www.iva.co.uk

Am on an Iva and desperately need a business account. I have been turned by major banks and online, cash plus. Can unhelp

Welcome to the forum. I am not sure who of the main high street banks will allow a business account whilst you are in an iva. Credit checks are done I believe in the same way as they are for personal banking.
My husband is self employed and we use a personal basic bank account ..it allows direct debits and has internet banking for customers to pay via. We have a bank card that we can use on line to purchase items ... we use a lloyds account, but were using a Halifax account while our iva was active.
The other option is looking at internet accounts ...no high street branches .. prob here though is paying in money can be restrictive

If mycashplus are failing you it is more likely that they cannot establish your identity etc.

One of the restrictions I found when exploring such accounts was the cashplus business account allows a maximum balance (from memory) of about £5k, so if you had a high turnover business (with only marginally lower costs) I'm not sure what would happen if the balance exceeded this as they are not FSA regulated, I'd love to know if anyone has ever experienced this.

Transfer excess to a cash isa or consider using an umbrella company thereby allowing income to go to a normal account.

Reality it comes down to what you do, potential turnover, vat registered etc.

Wishing you well. Let us know how it goes so that perhaps in future some one on this platform may benefit

Hope you find that account you're looking for. I now some people run a second current account alongside because of the difficulty of opening one

Another option and I have not thought this through fully, for example if its a ltd company bank account you need, you could setup a new ltd with someone with a good credit history and they are 100% shareholder director! they then apply for the business account with a bank that offers free banking,

The paperwork they sign declares there is no one else in the business that owns more than xx% and voting rights. Once the company has been trading a while it may issue more shares or indeed the director may sell out some shares to you such that for example you become 51% (or 100% shareholder) the paperwork they sign may not have said if they had an obligation to let the bank know about future changes, only the current situation, if you're not using dividends then it's no big deal if they just remain the director (if you trust them and they trust you to run the business) you could just be the non share holding manager of the business.

Someone I know in an IVA has done this and their relative is the director of the ltd, but they have not attempted to switch the shareholding into their name as they are happy for their mother to remain the director until they have a clean credit file, mainly because any search on the ltd will show directors and then someone could see a director associated with a ltd, with an IVA, may discourage potential clients in the future.

Anyone know if banks periodically check status of directors once an account is already up and running, if there is no credit facility on it ?

That would mean becoming an employee of the company with massive tax implications.

font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:<hr height="1" noshade>Originally posted by lifenoteasy

That would mean becoming an employee of the company with massive tax implications.

I agree if dividends are more efficient than a salary and tax thresholds, so many variable where a salary may be favourable for e.g. pension contributions etc etc, was just an idea if the requirement was for a LTD bank account vs a personal one, the individual could always invoice the LTD from Mr smith T/A invoice......etc etc, so many variables.