The practice of requesting and verifying bank references, while still little-known in Eastern Europe, is commonplace in the banks of Western Europe The purpose is for the bank to obtain reliable information about prospective new customers. At present almost all Western banks request such a document. In the near future the presentation of a bank reference will also be a prerequisite when opening an account with a Hungarian bank.

The bank reference is provided by the bank in which the owner, director or person authorised to manage the company's account holds a private account. References from Russian banks are not usually sufficient to open an account with a Western bank.

The content of the bank reference is roughly the following:

"We (the Bank) hereby confirm that X.Y. has been a customer of our bank since 199... To date the bank has had no problems with the above-mentioned customer. The customer has no debts towards the bank"

It is also desirable for the reference to contain the bank's opinion about the customer, for example: "X.Y. is a reliable and good standing customer of the bank, whose business has a tendency to grow". However, experience shows that banks very rarely agree to include such statements in their references.

The bank reference shall be written on a form with the bank's letterhead and shall include a signature and the seal of the bank as well as a reference number, facilitating the identification of the reference (foreign banks do tend to verify references).