Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia)
You don't have much choice other than to open an account in your business name, then do a money transfer, as @DJClayworth says.  You will not  without providing your name and street address and possibly other information that you may consider to be of a private nature. This is due to laws about fraud, money laundering and consumer protection. I'm not saying that's what you have in mind! But without accountability of the sort provided by names and street addresses, banks would be facilitating crimes of many sorts, which is why regulatory agencies enforce disclosure requirements. You actually don't have to open a business account with your bank, you can have a personal account with the bank and have your business funds go into it, whether it be from cheques or from Eftpos\Credit Card Facilities. You just have to get your customers to make the cheque out under your name (the same name used for your bank account). If you are trading as a sole trader and you trade under a name other than your own name, then officially you are supposed to register that name with Fair Trading in your state. However, if you are trading using another name and it is not registered, Fair Trading will only become aware of it if someone (usually one of your customers) makes a compliant about you, and they will then ask you to either stop using that name as your trading name or have it registered (if not already registered by someone else). Banks has to complete KYC. In case you want to open a bank account, most will ask for proof of address. I also feel it is difficult for bank to encash a cheque payable to a business in your account. Opening a bank account in the name of your business or alternatively obtaining a cheque payable to your personal name seems the only alternatives to me. "Unfortunately, Australian bureocrats made it impossible to register a small business without making the person's home address, full name, date of birth and other personal information available to the whole world. They tell us the same old story about preventing crime, money laundering and terrorism, but in fact it is just suffocating small business in favour of capitalistic behemoths. With so many weirdos and identity thieves out there, many people running a small business from home feel unsafe publishing all their personal details. I use a short form of my first name and real surname for my business, and reguraly have problems cashing in cheques written to this variation of my name. Even though I've had my account with this bank for decades and the name is obviously mine, just a pet or diminitive form of my first name (e.g. Becky instead of Rebecca). This creates a lot of inconvenience to ask every customer to write the cheque to my full name, or make the cheque ""bearer"" (or not to cross ""or bearer"" if it is printed on the cheque already). It is very sad that there is protection for individual privacy in Australia, unless you can afford to have a business address. But even in this case, your name, date of birth and other personal information will be pusblished in the business register and the access to this information will be sold to all sorts of dubious enterprises like credit report companies, debt collectors, market researchers, etc. It seems like Australian system is not interested in people being independent, safe, self-sufficient and working for themselves. Everyone has to be under constant surveliance."
"No, the best you can do is (probably) determine the bank, from the sort code. using an online checker such as this one from the UK payments industry trade association. Revealing the name of an account holder is something the bank would typically require a warrant for, I'd expect, or whatever is covered in the account T&Cs under ""we provide all lawfully required assistance to the authorities"" Switching to what I suspect is your underlying problem - if this is a dispute that's arisen at the end of your tenancy, relating to the return of the deposit, then there are plenty of people to help you, for free. Use those rather than attempting your own detective work. Start with the UK government How to Rent guide, which includes links on to Shelter's pages about deposits. The CAB has lots of good info here too. Note that if your landlord didn't put your deposit in a deposit protection scheme, then as a professional landlord they could be penalised four times (I think) the deposit amount by a court, so stick to your guns on this." This may not answer your question but it may be an alternative. My credit union credits my account for deposits immediately (ones I make in an envelope).  They view it as a service to their members.  They take the risk that the member could deposit an empty envelope, say they deposited $400, and then withdraw the money. There may be banks in your country that do business this way. "It's generally not possible to open a business account in the UK remotely.  It's even difficult (near impossible) for a non-resident (even if a citizen) to open a business or personal bank account while visiting the UK. A recent report says that it may be possible to open an account via Barclays Offshore in the Isle of Man.  This requires a large deposit, and probably lots of paperwork and fees (most offshore locations have stricter ""know your customer"" rules than major countries). Note that while the Isle of Man is inside the UK banking system (for sort codes, account numbers), it is a separate territory that doesn't have the same deposit guarantees as the UK. There is no legal reason why a UK company has to bank within the UK banking system, although many companies paying the company would expect it or require it, and an account in anything other than sterling would complicate the accounts. It could have an account in your home country.   It's not even a legal requirement that the company has an account in its own name at all.  Some people use a (separate) personal account for this purpose.  There are plenty of reasons why this is a bad idea (for example it's unclear who/what owns the money in the account, and can give the appearance of director's loans), but it's a work-around.  Most inbound electronic payments only require a sort code and account number, the account owner name is not checked. The UK does have a much simpler and cheaper company registry than most European countries, but the near-impossibility of opening a bank account for a business in the UK as a non-resident has made it an unsuitable place to register a small international company." Some of these answers are actually wrong. Basically if you were to cash this cheque, you are committing bank fraud.  The cheque is usually fake and ends up with them cashing it off your account--this is how cheques work, when you cash a cheque, you are the one ultimately responsible for the validity of what you're cashing.  This is why large cheques are balanced against your active account--so what happens is they essentially just take money from you and leave you red handed. I agree with you that smartphone deposits make you more vulnerable to a variety of issues. Checks are completely insecure, since anyone with your routing/account number can create a check, and individuals are less likely to shred or otherwise secure the check properly. Ways to control this risk are: "I would contact the security/fraud departments at your bank and see if you can get in contact (via your bank) with the bank that the check is drawn on. By my reading of your question, it sounds like the person you are dealing with fraudulently endorsed a third party check, which you subsequently endorsed for deposit. Explain this situation to your bank. As far as the other person goes, tell her ""I'm in contact with the frauds department at my bank, as the validity of the check is in question, and I'm not giving you a cent until the matter is resolved."" Depositing a bad check is a misdemeanor in most jurisdictions, so it's essential to bring this to the attention of the bank and authorities asap." It sounds like your looking for something like an offshore bank (e.g. an anonymous Swiss bank account).  These don't really exist anymore. I think you should just open a small bank account in your home country (preferably one the reimburses your ATM fees, like Charles Schwab in the US).  If it's a small amount of money, the authorities probably won't care and they won't be able to give you large penalties anyways. There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written.