Fire Business Account

Overview

Fire Business Account, operated by Fire Financial Services Limited and trading as Fire.com, is an Irish-founded payments platform built specifically for businesses that pay, get paid, and reconcile money across Ireland and the UK. Fire was founded in 2010 by Colm Lyon, the Irish fintech entrepreneur best known for building Realex Payments (acquired by Global Payments for EUR 115m in 2015). Fire is headquartered at Dogpatch Labs, The CHQ Building, Custom House Quay, Dublin 1, and is registered with the Companies Registration Office under CRO number 464819. The Irish entity, Fire Financial Services Limited (Fire-EU), is regulated as a Payment Institution by the Central Bank of Ireland under PSD2, reference C58301, and was the first Irish firm authorised as a Payment Initiation Service Provider for open banking in 2019. A separate UK entity, Fire-UK, is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, reference 900983, which lets Irish businesses operate Irish (IE) IBAN euro accounts and GBP accounts with UK sort code and account number under one login. Fire issues physical and virtual Mastercard debit cards, supports SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit on the euro side, and supports Faster Payments and Bacs on the sterling side. Crucially for Irish SMEs that build software or run programmatic payouts, Fire publishes the Fire Payments API, which lets developers initiate batched payments, set up payment requests, and reconcile inbound transactions without screen-scraping an online banking interface. Fire's natural fit is Irish SMEs that want a domestically regulated, Irish-founded provider with strong compliance positioning, full Irish IBAN issuance from the Irish entity, real UK Faster Payments capability, and a documented API for finance automation. Fire is not the right pick for high-balance cash businesses needing the Irish Deposit Guarantee Scheme (Fire is a Payment Institution, not a licensed bank, so customer funds are safeguarded rather than insured), nor for businesses whose primary need is consumer-style spending features, lending facilities, or branch-based service.

Compliance reference

Compliance vocabulary for Fire Business Account

Irish terms that shape how this software is bought, configured, and audited.

• Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) aka CBI, An Banc Ceannais na hEireann, Central Bank

  Ireland's financial regulator and gatekeeper for banks, payment firms, e-money issuers, MiFID investment firms and insurance providers. Maintains the public CBI register and operates the Fitness and Probity regime for senior staff at regulated firms.

• Fintech aka financial technology, fin-tech, FinTech

  Software and platforms that deliver financial services - banking, payments, lending, insurance, wealth - through technology rather than branch-based incumbents. In Ireland, fintech firms are regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

• Neobank aka challenger bank, digital bank, online-only bank, app-based bank

  A digital-first, app-led account provider with no physical branches. Some hold full credit-institution licences; many operate as Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) or under EU passporting rather than Irish bank authorisation.

• Payment Institution (PI) aka PI, PSP, payment service provider, authorised payment institution

  A Central Bank of Ireland authorisation that permits a firm to provide one or more payment services under PSD2 - account services, payment execution, card acquiring, money remittance, AISP, PISP - without being an EMI or credit institution.

• PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) aka Payment Services Directive 2, PSD II, Directive (EU) 2015/2366

  The EU directive governing payment services and payment service providers across the EEA. Transposed into Irish law by SI 6/2018 (European Union (Payment Services) Regulations 2018). Created the open banking and Strong Customer Authentication regimes.

See the full Irish compliance glossary →

Pros and Cons

Best For