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The other morning I read that the Tide business current account is taking 7% of the market for new customer accounts. A big achievement for a bank that’s less than a year old. (Strictly speaking Tide isn’t a bank as the card is an electronic money product but that doesn’t really matter when you look at what the product delivers.)
I’ve written previously about Tide and since then my respect for what they are doing to change business banking has increased further. Every transaction is categorised for simple expense management. If I temporarily mislay my card I can freeze it in the app. If I didn’t use Xero for accounting I could generate invoices within the app. My Tide account is integrated with Xero so all transactions auto reconcile with no need to manually enter or reconcile. When I buy stuff from non UK websites I don’t get charged 2.75% for the privilege.
A level of customer service that you can only dream about with a legacy bank.
And everything managed from my iPhone – no old branches to visit, dreadful websites to navigate or apps that make you realise there’s more to digital banking than slapping an app front end on a legacy banking stack.
Like consumer banking, business banking is ready for a major shake-up. Too many people report how painful it is to open a business bank account and how long it takes. My friends here at Disruptive Views reported a similar experience last year. Legacy banks have a death wish when it comes to customer service.
Tide certainly won’t have the market all to themselves. Starling who offers an excellent consumer digital bank is now also planning a business bank and there are other challengers sharpening the pencils in this area.
Challengers like Tide and Starling offer businesses real choice and innovation – something every business has been waiting for – for a long time.
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