Mercury Bank

Mercury is a relatively young company in the field of modern financial technologies (fintech), having started its operations in 2017. Since then, the company has become one of the leading payment solutions for the rapidly growing startup and venture capital market in the USA, working in collaboration with such “classic” American banks as Evolve Bank & Trust and Choice Bank. In fact, client funds are deposited in the aforementioned banks and are officially insured by the American Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Mercury Bank has earned deserved popularity among clients for its transparent business conduct and service acceptance rules, low fees, user-friendly online banking interface, and constant development in line with modern times.

Primarily, Mercury works with corporate clients, offering options for checking and savings accounts. Recently, the fintech has also started serving private clients residing in the USA on a trial basis.

Mercury does not charge a fee for opening either personal or corporate accounts, and there is no minimum balance requirement.

Via online banking or a mobile application.

Mercury charges an annual fee of 240 USD for maintaining a personal account, while corporate account maintenance is free.

No commission is applied to incoming and outgoing payments in USD. It should be noted that correspondent banks may charge their own fees for processing international transactions.

English-speaking.

Mercury issues Mastercard debit cards and virtual cards free of charge. Fintech does not charge an additional fee for topping up or withdrawing cash through ATMs in various countries, however, such operations may be subject to Mastercard fees (usually around 2%) or fees from the ATM-owning banks.

Mercury also provides corporate credit cards IO from Mastercard.

In addition to “classic” financial solutions, Mercury specializes in providing services for startups in various fields: attracting external investments and venture loans, generating SAFE agreements, and so on.

The fintech also provides access to additional tools that optimize the workflow: invoicing and bill payment, downloading bank records for accounting, a dedicated bank manager, etc. The range of services depends on the chosen plan: free Mercury, Plus, or Pro.

For clients with savings over 500,000 USD, Mercury Treasury is available – a platform for investing in highly liquid securities portfolios with a low level of risk, created by companies Vanguard and Morgan Stanley.

Mercury focuses on serving companies registered in the USA, but onboarding of legal entities from the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, United Arab Emirates, Bahamas, Bermuda Islands, Singapore, or Jersey is possible, provided that such non-American companies are startups, provide services in e-commerce, or venture capital.

List of countries for which account opening is prohibited for residents and citizens is available on the Mercury website.

To accept a company for service, a number of documents are required:

1. Charter and corporate documents of the legal entity, depending on the state or country of the company’s registration;
2. A real postal address of the company (not a PO Box);
3. Certificate from the IRS assigning an EIN number (for the USA) or a similar tax number in another country;
4. Business plan of the company, links to the corporate website, social networks, and other information that evidences the reality of conducting business;
5. Certificates of company officers or good standing (if required);
6. Identification documents of the company’s beneficiaries, as well as proofs of their permanent addresses.

Note that Mercury’s compliance service may request other documents at its discretion.

Also, companies planning to open an account with Mercury must either already be conducting or plan to conduct entrepreneurial activities in the USA, or already be serving or plan to serve American customers within the next two years.

Opening an account with Mercury is done entirely remotely by providing scanned copies of required documents and using online verification systems for company members.

From two weeks depending on additional requests from the bank’s compliance service.