Payment details of a company or a personal bank account of a citizen, as a rule, include data on personal and current accounts. What are each of them?
What is a current account?
Under a settlement account it is customary to mean a bank account, which is used for the purpose of carrying out various monetary transactions - receiving and sending payments, as well as, for example, depositing funds or withdrawing funds from it from using RBS systems. The amount of funds deposited in the current account, in most cases, is owned by the client.
Current accounts can be opened by a bank for:
- entrepreneurs and legal entities whose activities are associated with various settlements;
- citizens who need to carry out banking transactions through the RBS system (for example, such as transferring funds to another account, crediting them to a deposit or withdrawing from it).
Connectivity to RBS, according to some economists, should be considered as one of the main signs of classifying an account opened for an individual as a settlement account. A bank client, using the appropriate system, can at any time transfer funds to the desired account, deposit or withdraw them - as if he were an entrepreneur and paid off with counterparties.
But there is another point of view regarding accounts with a connected RBS system. According to many experts, such accounts for individuals in most cases are still more legitimate to refer to "personal", since they are not intended for settlements with counterparties.
It can be noted that in Russian banks, commercial settlement, as well as personal accounts of customers have, as a rule, 20-digit numbers.
What is a personal account?
The term " personal account" can mean:
- an account created in the databases of a bank, insurance company, mobile operator or a company in another segment (in when required), which is used for analytical accounting of financial transactions of the company, reflecting the interaction with a specific client;
- part of the 20-digit commercial current account number (usually indicated in numbers 14 to 20);
- bank account - savings or "on demand", which is issued to an individual;
- an account with a connected RBS system for an individual, not intended for settlements with counterparties (if you follow one of the points of view discussed by us above).
Thus, the owner of a personal account, as a rule, is not a legal entity or individual entrepreneur, but an ordinary citizen.
Comparison
The main difference between a personal account and a settlement account, if we talk about those in relation to bank accounts, is that the former is not intended for the owner to carry out transactions related to transferring payments to other persons or receiving from them funds. It is used solely for the personal purposes of a person - for example, as an account with an RBS connected, used to pay for the Internet, communications, utilities, and also used to manage funds on other accounts.
Current accounts are opened, in turn, for the subsequent conduct of those transactions, which, as a rule, are associated with commercial activities carried out by a legal entity or individual entrepreneur.
The main feature of a current account is the ability to send payments to other bank accounts, as well as receive them. Therefore, accounts of this type are often referred to as typically personal ones - for example, on demand deposits, provided that they are managed using RBS. But this, strictly speaking, is not entirely correct, since these accounts are not used by the owner for commercial settlements with other citizens or organizations.
Many banks, opening personal accounts for individuals, prohibit their use to send payments to legal entities or receive funds from them. Or they strongly restrict such activities. In turn, a current account - opened by an individual entrepreneur or a legal entity - can functionally correspond to the characteristics of a personal one and be used, thus, to pay for any goods, services, or, for example, to place funds in the “on demand” format.
It is also worth noting that the term "checking account" is typically a bank account. Personal accounts are opened for clients not only by financial institutions, but also by companies operating in other areas.
Having determined what is the difference between a personal and current account, we will reflect the main conclusions in the table.
Table
| Personal account | Current account |
| What do they have in common? | |
| "Personal account" can be called a part of the current bank account - from 14 to 20 digits | |
| Personal accounts used for transactions using RBS, sometimes referred to as settlement | |
| What is the difference between them? | |
| Opened by the bank mainly for individuals | Opened by the bank mainly for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs |
| Intended for the owner's personal use (for example, to pay for services, place a deposit and manage it). Using an account for commercial purposes is often prohibited | It is intended for the owner of settlements with counterparties - in the framework of commercial activities |
| The term has a large number of meanings, can be used not only in banking and financial sphere, but also, for example, in insurance, in the work of cellular operators, providers | The term is used almost always only in the banking sector |
