Doing Business in Israel
Because a corporate account follows a corporate presence, and the two are best prepared together.
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Practice 03
Banking and Cross-Border Payments in Israel
We assist international companies, business owners and private clients with Israeli banking procedures, account opening, compliance reviews and cross-border transfers. Our work focuses on preparing the legal and commercial framework required by Israeli banks and addressing compliance issues before they delay or prevent a transaction.
How we work on these matters
Israeli banks are not the obstacle international clients often take them for. They are supervised institutions, and they will not act on a new account or an incoming transfer until the person, the money and the transaction have been documented to their satisfaction. A file that goes in incomplete is what turns a routine account opening or transfer into a matter that has to be rescued.
The work therefore starts before the bank is approached. We establish what the bank will ask, assemble the legal and commercial documentation that answers it, and present the matter in a form the bank's compliance function can actually review.
Where a matter is already stuck — a request for information that has gone unanswered, a transfer held in review, an account restricted or closed — we take over the correspondence, answer what has been asked, and where the bank's position cannot be resolved in writing, pursue it further.
Throughout, we coordinate with the banks and advisers on the other side of the transaction and report in English. What we undertake is preparation, representation and coordination. The decision belongs to the bank.
Opening accounts in Israel
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Opening personal and corporate bank accounts in Israel
Preparing and presenting the application for a private or a corporate account, and staying on the file until the bank has finished asking.
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Representation before Israeli banks
Speaking to the branch and to the compliance department on your behalf, in Hebrew, and putting the answers on the record in writing.
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Preparation of supporting legal and commercial documentation
Assembling the corporate papers, contracts and records that have to travel with an account application or a transfer, and translating what needs translating.
Compliance and documentation
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Banking compliance and regulatory requirements
What an Israeli bank is required to check before it acts, and what that means in practice for your particular file.
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AML and KYC procedures
Anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) are the checks a bank runs on who you are and where the money comes from. We prepare the answers and the documents they call for.
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Source of funds and source of wealth documentation
Source of funds is where the money in this particular transaction came from; source of wealth is how the wealth behind it was built. Banks want both, in documents rather than in explanations.
Cross-border transfers
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Cross-border transfers to and from Israel
Incoming and outgoing payments, prepared so that the bank's questions are answered before the money moves.
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Compliance-led structuring of transactions and fund transfers
Arranging how a transaction is documented and routed so that it can withstand the review it is going to get.
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Advance preparation for significant incoming transfers
Documenting a large transfer with the receiving bank before it arrives, rather than explaining it afterwards.
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Transfers connected to investments, business activity, real estate and inheritance
Each of these carries its own documentary trail, and banks read them differently. We prepare the one that fits the transaction.
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Coordination with foreign banks and professional advisers
Working with the sending bank and with your own lawyers and advisers abroad, so that both ends of the payment describe it the same way.
Delays, refusals and disputes
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Bank information requests and compliance reviews
Answering a request for information or a periodic review in full, in writing, and within the terms in which it was asked.
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Delayed, rejected or frozen transfers
Taking over a payment that has stopped moving: finding out what the bank is waiting for, and supplying it.
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Restrictions and blocks on bank accounts
Dealing with limits placed on an existing account, and with a decision to restrict or to close one.
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Representation in disputes with Israeli banks
Where the matter cannot be settled in correspondence, pursuing it against the bank in the appropriate forum, including the Israeli courts.
Who we act for and who we work with
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Banking services for foreign residents and international companies
Clients with no Israeli address and no branch to walk into, whose file is therefore built entirely out of documents.
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Banking support for new immigrants and returning residents
People moving to Israel or returning to it, whose accounts and incoming funds are arranged alongside the move itself.
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Coordination with accountants, tax advisers and financial institutions
Keeping the legal file and the accounting position aligned, so that the bank is never given two versions of the same transaction.
Related practices
Discuss Your Business or Legal Matter in Israel
Tell us what you are dealing with and where it stands. We will tell you what it involves in Israel and who at the firm will handle it.
Discuss Your Matter