iGaming Payment Accounts at Bankera

Opening an account

Opening a payment account for an iGaming company has become increasingly difficult in the past few years. Traditional banks are avoiding the risk associated with the industry. They are also reluctant to work with international jurisdictions and sometimes complicated group structures.

Bankera has a well-trained compliance team that is familiar with online businesses. We invest time and resources in understanding and monitoring iGaming clients, which allows us to successfully work with them.

Pricing

Like with crypto exchanges, iGaming industry pricing is more expensive due to the higher due diligence costs, as well as the large volume of transactions that have to be monitored. Consequently, the prices of transactions for the two groups are similar. Send an email to our team at [email protected] to request the latest pricing schedule for your iGaming company.

Account type

The account type is one of the main considerations the company has to know before opening iGaming accounts. They fall into these categories:

• Business. An account for the company’s own need (salaries, rent, purchases, etc.). This account is useful to both: B2C companies (providing gaming services to the end consumer) and B2B companies (providing services to other iGaming businesses, e.g., software development).
• Client funds. Generally, these are for B2C companies that are providing online gaming services to the end consumers. Such companies open an account for their clients so that they can deposit and withdraw funds to/from their platform.

Most commonly, clients seek both accounts – one for the company’s needs, another one for its clients.

The safety of your funds

When you open an account with us, the safety of your company’s and clients’ funds is of prime importance by regulation. The funds of EMI clients have to be safeguarded by keeping them in a separate account with an EU credit institution (could be a Central bank), insuring them with an EU insurance company or investing in low-risk bonds.

Onboarding

Onboarding an iGaming client is a complex process which takes time and understanding from the compliance team. However, our team is experienced in onboarding such clients and the process will not be lengthy if communication and documentation move fast. The onboarding process itself is straightforward:

1. Application for the account at https://bankera.com/business/.
2. Payment of the application fee to initiate application review (instructions will be sent to you).
3. Compliance stage – complete the KYC process, answer questions, and provide documentation.
4. Decision.

Below you will find the main categories and the simplified criteria our compliance department is looking at when onboarding iGaming customers.

* The list of gambling operators that are not available for Bankera account is available here.

Other services complementing payment accounts

While the focus of this blog post was to introduce you to iGaming payment accounts, there are other services where we cooperate with iGaming clients:

• Multicurrency transactions. Our business clients can take advantage of SEPA and SWIFT payment networks and make payments globally.
• Payment processing. Businesses registered in the EEA are able to accept card payments on their website.
• Accepting cryptocurrencies. Our group company SpectroCoin has a merchant solution that allows clients to accept cryptocurrencies as a payment method on their website.
• Business loans. We finance businesses that need funds to grow their business.

Key features we are working on now

• SEPA transfers will get a major upgrade. The key feature we are developing is SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst). It’s a major breakthrough in SEPA payments, which allows making transfers up to €100.000 within seconds and with 24/7/365 availability, meaning you can make a near-instant and low-cost transfer even on a weekend.

SEPA Instant transfers will be available on our platform in February 2021. In the second quarter of the year, we are also planning to support SEPA direct debit payments.

• Mass payouts. They allow the company to upload a list of transfers to the banking system and make multiple payments at once. Our payments partner “Pervesk” already has this functionality, and we will offer it to Bankera’s clients as well.
• Payment cards. Our personal debit cards have been launched successfully. We will soon offer corporate payment cards, which will also be offered to iGaming clients.
• More currencies. Right now, our core currency is Euros and we are working on offering other currencies to our digital clients, including iGaming companies. “Pervesk” already offers additional payment currencies, and they will be introduced to Bankera as well.

We hope this information was useful and gave you a little insight into how we work with iGaming clients. If you considering an account for your iGaming company and have more specific questions, you can get in touch with us via [email protected]. If you are not interested in iGaming accounts yourself but know potential clients, we have a great program for matching interested clients with us – send us an email to [email protected].