We charge a compliance fee for every escrow arrangement. This allows us to ensure that we are compliant with the various responsibilities we have as a money service business, including carrying out our know-your-client checks; establishing the source of funds/source of wealth being used for the arrangements; and carrying out our ongoing monitoring requirements.
Our document fees allow us either to propose the terms of the escrow agreement or to review the terms that our clients put forward. All of our quotes include for the provision of an escrow agreement that will govern how we hold client funds and the basis upon which we are permitted to release them or return them to the paying party.
Some clients, however, prefer to put forward their own detailed escrow agreement, in which case we use this portion of the fee to review the proposed terms, ensure that we are comfortable them and propose any amendments we need to ensure that we remain compliant and sustainable.
Our monthly management fee is the time-related charge, allowing us to ensure that you can have access to an escrow agent or account manager for the duration of your escrow arrangements. It also covers some of the overhead of our account portal through which you can view and administer your transaction 24/7.
Some accounts, in particular Project Bank Accounts, allow for additional payees to 'sign up' to join the arrangements. For those accounts, we charge a modest administration fee to provide the relevant documentation and enable access to those additional parties.
The escrow agent fee is the value-based fee that we charge for carrying out the arrangements; this is the contribution to our overheads and profit and is generally calculated as a percentage of the funds we are handling. For the largest transactions, this tends towards around 1% of the value of funds we hold.
