “on production of the certificate issued under clause 7” look similar on the page and behave very differently the moment one side changes its mind.
Reach and regulation
Which entity, which regulator
The group holds separate authorisations in separate places. That is a commercial advantage and a legal detail at the same time.
Which entity you contract with decides which regulator supervises the relationship, what protection attaches to the balance, and where a complaint goes if one is ever needed. Every one of these can be checked against a public register, and I check them and confirm the position in writing before anything is signed. The India authorisation is the one worth a sentence of its own, because it is what puts hard-currency payments between South Asia and a Cyprus or United Kingdom holding structure through a supervised route rather than an improvised one.
Three arrangements
How the relationship is scaled
Interpolitan works on three arrangements, matched to the complexity of the flows. The arrangement is agreed between you and its relationship manager, and I do not set it.
Access
Entry to the ecosystem
- United Kingdom account plus one further jurisdiction
- GBP, EUR and USD holding
- Account details and IBAN, CHAPS, Faster Payments and SWIFT
- Capital flow up to 250.000 GBP a month
- Streamlined digital onboarding, client services support
Core
The flagship arrangement
- Unlimited jurisdictions and full multi-currency holding
- Multi-entity and special purpose vehicle structures
- Escrow and third party managed account capability
- Volume-based rate tiers, no monthly flow ceiling
- Priority onboarding with a named relationship manager and quarterly reviews
Enterprise
By introduction only
- Full treasury multi-currency and same-day priority settlement
- Dedicated treasury team and treasury structuring advice
- Negotiated rates and a bespoke compliance framework
- Onboarding plan agreed before signing
- Direct access at any hour for urgent flows, annual capital review
The process
How onboarding runs
Suitability
A short read of the profile, the structure, the corridors and the expected flows, and a direct answer about whether the application is worth making at all. Finding out at this stage costs you an hour. Finding out later costs a refusal on the record.
The pack
Corporate documents and registers, certified where certification is required, identification and proof of address for beneficial owners at 25% or above and for anyone who will give payment instructions, a structure chart where entities are layered, and source of wealth and source of funds with documentary evidence rather than assertion.
Compliance
Screening, a compliance call where one is required, and the follow-up questions answered in writing. Nothing important gets explained on a telephone call, because a half-documented explanation given under pressure becomes the version everything filed afterwards is read against.
Activation
Account details and IBAN issued, currency wallets opened, platform access granted and beneficiaries set up, so that the first payment is not also the first test.
On timing
Interpolitan’s published guide is 7 to 10 working days from a complete application, against three to six months for a comparable international application through a traditional institution. Eligible corporate, special purpose vehicle and private client files can qualify for priority onboarding within 48 hours.
What controls the timetable is the completeness of the pack, not the speed of the review. A file that goes back twice for missing certifications takes longer than one that was slower to assemble and complete when it arrived. I cannot promise you an account, and no lawyer honestly can. What I can do is make sure nothing in the file is the reason for a refusal.
Before the account
If you are earlier in the sequence
Two things are read closely during onboarding and are far cheaper to settle beforehand than to rearrange under pressure afterwards.
Start here
Tell me the short version
Who needs the account, which country each part of the structure sits in, what will move through it and in which currencies, and whether anything has already been refused or closed somewhere else. That is usually enough for me to tell you whether this is the right route and what it will take.
Account and payment services are provided by Interpolitan Money Plc, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority to issue electronic money under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011, FRN 900413, registered in England and Wales under number 07666629. Further authorisations are held within the group by Interpolitan Money (DIFC) Limited with the Dubai Financial Services Authority, by Interpolitan Money (IFSC) Private Ltd with the International Financial Services Centres Authority in India, and by Interpolitan Money Canada Inc with FINTRAC in Canada. An electronic money institution is not a bank. Client funds are safeguarded with tier-one banking partners under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 and are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or by any deposit-guarantee scheme: if the institution fails, repayment may take time and may be less than the full amount, because any shortfall and the costs of the administration or liquidation can reduce the safeguarded pool. Forward contracts and the credit facilities associated with them are not regulated by the FCA. The investment solution referred to on this page is provided in the Dubai International Financial Centre to professional clients only, capital is at risk and past performance is not a guide to future returns. Features, eligibility, limits and pricing are set by the provider and confirmed during onboarding.
This page describes work carried out by my law office in preparing and managing an application. I am an advocate registered with the Cyprus Bar Association, and I act as an introducer to Interpolitan Money for the purposes of client identification and due diligence. I do not provide payment, e-money or investment services, and I do not act for Interpolitan Money. The decision to open, decline, restrict or close an account is taken by the provider alone, and no outcome is promised or implied. Any interest capable of affecting my independence is disclosed to the client in writing before instructions are accepted. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice for a particular case.