For this criteria to be applicable, you will need to be a client or a prospective client of Barclays Bank PLC / Barclays Corporate Banking or Barclays Bank Ireland PLC (BBI). Please refer to the ring-fencing guidance pages for further information.

Our criteria

If you are a New to Bank Client, you must have sent us a fully completed ‘New to Bank Questionnaire for Non-Bank Financial Institutions: Fintech and MSBs’. Copies of the questionnaire are available by contacting us or emailing your request to FinTechNewClient@barclays.com.

For this criteria to be applicable, you will need to be a client or a prospective client of Barclays Bank PLC / Barclays Corporate Banking or Barclays Bank Ireland PLC (BBI).

We will only provide services to clients where our cross border activity requirements and appetite are met.

You will need to be a fully authorised / licenced entity in all of the jurisdictions where you have any activity and evidence of the licences held must be made available to us. Your authorisation will need to be from a Barclays recognised regulator.

You must adhere to our eligibility criteria throughout our relationship and are required to proactively notify us immediately if you identify any shortcomings. 

Your ownership structure needs to be of an acceptable profile to Barclays.

We require sight of your strategy and business plan (defining the business model, target client base, geographic catchment and main USPs of the business model) which all must be acceptable to Barclays. This business plan should also highlight if you undertake business activity through intermediaries (such as Agents) and give details of these arrangements.

Your financials (which must be audited and unqualified) must illustrate capital adequacy, asset quality and a sufficiency of liquidity suitable to sustain the business and to invest in the systems required to detect and prevent financial crime.

You must meet our minimum revenue thresholds (or pay any fees that address any gap against minimum revenues).

You should have an acceptable reputation in the market place.

Your senior management and leadership team needs to be appropriately qualified and experienced in the specific business areas and activity undertaken by the company.

You must have a suitably qualified and experienced Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) who is wholly independent from any revenue generating function of the business.

You must have robust systems and controls in place to segregate any client funds you hold from your own company cash flows. You must return a signed copy of the Attestation on Disclosures relating to Safeguarding Accounts Barclays issues upon initial review and at every cyclical review.

Any technology platforms used should be fit and proper for their intended use, especially where they are deployed to mitigate AML risk.

You need to be able to demonstrate a risk based approach evidenced in your organisation’s culture including evidenced management and leadership oversight of AML and compliance programs.

You will need to be able to demonstrate and evidence Financial Crime Prevention Capabilities (including, but not necessarily limited to, robust AML & Sanctions policies and procedures, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, robust client on-boarding processes & procedures and strong agent or other intermediary program control and oversight) aligned to your business model and supported by appropriate technology.

You must provide a copy of your key policies and procedures as well as a report and testing reviewing these capabilities. This report must be carried out by a qualified independent external body (from our preferred list) prior to on-boarding and at least annually thereafter. This report together with full management responses to be made available for Barclays to review. The report will need to be sourced by you and cost of this report is also borne by you. Our mandatory scope for such report is available on request. Please note that we may not be able to accept reports which do not fully cover the set minimum scope or are completed by firms outside the preferred list.

You must be able to qualify the specific risks posed by your underlying client base and operating model, and these risks must be sufficiently mitigated through policies, processes, procedures and use of appropriate technology.

You must immediately contact us if you currently conduct or plan to conduct operations or provide services in/to industries that are outside or limited by our reputational or industry risk appetite. This list can be provided on request.

If you operate in or provide services to industries that are outside our reputational or industry appetite or tolerance, we may restrict services we can provide to you either partially or fully.

We will not be able to provide banking services to support activity in any underlying client industry which is illegal in any of the jurisdictions within which we operate even if they may be legal elsewhere e.g. recreational drugs.

The risk profile of jurisdictions where you receive flow of funds from and where you may be sending funds to, must be assessed acceptable to Barclays and we may not be able to support certain jurisdictions we have assessed as High Risk.

We consider the provision of services to other Payment Service Providers as a high risk underlying industry. Additional Due Diligence assessing the specialist controls and due diligence applied by you to these underlying clients will be required. We may not be able to support such flows whether partially or fully. The materiality of such flows (both on a standalone basis and as a proportion of your overall flows) may also impact our overall ability to provide corporate banking services to you.

If you are a member of SWIFT and have RMAs exchanged with Barclays, you will be required to be compliant with the SWIFT Client Security Programme (CSP) Mandatory Controls. You must provide a copy of your current attestation to evidence compliance or grant Barclays access to your attestation on the SWIFT Registry to view your Attestation.

The banking product range required needs to be established and explained fully. Depending on your business model, we may not be able to make all of our products available to you, whilst certain products /services may require further specific due diligence to be completed before they can be made available. Additional requirements for any Agency Banking arrangements are applicable.

Your eligible deposits with Barclays Bank PLC are protected up to the FSCS compensation limit by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the UK's deposit guarantee scheme. This limit is applied to the total of any deposits you have with the following: Barclays, Barclays Corporate Banking, Barclays Investment Bank, Barclays Private Banking and Barclaycard. Any total deposits you hold above the limit between these brands are unlikely to be covered. For further information visit www.fscs.org.uk^.

Barclays Bank PLC is registered in England (Company No. 1026167) with its registered office at 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP. Barclays Bank PLC is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Financial Services Register No. 122702) and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Barclays is a trading name and trade mark of Barclays PLC and its subsidiaries. Find out about the Financial Services Register^