There’s a lot of buzz around challenger banks at the moment. You’ve got Monzo, Starling, Atom and Revolut. As part of a new series on my blog called Making Things Better or If Carlsberg Did (I haven’t decided yet), here is what my perfect bank would look like:
- It would be free to have an account
- The savings rate would be better than any competitor
- The overdrawn rate would be lower than any other competitor
- It would be online
- It would have a physical branch in every town
- It had a free customer phone line where my call would be answered in 10 seconds or less by a person who knew how to solve my problem
- It would be free to withdraw money from ATMs
- It would be free to withdraw money from overseas ATMs and when paying for stuff overseas
- It would be demonstrably more financially secure than any competitor
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- Ideally no lending, but if it did lend, then it would never endanger the bank’s health and lend at friendly rates to small businesses and start ups
- It would have name recognition so that it wasn’t viewed as a Mickey Mouse bank
- It would invest in good causes
- The app would:
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- Give me text notifications as to what I’m spending and where, and the timing of the notification would be customisable (daily, weekly, monthly etc)
- List all my subscriptions/services that I pay for on my card without knowing it
- Tell me when pay day is
- Tell me when I’m spending more than the limit I wanted and told the app
- I’d be able to hold multi currencies in my account
- It would link to an integrated investment platform that guided me to make wise decisions
So that’s my perfect bank.
It’s another question as to how to make this happen.
For example, how will this bank make money if it doesn’t lend or doesn’t lend aggressively?
One possibility is that it invests in bonds with different time horizons that are reasonably safe and pay okay coupons. Would this be enough to cover the cost base and expenses of this bank?
Let me know what your perfect bank would like in the comments below!