The banks compete ferociously for new business banking customers, who they categorise as ‘switchers’ or ‘starts’. Switchers are those that move their account from Bank A to Bank B; and starts, well, they are first-time business customers.
There’s about 4.5 million small and medium sized businesses in the UK, and most will need a bank account. So, it’s an important market.
When deciding which bank to go with, most people will make a choice based on price and service. Price includes cost of banking, offers, interest rates and so on. These are a bank’s core product offering.
All the banks offer free business banking as an inducement, and it would be surprising to find the main banks offering wildly different interest rates. Of course, all banks use advertising to build their brand and promote their products.
It’s interesting to see how the banks position their service offering to small business switchers and starts:
- The Royal Bank of Scotland pushes its service for start-ups right upfront. This includes free software for finance, sales and marketing (sounds good). RBS also trumpets four industry specific services. But what information and advice there is seems pretty cosmetic.
- Bank of Scotland leads with an award it has won from a little-known magazine, not the most convincing encounter for someone reviewing banking options. There’s a good section on women in business, but the general support for SMEs is light.
- Lloyds homepage is very confident: “No wonder more start-ups choose us than any other bank”. And they have some excellent business support material, although some of the signposting to further information is out of date.
- NatWest has some good guides for business start-ups but the site is very product oriented, which some might find off-putting.
- Barclays looks like it has some good guides and factsheets, but you have to register, and I gave up it took so long. There does seem to be some genuine support from Barclays in the form of free seminars and a legal helpline.
- HSBC initially feels very product-led, but there are some very good resources hidden away. The Knowledge Network is a truly comprehensive suite of advice for anyone in business. For start-ups, alongside Start-up Stars, there is an email-based support service called Up&Running.
The government’s Business Link service remains the largest reservoir of advice and information for UK businesspeople. But its very size means that it is not always easy to quickly find the answer you want. That’s why I think there is a real opportunity for banks to up the ante on the support resources they offer.
Banks can move the deckchairs around with offers and promotions, but anyone starting or running a business values support or service at least as highly as cost or price.
It is a great blog, I wish publish thy articles in the newspaper and for myself on a site aboutall-business.com
_Violla
Having recently attended an event at which a senior banker talked about their business customer feedback, the feedback almost always talked about service, very few mentioned price.