Your Business Banking Deserves More Than a Retail Template
Most banks treat startups like smaller versions of large corporations — same underwriting models, same fee structures, same rigid timelines. VAN Online Business Plus was built on the opposite premise. Every account, every credit facility, every payment integration is structured around how your company actually operates — not how a legacy banking platform forces it to operate.
Your revenue is lumpy. Your expenses spike around product launches. Your founders wear six hats. You need a line of credit that flexes with your cash conversion cycle, not one that penalizes you for seasonal dips. We get it — and we build for it.
Founded 2014 in Ottawa. 420+ active business clients. $340 million in commercial deposits under management. $1.2 billion in annual merchant volume processed. And a 91% client retention rate that we earn every single quarter — no lock-in contracts required. If you want to leave, you leave. Most don't.
Whether you're a pre-revenue startup incorporating for the first time or an established company processing thousands of transactions per month, this page covers everything we offer — and exactly what it costs. No asterisks. No footnotes that redefine the offer. Check our full fee schedules and rate tables for every number in writing.
Commercial Operating Accounts Built for Real Cash Flow Patterns
Sub-account segregation for payroll, tax remittances, and operating cash — each with its own account number, its own reporting, and its own configurable alerts. Multi-signatory authorization with configurable approval thresholds means you decide who can approve what, and at what dollar amount. Two signers for anything over $5,000? Done. Three signers for anything over $25,000? Also done.
Automated cash sweep — idle balances move to higher-yield reserve tiers overnight through zero balance account sweeping. Your money works while you sleep. No manual transfers. No next-morning reminders. The system handles it, and you see the interest credit on your monthly statement.
Pricing That Makes Sense
Under 200 transactions per month — flat $29/month, no per-transaction charges. That covers deposits, withdrawals, transfers, bill payments, and Interac e-Transfers. Higher volume? Bundled pricing negotiated per account based on your actual transaction patterns. We analyze three months of your banking history and build a fee structure that reflects how you operate — not how the bank wishes you operated. Full pricing details are always available on our Rates & Fees page.
Fast Funds, Fast Transfers
Interac e-Transfer with a $25,000 daily sending limit — well above the standard $3,000 retail cap. Same-day funds availability on deposits received before 2:00 PM ET. Wire transfers processed within 90 minutes during business hours. Because waiting three business days for your own money is absurd.
Need to move larger amounts regularly? Our treasury team can set up recurring EFT batches, pre-authorized debits, and scheduled wire transfers — all managed through the Online Business Plus dashboard with full audit trails and dual-authorization controls.
"Our bookkeeper told me the month-end close went from a five-day headache to a two-day process. The sub-account segregation alone saved us hours of manual reconciliation every single month."— Tom Grenier, Founder & President, GreenField Modular Homes
Treasury Management That Frees Founders From Spreadsheet Work
Priya Chandrasekaran built our treasury services division from scratch in 2018. Today it serves 420+ clients across Ottawa-Gatineau and Eastern Ontario. Two patents in automated cash pooling. And a philosophy that's hard to argue with: a founder doing their own bank reconciliations is a $100/hour person doing $18/hour work. Priya's team exists to give you those hours back — and improve your cash visibility at the same time.
Real-Time Cash Visibility
Consolidated view of all balances, pending transactions, upcoming payments, and projected cash positions over 7-, 14-, and 30-day horizons. One screen. No spreadsheet gymnastics. No toggling between your bank portal, your accounting software, and a Google Sheet you built at 2 AM.
Integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Sage 50 via API — bidirectional sync, not just a data export. Auto-generated daily or weekly cash flow analysis reports delivered to your inbox — or your CFO's, or your bookkeeper's. You choose the recipients, the frequency, and the level of detail. Summary view for founders. Line-item detail for controllers.
The projected cash position feature alone has prevented overdraft situations for dozens of clients. It flags when your projected balance will dip below your defined threshold — 3, 7, or 14 days in advance — so you can move money, delay a payment, or draw on your line of credit before the problem becomes a fee. It's the single most-used feature in our treasury stack, and clients tell us it pays for the entire treasury relationship on its own.
Payables
Pre-authorized payment schedules with dual-authorization for payments over $10,000. Set it, review it, approve it — done. Your accounts payable runs on autopilot without losing oversight. Vendor payments can be scheduled weekly, bi-weekly, or on custom dates aligned to your supplier terms. Net-30 vendor? The system queues payment on day 28 and notifies your approver.
Batch payment processing supports up to 500 payments per file upload — ideal for companies managing multiple subcontractors, freelancers, or supplier networks. Every batch generates a confirmation report with payment references, timestamps, and approver names.
