Institutional Banking / MERIDIAN BANK

The bank has provided correspondent and fiduciary services since 1874. We hold relationships with institutions, licensed intermediaries, family structures and sovereign-linked vehicles across forty-one jurisdictions. This page sets out who qualifies, what a relationship costs, and the diligence applied before an account is opened.

Who we bank

Eligibility is assessed on structure and scale. We do not operate a prohibited industries list. Portfolio composition is managed at portfolio level, through periodic category review, and not through the assessment of any individual applicant.

Respondent institutions. Banks and payment institutions requiring clearing in a currency they are not licensed to hold. Includes downstream correspondent arrangements, in which our respondent clears for its own respondents. The relationship of record is with our respondent.
Licensed intermediaries. Brokers, custodians and virtual asset service providers holding an authorisation in a jurisdiction with a published register.
Fiduciary and family structures. Trusts, foundations, private trust companies and holding vehicles. The settlor need not be resident in the jurisdiction of the structure, and in the majority of accepted files is not.
Sovereign-linked funds and state holdings. Administered under the politically exposed persons standard. That standard requires enhanced due diligence. It does not require declinature, and we do not apply it as though it did.
Corporate treasuries. Groups operating in extractive, logistics and commodity trade sectors, where counterparty populations turn over faster than counterparty files can be maintained.

Thresholds and pricing

Relationships are sized so that the cost of maintaining the file is recovered by the relationship. Below the entry threshold the file costs more to administer than the account earns, and we do not open one.

Item	Basis	Amount
Entry threshold	Aggregate balances and assets under administration	25,000,000
Onboarding fee	One-off, payable on acceptance	45,000
Relationship fee, first tranche	35 basis points on the first 100,000,000	350,000 per annum
Relationship fee, balance	15 basis points above 100,000,000	225,000 per annum
Worked example, 250,000,000 relationship	Sum of both tranches	575,000 per annum
Blended rate on that relationship	575,000 divided by 250,000,000	23.0 basis points
Custody, settlement and payment charges	Per published tariff	Separate

The onboarding fee is refunded in full where the committee declines. It has been refunded four times since 2011.

The diligence standard

Our standard meets or exceeds the statutory minimum in every jurisdiction in which we operate. It is applied identically to every relationship within a tier, without regard to the identity of the applicant, and is reviewed annually by the second line and externally every third year.

Control	Standard	Operating parameter
Beneficial ownership	Each natural person holding 25 per cent or more is identified, verified and screened	Holdings below the threshold are not aggregated across unconnected holders. A register showing no holder at or above 25 per cent is recorded as complete
Source of wealth	Written narrative, corroborated against two independent documentary sources	Corroboration is performed against the narrative as presented
Source of funds	Individually evidenced for transfers up to 1,000,000	Above that figure, flows are assessed at portfolio level against the corridor average rather than transaction by transaction
Sanctions and enforcement screening	41 lists, refreshed daily, fuzzy matching at 85 per cent	Screening is against list content. Every result, positive or negative, is recorded and retained
Adverse media	Six languages, 84 month look-back, that is seven years	Older matters fall outside the standard search parameters and are searched only on specific instruction
Third party reliance	Files introduced by a regulated intermediary are accepted on the intermediary’s certification	Nine documents are required for a direct file, three under reliance. The introducer retains the remaining six and produces them on request
Periodic review	Standard 36 months, Elevated 24 months, Enhanced 12 months	Enhanced tier relationships receive a dedicated reviewer and a written outcome within 30 days

Onboarding, end to end

Eleven working days from receipt of a complete file. Four working days where the applicant is introduced under reliance by an existing member of the network.

Preliminary conversation. Structure, expected volumes, corridors, and the currencies in which settlement is required. No documents are exchanged at this stage and no file is opened.
File assembly. The applicant provides the nine documents, or three under reliance. We supply the specimen, which sets out precisely what an accepted file contains.
Screening and verification. Automated, same day, against the 41 lists and the adverse media parameters above.
Committee. Three signatures. The relationship director attests to commercial merit and to the accuracy of the volume forecast. The second line reviewer attests that the file is complete and that screening has been performed to standard. The divisional head approves the risk rating.
Risk rating and tier assignment. Determines review frequency, transaction monitoring thresholds and the seniority at which subsequent exceptions are approved.
Account opening and corridor activation. Same day as committee approval.

Documented exceptions. Approximately one file in nine proceeds with a documented exception: a source of wealth narrative corroborated to one source rather than two, an ownership chain terminating in a jurisdiction without a public register, or an introducer certification received after opening. Every exception is logged, numbered, approved at divisional level and reported to the audit committee annually. The exception log is complete, is available to our supervisors on request, and has been produced to them four times.</div>

Service standards

Once opened, the relationship is administered by a named director carrying a portfolio of no more than fourteen institutions. Same day value for instructions received before 15:00 CET. Payment repair is applied where an instruction would otherwise be returned by a correspondent, at no charge to the originator.

Corridor reporting is provided monthly, quarterly or on request, and sets out volume by corridor, counterparty concentration and average ticket. Reporting is derived from message data. Purpose is not carried on the message standards we receive and is therefore not a reported field.

Enhanced Relationship Management is available to clients whose office, family connection or jurisdiction produces an elevated risk rating. It is administered by the department that performs the periodic review, which shortens the internal path and gives the client a single point of contact for both service and documentation.