How we work
Instruction, documentation, onboarding, funding, release
The same five stages apply to every mandate. This page sets out what happens at each one, what Titanium needs from you, and where a timetable is most likely to slip.
Instruction to release
Instruction
You tell us the transaction structure, the parties and their jurisdictions, the number of payees, the timetable and the proposed release mechanics. We tell you whether Titanium can act and raise anything in the structure that will need attention.
Scope and documentation
The escrow or custody agreement is prepared with the transaction counsel. This is where release triggers, notice provisions, authorised signatories, reporting and fee basis are settled.
Onboarding
KYC, beneficial ownership, sanctions screening and source of funds for each relevant party. Enhanced due diligence is applied on a risk-assessed basis. Every party who will receive money is onboarded, not only the party who sends it.
Account funding
Funds are received into the designated client account arrangement. Receipt and clearance are confirmed to the parties on the agreed basis.
Release and reporting
Titanium acts on the release mechanism set out in the agreement. This may require valid instructions from authorised parties, or documentary evidence expressly specified in the agreement.
Escrow and paying agency are not the same instruction
The two are often used interchangeably in correspondence and they answer different questions. Escrow governs when money may leave the account: the agreement fixes the trigger, and Titanium acts on it. Paying agency governs how it leaves: identifying each beneficiary, screening them, validating the account details and executing the payments.
Most corporate mandates need both. A holdback is an escrow question. A distribution to forty shareholders across six jurisdictions is a paying agency question, and it is the one that determines the timetable. Tell us which of the two you are asking about, or describe the fund flow and we will tell you.
Where closings actually slip
It is almost never the escrow agreement. It is the payee population.
A single seller sending funds to a single buyer is a simple onboarding exercise. A distribution to thirty employee shareholders in four jurisdictions, several of whom are not expecting to hear from a regulated firm and none of whom have a reason to prioritise it, is a different exercise entirely. The work is not hard. It is just serial, and it cannot be compressed by wanting it to be.
The practical consequence is that identifying every payee at the point escrow is first discussed, rather than at signing, buys more timetable than any other single decision a deal team makes. (This is also the least interesting advice in the document, which is presumably why it is so often ignored.)
Titanium confirms an indicative timetable after its initial review. Indicative timings assume all required documents have been received, applicable compliance checks have been completed and cleared funds are available.
What is required, in outline
The precise list depends on the party's jurisdiction, structure and role in the transaction. Titanium confirms the applicable list after its initial review.
Individuals
Identity and address verification, and evidence of source of funds where the individual is funding the arrangement.
Corporate parties
Constitutional documents, ownership and control structure, beneficial ownership above the applicable threshold, and authorised signatory evidence.
Funds and vehicles
Structure documentation, the manager or sponsor's own regulatory status where relevant, and the investor or contributor position appropriate to the mandate.
Every receiving party
Onboarding applies to recipients as well as senders. A distribution instruction cannot be processed for a payee who has not been onboarded.
Screening
Sanctions and adverse media screening on the relevant parties. Enhanced due diligence is applied on a risk-assessed basis.
Do not send passports, bank statements or other sensitive documents by ordinary email. Secure submission instructions are provided once an enquiry is received. Titanium does not request KYC documents through the public enquiry form.
Start with an outline
An initial conversation needs the structure, the parties, the timetable and the fund flow. It does not need documents.