Receivables
Branded online payment portals for PAD, EFT, or credit card — your company logo, your colour scheme, your domain. Automatic reconciliation means you stop chasing deposits across three spreadsheets. Lockbox services available for high-volume cheque processing — we receive, scan, deposit, and reconcile on your behalf. Average processing time: same business day for cheques received before noon.
Receivables aging reports integrate directly with your accounting software, so overdue invoices trigger alerts in both your banking dashboard and your AR module simultaneously.
Payroll Integration
ADP, Ceridian, and Wagepoint direct connectivity. Payroll funding, remittance scheduling, and T4 data flow — all connected. Payroll services that talk to your bank account the way they should. Funding is debited automatically on your scheduled payroll date, with confirmation sent to both your payroll administrator and your primary account holder.
We also support CRA remittance automation — source deductions calculated by your payroll provider are scheduled and transmitted directly, eliminating the manual payment step that catches too many growing companies off-guard at tax time.
Spot and Forward FX Contracts
Live interbank rates with transparent markups — 0.30% to 0.75% depending on volume and currency pair. That's it. No hidden wire fees on international payments over $5,000 CAD. No "handling charges" that appear after the fact.
Forward contracts up to 12 months. Settlement in 1–2 business days. If you're paying international suppliers or receiving USD revenue, this is the stuff that protects your margins from currency swings. A 3% CAD/USD move on a $200,000 quarterly import bill is $6,000 — money that comes straight out of your operating margin if you're not hedged.
And yes — we actually show you the interbank mid-market rate alongside our markup. Radical transparency. Strange how few banks do it. You'll see the Bank of Canada noon rate, our applied markup percentage, and your effective rate on every single transaction confirmation. Compare us to anyone. We encourage it.
Cross-border payments supported to 35+ countries in 18 currencies. Common corridors for our clients include USD (United States), EUR (European suppliers), GBP (UK-based SaaS vendors), and INR (offshore development teams). Dedicated FX desk available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM ET — or call our main line at (249) 845-5963 and ask for treasury.
Schedule a Treasury Review — We'll Map Your Cash Flow for Free →
Merchant Services With Interchange-Plus Pricing — No Hidden Margins
Jean-François Bouchard's team processes transactions across 38 different POS platforms. Interchange-plus pricing only — we never offer blended rates. Because blended rates are how processors hide margin. When your processor quotes you "2.9% flat," they're making 1.5% on debit transactions and telling you it's a good deal. We show you the actual interchange cost plus our markup — typically 0.10% to 0.25% above interchange — so you can see exactly what you're paying and why.
In-Store Payment Processing
Interchange-plus pricing — typically 15–30% less than blended rates on an effective-rate basis. All major terminals: Ingenico, Verifone, Pax. 40+ POS integrations including Square, Toast, Lightspeed, Clover, and Shopify POS. Whether you're running a single register or 15 terminals across multiple locations, the pricing structure scales with you.
T+1 settlement. PCI DSS compliance support included — we walk you through the annual self-assessment questionnaire, provide the documentation templates, and flag any issues before they become audit findings. Your money hits your account the next business day, every business day.
Contactless, chip, swipe, and manual key-entry all supported. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay enabled out of the box. Terminal deployment and on-site installation coordinated through our Ottawa team — typically within 5 business days of merchant account approval.
E-Commerce Processing
Compatible with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce — plugin installation and configuration included in onboarding. Recurring billing, tokenized card storage, and multi-currency support — CAD, USD, EUR, GBP. Your international customers pay in their home currency. You settle in CAD at our FX rates.
Fraud screening comes standard: velocity checks, AVS matching, 3D Secure 2.0, and BIN-country verification. Included. Not an add-on. Not a "premium tier" feature. Every merchant account gets the same fraud prevention stack because chargebacks hurt your business and ours equally.
Chargeback management support included — we handle representment documentation, compile transaction evidence, and submit disputes on your behalf. Average chargeback reversal rate across our merchant portfolio: 68%.
Business Credit Cards
Visa business cards with employee management, per-card spending limits, and category restrictions. 1.5% cash back on all purchases — no rotating categories, no activation required, no cap. $99/year after the first year (year one is free). See the full card terms and fee schedule.
Real-time alerts, temporary card freezing, and GL coding for accounting. Up to 50 employee cards, no per-card fee. Each card can be restricted by merchant category code — allow office supplies and software subscriptions, block cash advances and entertainment. You set the rules through the Online Business Plus portal.
Monthly statements export directly to QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage in categorized format. Your bookkeeper gets clean data. Your accountant gets clean year-end records. Everyone saves time.
