Five areas of work, each with a defined output and a fee agreed before it starts.
Five areas of work. They are listed in the order they usually have to happen — a licence application built on the wrong corporate structure fails on the structure, and a bank account application built on a weak AML file fails on the file.
Each area below sets out what is included, how the work runs, what we need from you and what you hold at the end. Fees are agreed in writing before work starts: a fixed fee for defined scopes, a monthly retainer for ongoing support.
The question is never “which jurisdiction is best”. It is which jurisdiction your bank, your payment provider, your regulator and your future acquirer will all accept for the specific thing you do. Those four answers frequently differ, and the structure has to survive all of them.
A description of the product, your current and target markets, how money reaches you today, the entities that already exist and any commitments already made to banks, investors or partners. If a structure is already in place, the constitutional documents and the last set of accounts.
A written structuring memo with the recommended option, the rejected options and why, a step plan with sequence and dependencies, and the corporate and intragroup documents to implement it.
A template policy is worse than no policy, because it creates obligations your team does not know it has. The point of this module is a framework your staff can actually operate on a Tuesday afternoon, and that holds up when a supervisor asks for the file behind a specific decision.
The detail sits on the dedicated page: AML/KYC, MLRO and internal control.
Three regimes account for most of what we do: crypto-asset services under MiCA, payment and electronic money institutions, and EU-facing online gaming. They differ in substance but the failure modes are identical — an incomplete file, a business plan that does not match the application, and key personnel who cannot evidence what the regulator requires.
Jurisdiction comparison, indicative capital requirements and the reasons applications are refused are set out on the licensing page.
Regulated businesses tend to have excellent licence files and improvised contracts. That asymmetry shows up at the worst moment: a payment dispute, a partner exit or a data protection incident.
Refusals are rarely about the business being unacceptable. They are about the file not answering the questions the compliance team is required to close. Those questions are predictable, which means the file can be built before the application rather than after the first decline.
Background reading: why banks say no to regulated digital businesses.
A fixed-fee memo answering a defined question: which authorisation applies, whether a structure holds, what a refusal was really about. Usually the right first step.
A licence application, a full AML framework, a restructuring. Scope, deliverables, sequence and fee fixed at the outset, with agreed points at which scope can change.
A monthly retainer for businesses that are authorised and have to stay that way: reporting deadlines, change notifications, contract review and the questions that arrive without warning.
This list is here because it saves both sides a conversation, and because a practice that claims to do everything is telling you something about how it works.
Yes, and it is usually the sensible order. Most engagements begin with a written assessment, because it converts an open question into a scoped piece of work. Modules added later reuse the material already produced rather than starting again.
Working languages are English, Ukrainian and Russian. Documents intended for EU regulators, banks and counterparties are drafted in English; filings in other languages are handled with certified translation and local counsel where the jurisdiction requires it.
Fixed fee for defined scopes, monthly retainer for ongoing support, and hourly only where the scope genuinely cannot be defined in advance — which is rarer than the market suggests. Third-party costs (state fees, local providers, translations, audits) are passed through at cost and identified separately.
Each mandate has a named lead who scopes it and stays with it to delivery, with specialists joining by discipline — regulatory, AML, corporate. Substantive documents are reviewed at senior level before they leave. Local counsel and specialist providers are engaged where a jurisdiction requires it, and you are told who they are before they are instructed.
Yes. It is worth budgeting for a short review stage first — inherited files often contain assumptions that were reasonable when made and are no longer true, and it is cheaper to find those before filing than after a request for information.
A short description of the product, the markets and the payment flows is enough for us to say what is required, in what order and at what cost.
We reply within one business day with a scope, the deliverables and an indicative fee — not a brochure.