Bank accounts
The organisations will need to register a bank account in the EU system in order to receive the payments when they are involved in a funding procedure. Please note that you do NOT need to provide a bank account when registering your organisation, it becomes necessary only when the organisation validation by the Central Validation Service has started.
To register the bank account, go to the Bank accounts tab. Click on New bank account:
You will be presented with 4 steps, where you have to provide different input regarding the bank account data. After you provide the required supporting documents, you submit the bank account for validation. Once validated, you will be able to select the bank account in other systems where you need to provide a bank account (for example, in SyGMa):
Complete the wizard steps by filling in the required fields and clicking on the Next button until the end of the process. Clicking on the Next button automatically saves the entered data and allows you to move to the following step of the wizard. If you cannot finish completing a step at the moment, click on the Save as draft button, at the bottom central part of the screen, or on the Cancel button, at the left, if you wish to close the wizard without saving the changes.
If you have clicked Save as draft, a new line of data with the Draft status appears in your Bank accounts main page. Click on Edit to continue working on your draft or on the Bin button to delete it:
The Bank accounts wizard guides you to fill in the bank account details. At the end of the process, you are requested to upload 1 supporting document and submit it for validation. Please note, some of the details (account holder name, bank name, account number, etc.) need to appear in the supporting document for it to act as evidence for validation.
After submitting your request for validation, the LEAR is informed via email of the 3 possible scenarios. Please note that no notification is sent to the LEAR until the request is actually undergoing a validation process:
- The entered bank account has been approved.
- The entered bank account has been rejected.
- A corrective action is needed, which can consist of updating data or uploading a new supporting document. The LEAR is informed in the email of what the required actions are.
Note
You can submit more than 1 bank record. However, only a draft can exist at a time. This means that you cannot register a second bank account until the first one has been validated.
Bank account screens
Bank account details
In the first step, you need to fill in the bank account information:
The Account name is usually the one of the account holder, but the account holder may have been registered differently at the bank. Populate this field to reflect what is visible in the provided supporting document(s).
If the entered country is non-EU, the system will ask you to provide the Account number and the BIC/SWIFT code. The SWIFT code that you need to enter has to have up to 8 numbers, so if your SWIFT code is 11 characters long, for instance, you need to enter just the first 8 characters.
Only if the entered country is Canada, Australia / New Zealand or the United States, you will need to fill in an additional field, which corresponds to the CA transit code, AU/NZ BSB code or the United States ABA code.
Important
Account holder details
In this step, you provide the account holder details:
Important
Upload documents
In this step, you upload the supporting document for the provided account, which will use as basis for validating the bank account in the system:
A recent bank statement, not older than 6 months, can be used as evidence for validation. Please make sure to hide any private information, such as amounts or movements, but ensure that the date of one of the transactions is not older than 6 months, or that there is proof in the document which accounts for the document not being older than 6 months.
Also, please ensure that the following details are clearly visible in the provided document:
- Name of the bank
- Account Name
- IBAN/Account number and additional codes, if applicable
In the unlikely situation in which you do not happen to have a bank statement as document proof, you have as an alternative the possibility to upload a financial identification form that the Participant register will generate using the provided data. You will need to have it stamped by your financial institution, then scan it and upload it into the system. Financial identification forms which are not stamped by the bank will be rejected. Click the link at the bottom of the screen to download the form.
To upload the documentation:
Click on Add new document: a new window pops up. Use the Choose files button to locate and select your document, then click the Upload button:
After uploading the document, the name of the file displays under the Uploaded documents section and the Upload document button disappears. Click on the name of the document to review it and make sure that the content is clearly visible:
Note
You can upload only one document per request. If you wish to upload several documents, you need to combine them in a single file. Zip files are not blocked by the system but can cause corruption of data of the request in the database, please do NOT use zip files, combine the documents in a single PDF file, instead.
Use the Bin button to delete a provided document. The Upload document button becomes visible again, once the previously uploaded document is removed.
Finally, click on the Next button.
Confirm and submit
In this step, you see a summary of the data previously entered alogn the different steps:
If you need to modify any of this data, click on the corresponding Edit button.
At the bottom of the screen, tick the checkbox to confirm that the document is readable and meets the requirements explained above. If the checkbox is not ticked, the Submit button will not be available:
Click the Submit button and then on OK in the pop-up window to confirm the submission of the data:
Find the record in the Bank accounts section, with the Data provided status. You can View the content but you cannot edit it anymore nor cancel it until the Central Validation Service has reviewed the request:
In the Documents tab, you are able to see the document that you uploaded in the wizard:
Once the Central Validation Service has reviewed your request, if they need additional information about it, you will see the corresponding message in the Messages tab. Click on View to open the message:
You receive an email with the same message too, informing that a follow-up is needed and the reason for it. Also, you see a red flag icon on the Bank accounts tab and your record line with the Follow up status:
Instead of the View button, an Edit button is available, and there is an envelope button in the Info column. Click on the envelope button to see the details of what is being requested to be modified:
Click on Edit to perform the requested action and submit again in the last step of the wizard. The Central Validation Service is notified by the system that the modifications are done and they will resume the validation of your request.
If the request is rejected, you are also notified via email of the reason of rejection. In the Bank accounts tab, the rejected requests are listed. Click on the corresponding envelope button in order to check the reason of the rejection:
If the request is approved, you see the Validated status next to the related bank account record. You also see a message in the Messages tab confirming that your bank account registration is completed. Click on View to open the message:
You can modify some information after the bank account has been validated. To do so, click on Edit. Once you have resubmitted the bank account with the modified information, the Central Validation Service will assess it again.