Bank account or EMI that lets a freelancer / sole proprietor use a business name (trade name) instead of personal name?

[OffshoreDude]

Hi all,

Do you know any bank account or EMI that allows a freelancer / sole proprietor use a business name (trade name) instead of his personal name?

So if, for instance if a person, let’s call him "John Smith", is a freelancer / sole proprietor, who offers his services through his (fictive, I just made that name up) website ABC123XXLsuperconsulting DOT com, can send his clients invoices not giving his personal name ("John Smith") as the bank account holder, but rather "ABC123XXLsuperconsulting" as the account’s holder ..

This could be achieved in two ways:

a)
Through a bank / EMI that explicitly allows to receive money into the account of the freelancer / sole trader, even if the sender does not use his personal name as account holder for the transfer, but some business name, which was previously communicated to the bank / EMI from the freelancer / sole proprietor who owns that account ..

or

b)
Through a bank / EMI that does not explicitly offers or allows this, but does not care if the account holders name matches exactly with the registered bank account holder ("John Smith"), and therefore nevertheless credits a transferred amount into the account, as long as the other bank account details like IBAN are correct ..

Can anybody recommend me such a bank or EMI, or has another solution for this?

 

[daniels27]

German banks are known to be quite open to accept money with non-matching names. You could try Amnis for example and see if that works. Or DKB, Comdirect, N26, C24 etc. and see what happens.

Otherwise, you can open a US LLC or association etc. to achieve that.

I guess main question here would be which jurisdiction you need to receive money. US, EU, etc. I just guessed that you are talking about EU-wide SEPA payments.

 

[ilke]

Yoursafe allows custom name based on social media handle with some limitations for personal accounts.

Otherwise @daniels27 is right, some European banks are insensitive to mismatched names. Otherwise, if you use trade name + real person name (like "ABC123XXLsuperconsulting John Smith"), there is no issue at all almost anywhere.

Partnership/US LLC also works fine for this but it may impact the tax status based on the jurisdiction.

 

[uplana]

Some banks allow you to use a name for "Doing business as" that's a second name for a company.

 

[W Fish]

Is it not principally the idea of the sole proprietor acting from his name and being 100% responsible for everything he does versus a LLC where there is a different name and the responsibility is limited to the paid in capital (like avatar).
If so, then what you want goes against that principle and should / is possible only because of misunderstanding / mistake.

 

[Xshore]

Many US banks don't mind incoming ACH with a different name. Wire transfers might be different.

 

[OffshoreDude]

German banks are known to be quite open to accept money with non-matching names.

Yes, actually I'm living in Germany and know this, you are right, but as far as I know that holds true for personal accounts, not so sure for business accounts.

You could try Amnis for example and see if that works. Or DKB, Comdirect, N26, C24 etc. and see what happens.

I forgot to mention that I would need a multicurrency account (at least for EUR, USD, and GBP), and that rules out most of the mentioned, while Amnis (not a German, but a Swiss bank, btw) looks promising. I will contact them to ask if they can fulfill my need.

Otherwise, you can open a US LLC or association etc. to achieve that.

That is no option for several reasons, mainly because Germany tends to classifys an US LLC as a corporation, which would make me subject to the horrendeous exit tax ("Wegzugssteuer"), when I leave Germany (which I plan to do in the next 2 to 3 years).

I guess main question here would be which jurisdiction you need to receive money. US, EU, etc. I just guessed that you are talking about EU-wide SEPA payments.

I would have clients / invoicing to clients mainly from EU and USA.

 

[OffshoreDude]

Yoursafe allows custom name based on social media handle with some limitations for personal accounts.

Excellent tip, thank you!

I had a look at their website, and saw that they give aliases for accounts based on your social media handles, but you need a certain (probably high) follower count to qualify for this. Maybe this holds true only for OUTGOING payments, and not for INCOMING payments, though (their FAQ section seems to suggest this), so I could use an alias for my invoices without that social media policy, which is what I want to achieve, anyway.

On the other hand, on their signup page for a business account they ask for a business name, and directly under that there is a question "Our trading name differs from our company name", and one can activate a checkmark next to that question, leading to another form field pop up, where you can enter a "Business name used as your Yoursafe account name".

Maybe that already does the trick, so no social media handle (with enough followers) needed.

 

[OffshoreDude]

Some banks allow you to use a name for "Doing business as" that's a second name for a company.

Can you name such banks or EMI which would allow and offer this? For a sole proprietor registered and living in Germany, with multicurrency support (at least for USD, EUR, and GBP) ..

But I doubt that this would be so easy, I guess there would be massive KYC hurdles to overcome, as bank will not accept that you just give them a random "Doing business as" name, but require to prove this with a registered trademark in this name, for instance.

 

[OffshoreDude]

Is it not principally the idea of the sole proprietor acting from his name and being 100% responsible for everything he does versus a LLC where there is a different name and the responsibility is limited to the paid in capital (like avatar).
If so, then what you want goes against that principle and should / is possible only because of misunderstanding / mistake.

