Why Your Business Account application might be rejected in 2025–2026: 13 Common Mistakes to Avoid

V. Hladush

Head of Payments

17 June 2025

Why Your Business Account application might be rejected in 2025–2026: 13 Common Mistakes to Avoid

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In the previous article How to Open a Business Payment Account in 2025–2026: What Works + 35 Real Cases, we explored what really works when opening a business account and which factors helped our clients succeed in the process.
In this part of the series, we’ll focus on the other side of the coin: why applications sometimes get rejected. We’ll take a close look at 13 common mistakes businesses make — and how to fix them to increase your chances of getting approved.

Frequent refusal reasons

Despite best efforts, about 20–30% of cases still ended in refusal. Common refusal reasons and our responses included:

Opaque UBO: Owners concealed behind multiple layers or in obscure trusts. Bankers reacted immediately. We fixed it by unwrapping ownership, providing full disclosure, or even re-registering in clearer jurisdictions.

High-risk industry/geo combo: Examples: a dating site targeting EU with UBO in Ukraine, or a forex firm in USA. This double-hit (risky product and risky country) often led to outright decline. We fixed it by re-siting the company or limiting the business scope.

No turnover history: New businesses without any financial track record often got stuck. Banks saw a blank slate as a money-laundering risk. We fixed it by sometimes delaying re-application once the client had real transactions to show, or by securing escrow/guarantee arrangements.

Weak KYC responses: If clients answered vaguely or got defensive on calls, the bank lost trust. We coached clients to be factual and helpful, even role-playing the due diligence calls. Often just having one of us on the call made a huge difference in tone.

Aggressive follow-up: Many clients panicked after a week of silence and started emailing nonstop or complaining publicly (“This bank has customer X, why are you taking so long?”). Such hostility can sink an application. We fixed it by managing the communication, keeping clients informed on typical timelines and instructing them to let us handle the provider dialogue.

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Mistakes clients often made

When businesses tried to apply by themselves, we saw patterns:

Mass submissions: Sending the same application to dozens of banks at once. This usually got everywhere flagged, as banks noticed the approach and flagged the profile as risky or “shopping around”.

Unprepared forms: Submitting incomplete or boilerplate forms. (One fintech once submitted their gaming license despite not being in gaming; we had to explain that it was a copy-paste error).

Dodging tough questions: On questionnaires, some tried to skip any mention of Russian/Belarusian clients or crypto modules. Omitting these details led to bigger issues later when uncovered.

Unrealistic expectations: Thinking “we have a .com, we should get a FinCEN license and a top-tier bank in a week”. We had to realign expectations: even legitimate fintechs often have to accept a smaller or more restrictive account initially.

These mistakes usually led to automatic vetting rejections. By contrast, when we see such a client, we often need to build trust first (like preparing a complete data room) before re-applying.

How we turned things around

For cases where an initial refusal happened, we took various creative steps:

Change jurisdiction: If the legal seat was a problem (e.g. a Non-unique reg. address), we advised relocating the company or registering a new EU entity. In one case, moving a Ukrainian holding from a CIS-based nominee to a Cyprus law firm structure was enough to placate the bank.
Restructure payment flow: We sometimes split the business into two parts. For example, we removed the high-risk portion (like crypto-fiat conversion) from the main entity and handled it via a separate partner. The main account then only saw the “clean” part of revenue (e.g. consulting fees instead of crypto trades).
Drop a business line: When regulators cracked down on certain activities, we advised clients to temporarily drop or postpone that line. For instance, one crypto trading startup postponed its crypto-to-crypto matching module and launched only as a fiat-exchange first.
Multiple providers: Instead of forcing one provider to do everything, we often split functions. One client ended up with a European crypto-friendly e-wallet for crypto conversions, and the UK bank for their GBP settlement. This gave them multiple channels rather than one all-or-nothing solution.

These pivots often required legal and contractual changes, but in many cases they salvaged the account need. The cost in time/fees was far less than shelving the entire project.

A detailed look at who helps businesses navigate the complex process of opening an account — and why the role of a payment manager is now key to success for many companies. In our next article — “The Role of a Payment Manager: How an Expert Saves You Time, Money, and Reputation.” Stay tuned!

High-risk heatmap

In our experience, risk is assessed as a combination of industry × geography × product. For example:

Crypto exchanges with majority EU clients were “medium risk.” Same with Forex brokers in regulated markets.
Dating agencies with only Western clients were okay, but if they served CIS/Ukrainian clients, they tipped to high risk (especially if directors were from those countries).
Payment agents for gambling, or marketing agencies dealing in R-rated content, were high risk regardless of jurisdiction.
IT/SaaS exporters selling to regulated businesses in the US/EU with clean ownership were generally low-medium risk.
Giftcard resellers, crypto ATMs, token-launch platforms — all pegged high-risk by default.

This mental “risk heatmap” helped us allocate resources. For truly high-risk combos, we would pre-warn clients that a conventional bank account was very unlikely, so they needed a plan B (like specialized EMIs, crypto banks in Switzerland, or even crypto-payment gateways).

Trends 2025–2026: what to expect and what to build

Looking ahead, here are some broader trends and developments shaping the payments space:

SEPA Instant Everywhere: The EU has mandated instant euro payments. By January 2025 all eurozone banks/PSPs must offer instant credit transfers at no extra cost. In fact, the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme will remove previous transaction caps (e.g. the €100k limit). This means real-time transfers (10-second settlement) will become ubiquitous in Europe. Businesses should ensure they have instant-enabled accounts to remain competitive.
Compliance automation: As AML rules get stricter, expect more fintech solutions to automate compliance. Machine learning and API-based KYC/KYB checks will be common, speeding up due diligence. Clients should be ready to adopt digital onboarding (e.g. e-signatures, instant document verification) to meet banks’ expectations.
Market fragmentation & high-risk pullback: Large traditional players are increasingly wary of high-risk segments. For example, some big European banks have started to exit crypto-related services. This creates space for specialized niche providers and independent “payment architects”. Mid-size BaaS platforms and EMI startups will continue to thrive by servicing clients that big banks won’t touch. Businesses in high-risk categories may need to leverage multiple smaller providers rather than a single global bank.
Rise of payment architects: As a corollary, the role of experts who “orchestrate” payments (like us) is growing in value. Companies will increasingly rely on consultants or in-house specialists to navigate the complex web of regulations, providers and technologies, rather than treating account opening as a one-off task.

By keeping an eye on these trends, companies can plan their payment infrastructure proactively (for example, integrating SEPA Instant rails, or building compliance as a core competence) rather than reactively chasing approvals.

Conclusion:
Successfully opening a business account is not just about submitting the right set of documents. It’s about presenting your business properly, understanding compliance expectations, and being prepared to build long-term relationships with the bank or payment provider. The Taxus team has helped dozens of businesses navigate this journey — and we’ve seen firsthand that the key lies in taking a systematic approach and proactively managing risks.