UK Project Bank Account Providers List (2025)
What are Project Bank Accounts?
Project Bank Accounts are ring-fenced trust accounts whereby construction project cash (from the Employer) is held by trustees, protected from the various contractors' risks of insolvency.
This benefits the supply chain in particular because:
- Main Contractors can't use supply chain cash to smooth their own cashflow issues (driving efficiencies and reducing the incidence of 'bought' projects);
- Employers are protected in the case of Main Contractor insolvency, because the sub-contractors have all been paid for works done up to the last valuation date;
- Payments are made to suppliers and sub-contractors simultaneously, no matter where they sit in the supply chain.
Despite their clear benefits, adoption of Project Bank Accounts (or 'Project Payment Accounts' as some new FinTech companies are calling them for regulatory reasons) has been slow.
Who uses Project Bank Accounts?
Highways England is the largest user of Project Bank Accounts, but they are increasingly being used in the private sector as well to manage the risks to the supply chain and to ensure that the Employer's money is only used on the Employer's project (and not, for example, to 'shore up' another of the Contractor's projects).
Top UK Project Bank Account Providers
* we aren't able to find any information about this online, but these banks all appear to be government suppliers from the information we found at the Local Government Association Project Bank Account Masterclass notes (though note that these are dated back in 2020).