Business Banking & Moving Company Money

Your personal account and credit file are a separate problem with a separate sequence — that is Money, Credit & ITIN (#6). Keep the two strictly separate from day one: commingling is the cheapest mistake to avoid and the most expensive one to unwind.

The four platforms

None of these are banks. All four are fintechs holding your deposits at partner banks, which matters twice: FDIC coverage runs through sweep networks rather than a single institution, and an account freeze gets resolved by the platform’s support team rather than a branch manager.

Brex is the one to circle back to, not start with. Before a raise it will likely decline you. After a $50k balance or a lead investor it becomes genuinely competitive. What the Capital One integration does to its startup-friendliness over the next year is an open question nobody can answer yet, including Brex.

Structure the accounts before you need to

A single checking account is fine for the first six months. The trigger to split is payroll becoming a real line item, not a date.

Relay’s named sub-accounts, up to twenty and each with real routing numbers, are the cleanest way to run this. Mercury and Rho both support multiple accounts under one login, which does the same job with slightly less structure.

Idle cash should be earning

Runway sitting in 0% checking is a real cost. Drag your balance and see it.

Idle cash, not needed for 90 days

$250k

Where it sits by default

0% checking

$0

Runway earning nothing. This is the number every other column is measured against.

You qualify

Mercury Treasury

$7,625–$8,450

Entry tier, 3.05 to 3.38% net of fees. The advertised 3.83% only applies above $20M.

You qualify

Rho Treasury

$11,250

Opens lower and advertises up to about 4.5% as of August 2026.

Both are open to you, and the gap between them is real money at this balance. Compare current rates before defaulting to your existing platform, because these move constantly.

Jargon: a sweep moves any balance above a threshold you set out of checking into a yield product, and back when checking dips below it. Rates are as of July and August 2026 and move constantly.

Treasury leaves the insured-deposit world. Both are brokerage products covered by SIPC, not FDIC. One corridor-relevant detail from Mercury’s own eligibility list: a US entity physically operating from India qualifies.

Moving money: what it actually costs

Mercury and Rho charge nothing for ACH or wires, including international USD wires. This is what a traditional bank charges, and what you pay whenever a counterparty insists on a specific rail.

Sending, India ↔ US

$13k

1–3 business days

Domestic ACH

$0–$3

The default for payroll and routine bill pay. Cheapest rail for anything not urgent.

Same day

Domestic wire

$25–$35

Worth it only for time-sensitive one-offs: a lease closing, an urgent vendor payment.

1–5 business days

International wire

$310–$620

SWIFT. Flat fees plus 2 to 4% FX markup, plus $15–50 per intermediary bank en route.

1–5 business days

Specialist rail

$69–$77

Wise or Airwallex. A small flat fee plus roughly 0.5% FX on major routes.

On $13,000 the bank wire costs $233–$551 more than the specialist rail. That gap is almost entirely FX markup, not the fee you were quoted — which is why you compare the landed amount and never the sticker.

Jargon: sticker fees are the advertised number. The real cost adds the FX markup, which is where the money goes: big banks run 2 to 4% over mid-market, specialists roughly 0.5% on major routes.

• Intermediary deductions are invisible until it lands. The recipient sees $30 to $90 less than you sent, skimmed along the correspondent chain. When an exact amount must arrive, ask about sending “OUR”, meaning sender pays all charges, or use a rail that quotes the landed amount.
• Moving the money is not the same as withholding. Paying Indian contractors through a platform that does not handle India-side compliance leaves your company exposed if TDS was not withheld correctly. The platform and the responsible entity are different things.
• There is no UPI here. The everyday rails settle in days, not seconds, and even same-day wires respect banking hours and cutoffs. Autopay and payment scheduling exist precisely because the rails are slow.

When both entities exist

The structure itself — the ODI framework, round-tripping rules and transfer pricing — lives in US Entity & the Delaware Flip (#5). Read that first. What belongs here is the banking layer it doesn’t cover.

• Ask your bank this directly. Funds from the Indian entity to the US one must route through an Authorized Dealer bank and be reported as ODI. Confirm your bank holds an AD Category-I licence, and ask whether their ODI desk has processed a founder-flip structure before, not just traditional outbound acquisitions. Filing delays almost always trace to an unfamiliar ODI team.
• The audit lag bites. The automatic route caps total financial commitment — equity plus loans plus guarantees — at 400% of the Indian entity’s net worth per its last audited balance sheet. For an early-stage company that just raised, fresh capital does not count until the audited accounts exist, which can make the cap surprisingly small and push funding toward personal LRS remittances or US-side fundraising instead.
• The thread between two sets of books. Keep the ODI filing reference number attached to every related US-side bank record. Nothing on the Mercury or Rho side changes because money arrived as an ODI transfer, but at reconciliation or audit time that reference is what connects them.
• Two compliance clocks, different deadlines. Your Indian CA handling ODI filings and your US accountant booking the receipt should reconcile the same transaction on a shared calendar. India’s FEMA reporting and the US entity’s tax and KYC obligations run on different deadlines, and the common failure is one side quietly falling behind.
• One 2026 change worth a specific check. FEMA amendment rules effective May 2026 added a beneficial-ownership test for round-trip structures, with government approval required where a land-border-country entity holds 10% or more anywhere in the chain. If your structure touches one, get counsel on it explicitly.

Personal remittances are a different page: sending your own money home, NRE and NRO mechanics, and the 1% US remittance tax sit in Sending Money Home & NRI Banking (#32).

Do this now

• ☐ Open Mercury from India, before you fly — formation docs, EIN letter, passport
• ☐ Once payroll exists, split cash into operating, payroll reserve and tax reserve
• ☐ At $250k idle, set up a treasury sweep, and compare Mercury and Rho current rates before defaulting
• ☐ Indian entity funding the US one? Confirm your bank’s AD-I status and founder-flip ODI experience before relying on them
• ☐ Attach the ODI filing reference to every related US-side bank record, from the first transfer

Sources & further reading

• Mercury — account opening for non-resident founders.
• Mercury Treasury — tiers, eligibility and current rates.
• Rho — banking, treasury and coverage detail.
• Relay — named sub-accounts and plan limits.
• Brex — current qualification criteria.

This is general information, not legal/tax advice — verify with a professional before acting.