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EE Company - Where to Bank?

Does your company sell nuclear waste materials? Or does your company provide translation services?

Do you turn over 1 billion EUR/month or is it more like 50,000 EUR/month?

Are you an Iranian national resident in North Korea? Or are you a Swedish citizen resident in Estonia?

Are your customers the governments and companies like Raytheon? Or do you sell to natural persons?

And so on, and so forth.

Those are the kind of things bank look at and tend to matter more than just where the company is incorporated.
 
Does your company sell nuclear waste materials? Or does your company provide translation services?
No, ahaha. it's wholesale, around 4-5m per year.

Banking in Estonia is sh*t , so thinking of a bank / branch abroad.

But not sure which country would open a bank for a branch. Plus, not really willing to pay huge taxes.

Romania comes up, with the micro-scheme, but then would a bank actually take us onboard.
 
I find banking in Estonia really good. At least LHV, SEB, and Swedbank have excellent service, internet banking, and good rates. Have you spoken with them? In my experience, they're all quite easy to work with if you have a meaningful presence in Estonia. It doesn't sound like you're in any particularly high risk category and the business is of a healthy size.
 
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if you have a meaningful presence in ......
This! - People often fail to understand the importance of.

You need to cater to the risk appetite of the bank and present yourself as a profitable client. After all they are a business so it needs to be a win-win for both sides.
 
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I find banking in Estonia really good. At least LHV, SEB, and Swedbank have excellent service, internet banking, and good rates. Have you spoken with them? In my experience, they're all quite easy to work with if you have a meaningful presence in Estonia. It doesn't sound like you're in any particularly high risk category and the business is of a healthy size.
Just my 2 cents: I would not call LHV service as excellent, definitely not. Nevertheless I admit that my experience is related to LHV serving as a banking partner for EMIs, not to having an account with them as an Estonian company.
 
Just my 2 cents: I would not call LHV service as excellent, definitely not. Nevertheless I admit that my experience is related to LHV serving as a banking partner for EMIs, not to having an account with them as an Estonian company.
Fortunately, LHV direct is a very different experience from LHV via EMIs. If you have a direct relationship with them, they are fine. If they don't like a direct business or transaction, they handle rejections quite smoothly.

I have seen LHV make some really poor decisions when they have been a banking partner for EMIs/PIs. It's been a while now; had forgot about some particularly nasty cases from about two years ago with funds stuck.
 
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Fortunately, LHV direct is a very different experience from LHV via EMIs. If you have a direct relationship with them, they are fine. If they don't like a direct business or transaction, they handle rejections quite smoothly.

I have seen LHV make some really poor decisions when they have been a banking partner for EMIs/PIs. It's been a while now; had forgot about some particularly nasty cases from about two years ago with funds stuck.
Interestingly LHV was recently able to secure UK banking license.
https://news.err.ee/1608966808/lhv-bank-granted-license-to-operate-in-the-ukWhile Revolut is struggling to obtain that (they have Lithuanian bank license and operate in Estonia as a bank though)
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-needs-to-get-its-house-in-order
 
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I find banking in Estonia really good. At least LHV, SEB, and Swedbank have excellent service, internet banking, and good rates. Have you spoken with them? In my experience, they're all quite easy to work with if you have a meaningful presence in Estonia. It doesn't sound like you're in any particularly high risk category and the business is of a healthy size.
It's funny how many people in this forum complain about banking in Estonia, Wise, Revolut, etc (choose the relevant) without disclosing what kind of shady thing they were actually trying to do.

In most cases "they closed my account without a reason" is actually "I tried to cash out my 6 figures black-hat gains from a no-KYC exchange and the bank is being totally mean to me!"
 
It's funny how many people in this forum complain about banking in Estonia, Wise, Revolut, etc (choose the relevant) without disclosing what kind of shady thing they were actually trying to do.

In most cases "they closed my account without a reason" is actually "I tried to cash out my 6 figures black-hat gains from a no-KYC exchange and the bank is being totally mean to me!"
Yep. In every case I can remember where someone started a thread like that and actually explained the business activities or purpose of transaction, it's a TOS or AUP violation.

Not saying banks are perfect, though. They make mistakes.
 
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Sometimes it happens, unfortunately. I also wrote on this forum regarding Revolut and how stupid they are. My activity was transparent and consists of brokerage in the sale of marine equipment, electric generators, cranes, etc.
We once received a commission for selling equipment of $50,000. Revolut blocked the transaction and asked for documents, an Estonian company, I am an EU citizen, there is an agreement, invoices, a printout of our correspondence and an agreement between the Buyer and Seller (both are large companies with over 500 employees).
Result = three months of correspondence with stupid monkeys, they sent the money back to the sender, blocked our account and paid us $300 for “moral” damage. For me, the biggest problem was to get a repeat payment several months later from a client with whom the relationship had soured by that time.

You could say that 50 thousand is a lot for EMI, especially dollars, etc., but Client sent us the same amount again to Wise and they didn’t even ask for documents.

Having now a phobia that my account would be closed at any moment, for the second such transaction I used Paysera and EURO, they credited the amount to the account, did not block anything, and only asked for an invoice after a while.

I would be happy to open a third account somewhere in a not so popular EMI so that it looks like a real bank, for show-off, but that’s it. ;)
 
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Sometimes it happens, unfortunately. I also wrote on this forum regarding Revolut and how stupid they are. My activity was transparent and consists of brokerage in the sale of marine equipment, electric generators, cranes, etc.
We once received a commission for selling equipment of $50,000. Revolut blocked the transaction and asked for documents, an Estonian company, I am an EU citizen, there is an agreement, invoices, a printout of our correspondence and an agreement between the Buyer and Seller (both are large companies with over 500 employees).
Result = three months of correspondence with stupid monkeys, they sent the money back to the sender, blocked our account and paid us $300 for “moral” damage. For me, the biggest problem was to get a repeat payment several months later from a client with whom the relationship had soured by that time.

You could say that 50 thousand is a lot for EMI, especially dollars, etc., but Client sent us the same amount again to Wise and they didn’t even ask for documents.

Having now a phobia that my account would be closed at any moment, for the second such transaction I used Paysera and EURO, they credited the amount to the account, did not block anything, and only asked for an invoice after a while.

I would be happy to open a third account somewhere in a not so popular EMI so that it looks like a real bank, for show-off, but that’s it. ;)
Revolut is a little problematic, despite being no. 1 UK fintech.
Ive heard about so many people having problems with Revolut and think its suitable only for low risk business.
I dont know any other EMI that can decide to suddenly reverse your whole month of payments.

https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/revolut-problems-continue-as-thieves-steal-20-million/
https://www.reuters.com/business/fi...-grew-by-33-despite-crypto-winter-2023-03-01/
https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/revolut.com
 
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