“This time it will be different”
So I needed a new business account.
3 years after my brush with an aneurysm caused by Metro’s form boxes demands which was so painful it even made it in the book , I found myself actually giddy at the thought of seeing the magic of functional FinTech in action and showing it to my business partner who hadn’t been part of my first journey.
Our new trendy accountants -bless their hearts- had suggested Tide and in fairness that added to their cool factor and was one of the reasons why I decided we would go with them. I did have some reservations, as about a year ago, I had test-set-up a Tide account and gingerly added the details to an invoice I sent to a bank and when I realized that a substantial payment just didn’t show up and they had it returned to them ages later so I had them use the normal path and presumed Tide were simply too young, likely in Beta and just finding their feet so this was an one-off glitch.
Seeing how a substantial amount of water had run down the Thames meanwhile and they’ve gained momentum, things must have changed, I thought, so they were my first port of call.
On second thought…
Having sailed through the authentication piece I was pleased to see how quick their API returned the results from Companies house and helpfully suggested our company so we were on a roll. A very short one as the next screen asked me to confirm the two directors of the company and when I’ve done so they proceeded to helpfully ask for her address. Her UK address.
Not that she has one. Not that she claimed she has one when the company was set up in the Companies House! Knowing how moaning to them about incomplete API calls won’t help I proceeded to try and lie to them that she lives at the company address. No dice, it didn’t map the datafield. We were now stuck. Eventually I texted them and uploaded her passport AND driving license and then they told me they are getting it checked.
To which I received a canned “everyone is different, we are working hard, give us 72 hours” response which felt utterly outrageous at this time so we decided we’re done and will instead go with someone who was actually the absolute FinTech darling of Julia, my business partner over the last two years– Revolut.
As the decision hit, I was having coffee with Devie Mohan, so I thought who better than a well-respected analyst to witness the magic of FinTech onboarding.
We sailed through the first two screens while I was explaining to her how Tide managed to get stuck and how they weren’t able to verify her address and shortly realised that Revolut had the same issue of lack of data but an amazingly elegant way to handle it – they said they needed more data but offered to email Julia to ensure she verifies herself. An obvious coup ensuring they get another sign-up AND can talk to the director directly.
Incidentally, the fact that I later discovered none of the other competitors implemented this incredibly elegant and intelligent solution just reveals a sad fact: they never saw it, never did any onboarding with Revolut themselves.
With little else left to do but wait for Julia and Revolut to get together, Devie and I mused over the various fees and whether or not the 25 GBP a month for the basic account is not a bit too much and we returned to our coffees and more pressing FinTech gossip.
Meanwhile, in the land of “no, can’t do”…
Now with my appetite for non-Tide well and truly whetted and Revolut having me in limbo I decided I would systematically try the remaining options so I found the first list of Challenger SMEs I could find and started going through the list.
With Starling at least the pain was swift – after a few glitzy screens that got my heart racing with the promise of the most awesome free and functional account they frankly admitted they basically do sole traders only and can’t support multiple directorship. Same goes for Coconut. Sure, business accounts but only if you’re a freelancer, otherwise we should take our limited needs (ha!) elsewhere.
Monese let me “register my interest” while Monzo claims no interest in business banking at all.
With CountingUp I got stuck in an endless loop of trying to deal with two different directors and kept sending me back to the login screen in the app and while I enjoy a Beta-app challenge and normally would try my best “spot the developer-FU and try to work around the coding” game this time I was not amused.
I then fiddled with Anna – which I initially thought was a dumb name till I realized they acronym-ed “Absolutely No Nonsense Admin” which gave me the warm and fuzzies because let’s face it, who in banking doesn’t love a good acronym? Aside from how I found their graphics are a bit too cutesy – will everyone take kindly to this piglet face representation?- I made the mistake to register with the company where I am sole director and after having been through the pain of being asked for 2 different ID documents and a bill with my address on it I couldn’t be bothered to even try our two directors limited so the comparison isn’t perchance fair but I’ve included what I know nonetheless.
While all of this was unfolding –and make no mistake about it, no unfolding was instant and straight forward as it said on the flashy press releases- Revolut had managed to open our account and we were nothing if not over the moon. Only clear glitch – neither Julia nor I could escape the prison of having previously logged in as private Revolut customers in the app on our phones so we sign up with our brand new business account, and after a fair amount of deleting and reinstalling we each started messaging them (in the app, on Facebook and and on Twitter) for ideas on how to sign out of the personal and sign into the business.
