From the moment you apply to the day your IBANs go live, here is exactly how onboarding works, and why a regulated institution asks the questions it does.
Settled team · 6 min read
Opening a business account should feel like getting your tools, not sitting an exam. Settled is a financial institution authorised and regulated by the MFSA, and that brings real obligations: to know who we are banking, to keep bad actors off the platform, and to protect every honest business on it. The trick is doing all of that without making you wait a fortnight. Here is how we square the two.
This is the step-by-step version of onboarding: what happens, what we need from you, and the reasoning behind each request.
It starts at app.settled.cc. You tell us the basics: your company name, where it is registered, what it does and roughly how it expects to use the account. There is nothing to print, sign or post. Most applicants complete this part in a few minutes, on a phone or a laptop, whenever it suits them.
The questions here are not idle curiosity. Knowing your sector and your expected payment patterns lets us set the account up correctly from day one, so your first genuine transfer does not trip a control that was tuned for the wrong kind of business.
Next we confirm the business is real and that it is yours to operate. This is Know Your Business, and it is the part regulators care most about. We check the company against official registries, confirm it is in good standing, and map out its ownership: who ultimately owns or controls it.
Typically we will ask for:
If your structure is straightforward, this is largely automated against the registry and clears quickly. Layered holding companies or international groups take a little longer because there is more to verify.
An account is only as trustworthy as the people who control it, so we verify the directors and beneficial owners individually. This is Know Your Customer. In most cases it means a government-issued photo ID and a quick liveness check, a selfie that proves the document belongs to the person holding it, plus a recent proof of address.
We ask for this because the law requires us to know, with confidence, who is standing behind every business on Settled. It is the same standard that keeps the platform clean for everyone else, and it is why you can trust the businesses you transact with here.
Every question maps to an obligation under Malta's Financial Institutions Act and the EU anti-money-laundering rules we operate within. We are not collecting data for its own sake. We collect the minimum we need to verify identity, understand the business and meet our duties as a regulated institution. Anything you share is handled under our privacy policy and used for compliance, not marketing.
With the company and people verified, our compliance team forms a risk view of the account. This is mostly behind the scenes: we look at the industry, the geographies involved and the expected activity, and we calibrate monitoring to match. A corporate service provider, an iGaming operator and an aviation business each carry a different profile, and we tailor the account accordingly rather than applying one blunt rulebook to all.
For most applicants this is invisible and instant. Occasionally we will come back with a follow-up question: a clarification on a payment flow, or a document we could not verify automatically. Answering promptly is the best way to keep things moving.
Once you are approved, the account is yours and the good part begins. You get dedicated Maltese and EU IBANs, ready to receive euros over SEPA and SEPA Instant and other currencies over SWIFT. You can hold 12+ currencies side by side, convert at transparent FX from 1% (0.75% on Premium), and send internal Settled-to-Settled transfers free and instantly.
Cards follow at once. Issue Visa Business cards, virtual ones in seconds for online spend, physical ones for the team, and start paying. Plans run from Basic at €50/mo, to Plus at €75/mo, to Premium at €150/mo, so you can match the account to how much your business moves.
Compliance and speed are usually framed as enemies. They are not. Most of our checks run automatically the moment you submit, registry lookups, document validation, identity verification, so for a clean, well-prepared application, onboarding is a matter of minutes rather than days. You make it faster still by having your documents to hand, naming your real beneficial owners up front, and replying quickly if we reach out. We would always rather ask one good question now than freeze a payment later.
Apply online, let us verify your company and directors, pass a risk assessment built for your industry, and go live with IBANs and cards. We ask what we ask because the MFSA, and good sense, require it, and we keep it quick because your time is the whole point. Done well, the part that feels like an exam is over before you have finished your coffee.
Apply online, get verified by a regulated institution and go live with dedicated IBANs, 12+ currencies and Visa Business cards.