Eligibility and assessment criteria

For ClearBank to begin assessing your application, we need a completed online application and relevant documentation, including but not limited to the documentation mentioned below.

Once you've started your application, you'll hear from one of our team members shortly. Upon receipt of a full application, ClearBank will endeavour to come to a decision regarding your application within 8-12 weeks.

Begin your journey with ClearBank

1) Your company is a legally incorporated entity.

2) Your company is a financial institution (FI) that is registered with, or authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and/or by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to provide financial services within the UK or registered with the Financial Conduct Authority’s temporary permissions regime. For the purposes of ClearBank’s eligibility criteria, an FI comprises the following:

• Banks;
• Building Societies;
• Credit Unions;
• Authorised E-Money Institutions;
• Small E-Money Institutions;
• Authorised Payment Institutions;
• Small Payment Institutions;
• Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) Regulated FIs.

3) Any company which has made an application to the FCA and/or PRA to be authorised or registered as any of the FIs listed above.
Your company is not a micro-enterprise. Micro-enterprises are defined by the FCA as an enterprise which:

• employs fewer than 10 persons; and
• has a turnover or annual balance sheet that does not exceed €2 million euros

Assessment criteria

ClearBank will assess your application against the following criteria:

1) Your Financial Crime Compliance framework – You will need to demonstrate a robust framework by providing up-to-date procedures and documentation on your Financial Crime Compliance controls, including the systems and controls to manage money laundering, financial sanctions and fraud risk. You will also need to demonstrate you have a competent MLRO and adequately resourced financial crime team for your operations.

2) Business Viability – You will need to demonstrate your financial status, business and operating model. This also includes providing monthly and annual transactional volumes, including the associated payment value forecast for ClearBank to assess capacity requirements, operational risks and determine pricing.

3) Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) – You will need to provide us with sufficient responses and documentation to enable ClearBank to develop a full understanding of your customer base, payment flow and business model. This also includes providing relevant certified documentation to evidence the current shareholding and directorship of your company.

4) Legal and Scheme Compliance – You need to comply with payment system rules (Bacs, CHAPS and Faster Payments) and all other applicable laws.

Eligibility Survey Step 3 2