Seeing how no one was answering our multiple queries (and even when they later did, it was so flippant that it broke Julia’s die-hard-Revolut –early-adopter heart!) I thought the race was still on and returned to Tide where compliance had managed to vet the documents and there was now an account! Success!
Or was it? As soon as I sent the details to one of our team and asked them to upload them to the invoice template I realized I had no IBAN/BIC or SWIFT code to add so I got back to them and then they broke my heart like this:
A package came in the mail yesterday though and it was delightful indeed. Now I have this beautiful card the useless-to-me Tide account and no faith they will be getting back to me any time in the next century.
I gave up after this and gave in. We are now Revolut business customers. I’d like to say that’s because they were the best but really it’s because they were the only ones who showed up at all.
BSTER – Blood, Sweat and Tears Empirical Report
This is what I’ve learned and if it saves even one limited, international directors company (oh the design-for-Brexit jokes!) from the pain of trying challengers or if, even better, makes any of these guys step-up then it was worth it.
| TIDE | REVOLUT | STAR-LING | MONZO | COUNTINGUP | ANNA | MONESE | |
| Digital Onboarding using only ID and Face | YES | YES | ✗ | ✗ | YES | ✗ | ✗ |
| Mobile App Existence | YES | ✗ | YES | ✗ | YES | YES | ✗ |
| Accounts for Ltd vs. Sole Trader | YES | YES | ✗ | ✗ | YES | ? | ✗ |
| Multiple Directorship support | YES | YES | ✗ | ✗ | YES | ? | ✗ |
| Non-UK Director address | YES | YES | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ |
| Monthly Usage Fee (aka Expensive) | ✗ | YES | ✗ | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✗ |
| Clear Communication of Features | ✗ | YES | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | YES | ✗ |
| Facial Recognition | YES | YES | YES | ✗ | YES | YES | ✗ |
| Upload of Picture for Onboarding (i.e. instead of live camera access) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Easy log-in (i.e. Touch ID) | YES | ✗ | YES | ✗ | YES | YES | ✗ |
| Card | YES | YES | YES | ✗ | YES | YES | ✗ |
| International Transfers | ✗ | YES | ? | ✗ | ? | ? | ✗ |
| Speed of Account Opening | ✗ | YES | ? | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Customer Service | YES | ✗ | ? | ✗ | ✗ | YES | ✗ |
| Connection to Xero or FreeAgent | YES | YES | ? | ✗ | YES | ? | ✗ |
I could tell you what went wrong with each of those steps. Where their authentication provider was poor, where the prioritisation of features was appalling, where there was no user testing, where API calls were impotent, why organisationally their customer service is crippled et cetera, but these are just excuses in 2018 and after all the hype and promise of the user centricity FinTech in general and UK Challengers in particular should bring.
Looking at the above and considering that after all this pain and suffering I only have ONE (hopefully “functional” – we have yet to see the test amounts we set over arrive) account that can take international payments that we could add to an invoice as I write this, Revolut wins the SME banking race hands-down.
While they were rather horrid Customer Service wise, I accept they may –wrongly- presume I’m part of a some FinTech influencer clique or other and intent on disparaging them, so that would have added to their lack of promptness in answering me so it’s possible that they would be far less painful to deal with, to others.
Ironically, a while back I was headhunted for a leadership position in one of the banks above and in my chat to the board I said something about how I would like to see the budget for “people-back-up until AI and experience deliver” and they didn’t like that much at all, they said it doesn’t belong in my acquisition strategy presentation. Uh well.
This banking was very emotional indeed
How did it make me feel?
Frustrated, fearful, concerned, burdened, unsafe.
All that and I’m not your average consumer, I want it to work out, I want to find the way around the lack of testing or the app interaction error, I’m a technologically savvy and hell-bent-on-getting-in user. Is that who we should design for though? Am I Customer 0? Would every other company director have the same patience and drive?
This is why we can’t have nice things
Sadly, I have a feeling that because these companies are still small and fairly defensive, this won’t be taken as constructive criticism but bad PR, but I look at it as efficiency: sending them each a long email with suggestions and complaints wouldn’t have gotten me or their Backlog prioritisation anywhere much, and would have also not let other new users go and try it for themselves.
So there you go banking, free user testing and publicity with a very restrained dash of snark considering. You’re welcome.
Now I can only hope these challengers don’t release my frustrated 5 am selfies in retaliation!
