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Ask HN: Starting a business without a bank account

4 points by Yenrabbit ↗ HN
What would you do if you wanted to start a SaaS project, but: - No proof of address, and possibly lack of ID documents - No bank account, or untrustworthy local banks - Stripe and PayPal have blacklisted your country.

I'm curious if there are good solutions to this. I've heard of Stripe Atlas, but it's a little pricey as an upfront fee, and I'm not sure it solves everything one would need.

Would you lean on a friend somewhere first world to run things for you? Start accepting payment through something like fastspring and worry about payout options later? Incorporate somewhere weird?

I'm hoping to find a reasonable path that I can recommend to entrepreneurs (and potentially try myself, if I can find time for a side project).

4 comments

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rboyd
I don’t believe you could do this in the US. You could likely get by without a bank account but not with your other restrictions.

You could probably start an affiliate site and use a check cashing service, but even they would require docs.

Crypto payments maybe?

Why all the constraints?

Yenrabbit
I live somewhere (Zimbabwe) where a lot of that stuff we take for granted is very much not the default. Most folks have mobile money, and maybe a national ID, but that's about it. Currency changes have meant 'USD' accounts have changed to local currency overnight a few times, and the banking regulations change continually, so they're not the most attractive option. For someone here with an idea and some technical skills, I'd love for there to be a way to start something without all the obstacles that are present simply because they're in Zimbabwe. I should probably have kept the constraints list shorter, but I am curious what options are out there. Crypto is starting to get adopted here, so maybe that is a potential route. It still needs a way to go from *coin to cash, but if bet most places have some system available.
auganov
So is producing a Zimbabwe ID/passport and address an option or not? Zimbabwe nationals should be able to incorporate in America (and probably many other places) and get everything setup this way. But besides Stripe Atlas, most banks will generally require you to show up in person to open an account.

Searched for payment processing options in Zimbabwe and it looks like 2Checkout accepts businesses from there. It's a pretty solid processor, supports many local payment options, which will help a lot if targeting Africa.