You seem to have misunderstood my post, respectively my intention behind it. It was not to pretend that I'm not a sole proprietor (with full liability), but a corporation (with limited liability), but to give clients a more professional impression when invoicing them, and branding also plays a role.

Of course, in the footer of that invoice I could / would give information, which makes clear that I'm acting as a sole proprietor. And of course, I would not use a misleading suffix like "Ltd" in my planned business bank account's alias name.

So nothing wrong with my plan.

 

[daniels27]

Yes, actually I'm living in Germany and know this, you are right, but as far as I know that holds true for personal accounts, not so sure for business accounts.

You can use your personal account and ask the customer to pay to "Freeshop" instad of "Peter Meyer"

I forgot to mention that I would need a multicurrency account (at least for EUR, USD, and GBP), and that rules out most of the mentioned, while Amnis (not a German, but a Swiss bank, btw) looks promising. I will contact them to ask if they can fulfill my need.

You can get a SXPYDEHH account in Germany.

That is no option for several reasons, mainly because Germany tends to classifys an US LLC as a corporation, which would make me subject to the horrendeous exit tax ("Wegzugssteuer"), when I leave Germany (which I plan to do in the next 2 to 3 years).

Then form an association, get a bank account for that one and then abuse this as payment processor. Should be quite simple in many countries. Just claim to be a sports association or whatever.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

Why not call yourself “Deutsche Telekom” and run a proper scam?

 

[OffshoreDude]

You can use your personal account and ask the customer to pay to "Freeshop" instad of "Peter Meyer"

I could try this, but as far as I know (German) banks are rather strict in not allowing personal accounts to be used for business transactions, the occasional business related transfer might be tolerated, but not if you (mis)use a personal account mainly as a business account. They also usually make this clear in their ToS.

You can get a SXPYDEHH account in Germany.

Not sure what you mean by that - could you elaborate please?

 

[daniels27]

I could try this, but as far as I know (German) banks are rather strict in not allowing personal accounts to be used for business transactions, the occasional business related transfer might be tolerated, but not if you (mis)use a personal account mainly as a business account. They also usually make this clear in their ToS.

Then you take a bank account for Freiberufler. It will cost you a few bucks, but you won't have the questions.

Not sure what you mean by that - could you elaborate please?

It is the SWIFT code of the bank account you get. It is a German bank with DE-IBAN.

 

[daniels27]

Why not call yourself “Deutsche Telekom” and run a proper scam?

Or "Deutsche Wohnen" and all visit them in person to tell them that they need to change the bank account for the next rent.

 

[Martin Everson]

You seem to have misunderstood my post, respectively my intention behind it. It was not to pretend that I'm not a sole proprietor (with full liability), but a corporation (with limited liability), but to give clients a more professional impression when invoicing them, and branding also plays a role.

I don't think it makes much difference to clients. Many accountants, lawyers and even a transportation company I know use their own names to do business and invoice clients. You can still mention your trade name on invoice.

For example a business called Sally Anne Perfumes (trade name) where account name is "Sally Anne" is not a problem in my books as a client. Or John Smith Accountants (trade name) and account name is "John Smith". Just register a domain like sallyanneperfumes.com or johnsmithaccountants.com. Customers would not bat an eyelid. Trade name does not have to always match exactly the account name.

 

[daniels27]

@OffshoreDude are you actually trying to hide your personal name to your clients? You initially wrote: "can send his clients invoices not giving his personal name" making me assume you are looking for privacy.

If you do not need privacy, you can follow @Martin Everson and just use your personal account (small business bank account if worried).

 

[OffshoreDude]

@OffshoreDude are you actually trying to hide your personal name to your clients? You initially wrote: "can send his clients invoices not giving his personal name" making me assume you are looking for privacy.

No, I just meant "hiding" only at the section of the invoice, where I would state the bank details for the transfer of the invoice amount. To appear as a "bigger" and more professional company, and also for branding reasons, but at the same time not hiding that the business is a sole proprietorship by giving that information on the invoice in a less prominent area, i.e. the footer of the invoice.

 

[daniels27]

Ok. But then why not just invoice from "Amazing Offshore Dude" and in the footer, you state your bank account details and mention the account holder as Peter Schmidt?

 

[OffshoreDude]

Ok. But then why not just invoice from "Amazing Offshore Dude" and in the footer, you state your bank account details and mention the account holder as Peter Schmidt?

Yes, I could do it in such a way, but want to be the account holder of the provided bank details not to be my personal name, but rather my chosen business name / domain name.

And my initial question was / is not on how to phrase the wording on the invoice, but to find a bank that lets me open and maintain a business account with my personal name (as for a sole proprietor there is no other way), which then accepts transfers made to that account when the sender is not using my personal name, but the business name when he submits the transfer.

I know you suggested solutions for this already, but don't think they are feasible in the long run, for reasons I already mentioned in other posts. At the moment, I think that Dutch EMI another forum user recommended seems to be the only realistic solution.