how do I estimate the expected transaction volume for my bank

Expected transaction volume: estimate, not a forecast

The bank does not request an accountant's figure here, but a reasonable estimate of the number and size of transactions that will flow through the business account. This is part of the customer due diligence that the bank must conduct under the Act on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. The bank uses your answer to set up a monitoring profile: if a transaction falls within the bandwidth you have specified, or if it deviates and triggers a follow-up question.

In practice, you work with a bandwidth per month or per year, split between domestic and foreign transactions if the questionnaire requests it. Use the turnover from the most recently filed annual accounts as a reference point and convert it to an average number of transactions; if you have not yet filed annual accounts, a substantiated budget is the best you can provide. Some portals also ask for the countries where the money comes from or goes to — that relates to the source of the company's assets, a question that often comes up in the same questionnaire. If your organisation has accounts with multiple banks, the questionnaire may also ask you to specify that; that overlaps with the banking relationships your company maintains.

Basis: customer due diligence under the AMLFT

The obligation for this type of due diligence follows from the Act on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which requires banks to base customer due diligence on the nature and extent of expected transactions. Additional business data that the bank can verify — turnover, establishment date, legal form — come from the Business Register under the Business Register Act 2007. Note: the exact bandwidths and the precise definition of "expected volume" differ per bank, because each bank applies its own risk model within the framework of the law.