Opening and managing professional payment accounts
Professional payment accounts: In what scenarios?
The professional bank account allows you to:
- separate company transactions to separate them from personal transactions,
- access complementary services dedicated to professional needs: a comprehensive range of payment methods, transaction monitoring, cash management solutions, etc.
Opening a professional payment account:
- is mandatory before creating a company to deposit the share capital.
- is not mandatory for a micro-enterprise, as no share capital deposit is required.
Professional account: the essential ally for companies
In your daily treasury management
If you manage a high volume of transactions, or if your company is organised into business units or subsidiaries, opening multiple professional accounts is an effective method to:
- monitor expenditures for each entity (internal departments, subsidiaries),
- simplify financial management of suppliers,
- optimise cash flow through automated transfers between the central and other accounts.
Instant payment for supplier settlements
In addition to standard transfers, your clients can make instant payment 24/7 throughout the SEPA zone. Our platform guarantees transfers completed between 10 and 20 seconds with immediate confirmation. This service is a major asset for professionals needing to:
- manage their cash flow with precision and reactivity,
- build and maintain a relationship of trust with their suppliers,
- and also with their clients in case of refunds.
SEPA Direct Debit for client payment scheduling
For businesses whose activities require managing subscriptions or regular invoices, the professional account’s SEPA direct debit functionality enables:
- scheduling and automating collections,
- managing direct debit mandates,
- tracking statuses and handling rejections.
Payment cards adapted for professionals
With our bespoke card programme, you can offer a comprehensive selection of payment cards to meet entrepreneur clients’ expectations:
- Physical and virtual cards
- Real-time self-service (limits, blocking)
- International payments
- Automatic expense categorisation
- Compatibility with Xpay mobile wallets (Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, etc.)
- Included Insurance
Virtual IBANs for optimised transaction management
Our virtual IBANs solution allows professional clients to create and personalise alternative IBANs linked to the main IBAN. They can thus:
- categorise incoming and outgoing transactions,
- segment their activities,
- facilitate reconciliation,
- quickly identify abnormal transactions,
- mask the main IBAN to reduce fraud risks.
A fluid and secure Know Your Business process
With our professional account opening and management solution, you benefit from our KYB processes for the company and KYC for the legal representative.
In partnership with a certified identity verification expert, these processes ensure a compliant with regulations client onboarding, in 5 perfectly fluid steps:
- Identification of the company and its legal representative
- Collection of supporting documents and legal papers
- Verification and validation
- Risk assessment and identification of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs)
- Continuous monitoring
Technical integration facilitated by our APIs
Our APIs enable seamless integration of our white-label services into your platform.
True assets, they promote:
- interoperability,
- resource protection,
- data confidentiality,
regardless of the systems of the various stakeholders in your technological environment.
FAQ: Opening and managing professional accounts
Is a professional account mandatory when creating a company or enterprise?
Yes, except for a micro-enterprise, as no share capital deposit is required.
For a micro-entrepreneur, a personal current account with a bank is sufficient.
However, a dedicated personal account is recommended to differentiate personal and professional transactions. It becomes mandatory when annual turnover exceeds €10,000 for two consecutive years. It can be opened at the same bank as your personal current account by simply making a request to your bank adviser, or at a different bank to potentially benefit from advantages offered by certain banks to micro-enterprises.
Generally, what are the eligibility conditions for opening a professional account?
The conditions to be met for opening a professional account are as follows:
• Be of legal age
• Reside in France
• Conduct professional activity under one of the following statuses: individual entrepreneur or micro-entrepreneur, EURL, SASU, SELASU, SELEURL
• Have a SIREN number
• Provide required supporting documents according to the company’s status (registration with RNE, Kbis less than 3 months old, company articles, company domiciliation proof, identification documents of directors and signatories, etc.)
What are the payment card limits?
Again, you have complete freedom to define the parameters of the payment card issuance program for professional accounts. Set and limit thresholds or give your clients flexibility.
What possibilities does card self-care offer?
Whether physical or virtual, clients can use card self-care to:
• Configure online payment settings
• Define PIN code
• Temporarily block the card
• Instantly report loss or theft
• Modify the card limit
How are online payments secured?
All online payments are protected by strong authentication (3D Secure 2.0) and can be validated via a mobile application.
Virtual IBANs: what are they and what are they used for?
Linked to the company’s main bank account IBAN, virtual IBANs are alternative IBANs that allow categorisation and identification of financial flows, for example, according to the payer, invoice, transaction type, etc.
In daily use, they prove very practical for:
• recognising incoming payments without asking the payer to enter a transfer reference,
• automating payment flow reconciliation.
As levers for simpler and more reliable accounting, they represent a differentiating solution in creating your professional payment accounts offering.
What is Xpollens’ Banking-as-a-Service technology?
Xpollens’ BaaS platform allows you to enrich your offerings with professional payment methods and banking services without developing your payment infrastructure. We provide all the technological and regulatory building blocks required to ensure the seamless execution of your project.
Our cloud-native technology enables managing the scalability of your activity by automatically adapting to transaction volume.
What regulatory obligations are covered?
A subsidiary of BPCE Group, Xpollens is a licensed electronic money institution.
Our solutions cover all obligations related to payment services: KYC, anti-money laundering, regulatory reporting, and data conservation. We ensure continuous regulatory monitoring.