We bought the business, we registered ourselves at Companies House, we were on the verge of getting going and making some money…but first we needed a bank account.
Simple enough, right? Wrong. Oh so very wrong.
When we started The Money Mountain, we opened a current account for the three of us at HSBC. All of us already had individual current accounts with HSBC, so it should have been easy, right? Wrong, oh so very wrong. To set up the current account for the three of us took two visits to a branch; on the first visit the person I spoke to went from, “yes, we can do that,” to “I’m pretty sure we can do that,” to “I’ll just go and check,” with a matter of seconds.
At the second appointment, where all three of us attended, we got it mostly sorted. But even then we had to chase up and push them to get it completed. Finally we got the account finalised and could start putting our bemyeye money, matched betting winnings, survey money and ebay profits into an account.
So, having gone through this with HSBC already, we figured setting up a business account would be nice and easy. We got in touch with the member of staff who helped us set up the joint current account who advised they couldn’t help us with a business account (it wasn’t their department/area, so fair enough), but that we needed to apply online and that it was fairly straightforward.
The first part of the application was easy enough, some simple information about the company, company number etc. Then it went on to ask what we’re going to use the account for, where the money was coming from, where the money was going to, what kind of remittances would be coming in. All reasonable questions. We ticked the boxes, will filled in the forms telling them about our turnover, where the funding to start up was coming from.
At each stage of the process we had to “save and progress.” This all went swimmingly until about mid-way through the application when we were advised of a “problem,” and to try again. If the problem continued we needed to use the chat function or call. We used the chat. We spoke to a very helpful chat bot/person…who knows? They told us that our application had been declined, but that this wasn’t the end of the line, we weren’t black-balled, but we would need to speak with someone. They couldn’t tell us anymore, but we would hear from HSBC by post in a few days with more detail.
A few days came and went, but no correspondence from HSBC. We called again and spoke to an apologetic but ultimately unhelpful (not because they didn’t want to be, but because computer said no) member of the business banking team, but that we’d hear from HSBC by post.
Again, more time passed, but no letter, email or anything else from HSBC. We took matters into our own hands and played around with the application a bit, working on the principle that as we hadn’t been black-balled, there must be something in the application which had caused an issue. A couple more goes but still no luck, so we decided to make an appointment at a branch with business banking services.
Here’s the first challenge the new chapter. Try finding a bank near you with business banking services when you live in the suburbs. We finally found one 5miles away; no problem at all, we’ll go and see them. We make the call. We’re on hold for a good 10mins waiting to speak to someone. Finally we get through and speak to an advisor; making the appointment with them was another trial in itself. A good 10mins to speak to the advisor and then for some reason, their supervisor. They could only offer us an appointment in 17 days time. 17. DAYS. TIME.
We took the appointment but had already been working on a Plan B. As luck would have it, all of us also had accounts at Santander. Dave, already having his other business account with them, had an advisor who he could call. He made the call while Ben was on hold with HSBC and organised a call for the next week with his contact at Santander.
So, while the process at HSBC was begun on 26th August 2019 and showed no sign or guarantee of completing, even after an appointment on 23rd October 2019, Santander opened up an account for us within 7 days.
It is regrettable as we’ve always had a soft spot for HSBC, but frankly speaking, they have made the whole process completely impossible so we’ll take our business elsewhere. While researching problems with opening accounts with HSBC I came across this, so maybe we had a lucky escape!
The good news is, we’ve got our bank account, we’re registered as a company, we’ve got a website (which, as Chris said, needs a bit of work), but we’re working on the principle of launching on 1st November 2019 and making some sales.
We’re setting up the social media for the business too, right now. This is a minefield too and there’s lots of YouTube video’s being watched right now to try and get as much of a grounding as possible. There’ll almost certainly be an article on this soon.
If any of you have any hints or tips for setting up a business, then all help would be gratefully received! Leave your comments below.