Free Merchant Cost Analysis — See What You're Actually Paying
Free merchant services rate comparison using your last 3 months of statements. We break down your effective rate versus actual interchange — and show you the gap. No obligation. Just math. Most business owners have never seen their actual interchange breakdown — and the gap between what they pay and what they should pay averages $600 to $1,800 per month.
Send us your statements through our secure contact form, or drop them off at our Bank Street office. Jean-François's team will deliver a complete analysis within 5 business days — a side-by-side comparison showing your current effective rate, the interchange baseline, your processor's markup, and what you'd pay with VAN Online Business Plus.
"When Jean-François showed me the actual interchange breakdown on my card transactions, I realized I'd been overpaying by about $1,500 a month for three years. That's $54,000 I'll never get back — but at least it stops now."— Claire Deschamps, Co-Owner, Brasserie Montfort
Launch Your Business With a Banking Partner Who Grows With You
Our entire model is built around growing with early-stage companies. Earn the relationship when the company is small — the relationship deepens as the company scales. It's the reason Victor and Arlene Nguyễn founded VAN Online Business Plus in 2014: they saw that no bank in Ottawa was genuinely serving the startup and early-growth segment. Everyone wanted the company after it hit $5 million in revenue. Nobody wanted to be the bank that helped it get there. We do.
Here's what you get on day one:
- Commercial operating account — no monthly fee for 12 months. Full sub-account segregation, multi-signatory controls, and automated cash sweep included from the start. Not a stripped-down "starter" tier.
- $10,000 unsecured micro-line of credit — subject to personal credit check, minimum score 680. Interest at prime + 3.5%. No application fee. No annual review fee in year one. Details on our Loans page.
- Merchant processing setup — no activation fee. Interchange-plus pricing from day one. Terminal deployment included if you need in-store processing.
- Two hours complimentary treasury consultation with Priya Chandrasekaran or a senior treasury advisor. Cash flow mapping, receivables optimization, and payment structure recommendations tailored to your business model.
- Personal banking link — your personal accounts connected to your business dashboard for cross-account visibility. One login, one view, complete separation for tax purposes.
Average time from application to fully operational commercial account: 6 business days. That's not a target — it's a minimum standard. Most of that time is spent on regulatory due diligence (know-your-client verification, beneficial ownership documentation, and anti-money laundering screening). The actual account configuration takes less than a day.
Questions before you apply? Call us directly at (249) 845-5963 or use the online inquiry form. No phone trees. No ticket numbers. A real person who can answer your question or connect you with someone who can.
Apply for the Startup Package — 6 Business Days to Operational
Every Deliverable Passes Three Independent Reviews Before It Reaches You
Every deliverable — every commercial loan closing package, every collateral valuation summary, every business financial review, every merchant services rate comparison — passes through three independent reviews before it reaches you. Three different sets of eyes. Three different perspectives. First review checks the numbers. Second review checks the logic. Third review checks that the document actually answers the question you asked. We catch the mistakes others miss.
Victor Nguyễn still reads every loan application summary himself before final approval. Is that a bottleneck? No. It's a promise. It's how a $187 million lending portfolio maintains its quality — one careful review at a time. When your commercial loan closes, every number has been verified, every condition has been confirmed, and every document has been proofread by someone who wasn't involved in preparing it.
Cash flow analysis reports. Debt service coverage ratio analyses. Collateral valuation summaries. Commercial loan closing packages. Merchant cost comparison studies. Treasury implementation plans. Every single one gets the same treatment. Because the margin between a good banking decision and a bad one is often one overlooked detail — a transposed number, an outdated appraisal, a missed covenant. Our triple-review process exists to catch that detail before it costs you money.
Read more about our team, our values, and the standards we hold ourselves to. Or explore our guides and case studies to see this quality in action.
Ready to Switch to a Bank That Works as Hard as You Do?
Whether you need a full commercial account setup, a merchant services rate comparison, or just a conversation about what's possible — we respond within 24 hours. No phone trees. No ticket numbers.
Or call directly: (249) 845-5963 — Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM ET
Important Disclosures
VAN Online Business Plus Ltd. is a federally regulated financial institution operating under the oversight of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Registration No. FRN-20140327-OB.
Eligible commercial deposits are protected by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) up to applicable coverage limits. CDIC Member Institution No. 1247.
Service fees may apply — see our Schedule of Fees for complete details. Fee schedules are reviewed and updated annually.
Merchant acquiring services comply with the Code of Conduct for the Credit and Debit Card Industry in Canada.
VAN Online Business Plus Ltd. Registered Office: 1501 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7Z1.
Regulated by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Subject to the Bank Act (Canada).