Client story
Client's story
Where they started
The client conducted international business and increasingly encountered the same obstacle: opening an account at a European bank with a CIS passport became increasingly difficult. Banks complicated procedures, delayed processing, and refused applications—not due to specific issues with the client's profile, but due to general banking attitudes toward passports from certain jurisdictions.
Why the standard route did not work
Meanwhile, the client's capital was clean, and the business was legitimate. The problem was not the money, but the document through which the bank perceived him. With a CIS passport, he automatically fell into the enhanced due diligence category, which hindered his entire financial life in Europe.
What BRIDGES had to solve
The client had Bulgarian ancestry—and this changed everything. Bulgarian citizenship by descent provided not merely a second passport, but an EU passport, which fundamentally altered the client's status in the eyes of European banks: an EU citizen, rather than an applicant from a third country. The barriers tied to the CIS passport disappeared.
Why a standard answer would not do
The client came to BRIDGES to use his ancestry practically: to obtain a Bulgarian passport by descent and through it gain access to European banking, which had stalled due to his previous citizenship.
I was tired of hitting closed doors: with a CIS passport, opening an account in Europe became nearly impossible, even though my funds are clean. Sergey reminded me that I have Bulgarian roots, and this solves the problem at its source: with an EU passport, I am no longer a third-country applicant for banks, but an EU citizen. We obtained citizenship by descent, and European banking opened up. A passport through ancestry turned out to be not sentiment, but a working tool.
