Bank account lifecycle

Account statuses

Throughout its lifecycle, a bank account moves through a limited set of stages, captured by the account-status field. These stages are:

• Opening. When you request to open a bank account, its status will be opening while our platform sets up the account. Accounts in this state cannot send or receive payments. The set up includes assigning an account number and sort code, so you may see your account without these fields at this stage.
• Open. Once an account is fully set up, it moves to open. Open accounts can make and receive payments and earn interest.
• Closing. When you request to close a bank account, it will move into the closing state and any accrued interest will be paid out. The account will not move into the closed state until its balance is zero. For more detail, see our guide on how to close a bank account.
• Closed. Once an account that is closing has a balance of zero, it will automatically move to closed.

An account’s progression through these stages is linear and unidirectional. This means the account-status cannot be reverted to the previous stage, e.g a bank account that closing cannot be returned to open.

Available actions

The account-status affects the actions that can be performed on the account, as detailed in the table below:

	Opening	Open	Closing	Closed
Receive payments	❌	✅	❌	❌
Make payments	❌	✅	✅	❌
Transfer money	❌	✅	✅	❌
Earn interest	❌	✅	❌	❌

Account statuses are different from account restrictions, which also change the actions that can be performed on the account.