Financial services has come in for a lot of scrutiny since the financial crash of 2008. There has been considrable attention made to make sure that the person applying for credit, a loan or mortgage is who they say they are and has the the correct financial data to be able to apply for credit in what ever form. Two way verification has become the normal mode of operating and that is fine. We are now entering an era that we can get a another layer of verifying which seems just another hoop to go through but the question is when does this stop and are banks in particular clogging up the system especially for newly formed companies. I've worked to help float newly formed companies that were started to privatise some Council services. Even though using the Council's bank and being being guaranteed by the Council the process took nearly 4 months. This was the normal expectation for the companies that followed..Opening up a start up company account the verification process I experienced took 3 hours of conversations and finally 2 months before the account was opened.The main stream banks seem to be particularly bureaucratic giving the challenger banks a way into the banking system because they are light, nimble and I was able to get a trading account set up in a matter of days. Ultimately these breed of banks will grow and challenge the more established banks especially more so with the advent of AI becoming more prevalent. The question is will this speed up the processes by which newly formed companies can start their businesses or will the challenger banks become more bureaucratic like the mainstream banks?
I'm a retired Chartered Accountant but I'm not retired from business.
Through my experiences in both the Public and Private Sector both here and in Canada I've built up…
