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Previously on "Challenger business Bank"

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  • SeanT
    replied
    Originally posted by soconnor View Post
    Hey I run a Slack group for Fintech startups that working with Open Banking. If you're involved in a startup and interested I'd be happy to add you.
    I'm on too many slack groups already, but yes please...

    Leave a comment:


  • kaiser78
    replied
    What are the charges for this service, or is it free banking as Santander used to offer (and still do for existing customers) ?

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Are you involved in Open Banking at all?

    Originally posted by squarepeg View Post
    Agreed. PSD2 is something that will change the FS industry, but I would advise anyone who is thinking of using the new APIs to carefully read the legislation and get in touch with OpenBanking.org.uk asap to find out what the legal and the regulatory requirements will be.
    Hey I run a Slack group for Fintech startups that working with Open Banking. If you're involved in a startup and interested I'd be happy to add you.

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Open banking: short-term benefits overstated, long-term benefits understated

    Originally posted by Cirrus View Post
    Apart from being a naturally sceptical person I happened to have managed an API project recently. It was for small companies like contractors. The idea was your insurances could be adjusted to match your turnover, number of employees, type of business etc. This information would come from your accounting provider.

    Accounting providers already have APIs. The problem is however, they are accounting providers not insurance providers. We could never find the data we needed and there was always the fundamental problem that people are not motivated to provide data that suits you rather than is essential to their objectives.

    With banks you will have some data but good luck with trying to turn that into useful information.

    Please don't bet your house on this. The current AI and FinTech bubbles are just fanciful.
    OK, so that's not my quote in the title. But yes, you're spot on about the short-term benefits of open banking. They will be quite limited.

    That's why we're offering a bank account rather than relying on open banking. It means we get rich, real-time payments data that banks currently throw away. (Banks' management of data won't be solved by open banking).

    Open Banking is a step in the right direction to make banks more competitive. But in the meantime challengers will create the value.

    I'd also be really interested to chat to you if you have time. I'm on sam at get coconut dot com.
    Last edited by soconnor; 7 June 2017, 21:15.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cirrus
    replied
    More Pie in The Sky

    Originally posted by soconnor View Post
    Open banking is really exciting. Here's an article I wrote on it: Open banking will give freelancers a wealthier future. — hubbul
    Apart from being a naturally sceptical person I happened to have managed an API project recently. It was for small companies like contractors. The idea was your insurances could be adjusted to match your turnover, number of employees, type of business etc. This information would come from your accounting provider.

    Accounting providers already have APIs. The problem is however, they are accounting providers not insurance providers. We could never find the data we needed and there was always the fundamental problem that people are not motivated to provide data that suits you rather than is essential to their objectives.

    With banks you will have some data but good luck with trying to turn that into useful information.

    You'll have company account transactions (which don't directly relate to disposable income). You'll have to work out from the very limited descriptions what these are. Then of course you've got to look at personal accounts and do the same thing again. I have six bank accounts that contracting money flows through (mixed current, immediate access savings, 30-day savings, all times 2 for company and personal.). Then how do you evaluate wealth being stashed up as liquid assets - there's a big tax calculation challenge there?

    Please don't bet your house on this. The current AI and FinTech bubbles are just fanciful.

    Leave a comment:


  • squarepeg
    replied
    Originally posted by soconnor View Post
    Open banking is really exciting. Here's an article I wrote on it: Open banking will give freelancers a wealthier future. — hubbul

    We're going to form part of the banking infrastructure and will be open ourselves. We want to work closely with the developer community to innovate.

    Our customers will also benefit from high street banks being more open under the Open Banking or PSD2 rules. For example, we will access to data from your existing bank accounts where authorised. This lends itself to some cool features like deducting part of your mortgage/rent payments from your tax bill automatically.

    Sam
    Agreed. PSD2 is something that will change the FS industry, but I would advise anyone who is thinking of using the new APIs to carefully read the legislation and get in touch with OpenBanking.org.uk asap to find out what the legal and the regulatory requirements will be.

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Yeah

    Originally posted by SeanT View Post
    Wow, does that mean that banks will have to actually add value to get customers?

    It's about time banks did more for customers!

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Open Banking

    Originally posted by Cirrus View Post
    Our condolences to Alex Speller - one time Freelance CTO and still on your website.

    Is all this to do with https://www.evry.com/en/news/article...as-we-know-it/?
    Hi Cirrus, Alex Speller is an old pal who was doing a few bits for us when we started out. Alas, he has chosen to live the dream in the south of France. We couldn't blame him really.

    Open banking is really exciting. Here's an article I wrote on it: Open banking will give freelancers a wealthier future. — hubbul

    We're going to form part of the banking infrastructure and will be open ourselves. We want to work closely with the developer community to innovate.

    Our customers will also benefit from high street banks being more open under the Open Banking or PSD2 rules. For example, we will access to data from your existing bank accounts where authorised. This lends itself to some cool features like deducting part of your mortgage/rent payments from your tax bill automatically.

    Sam
    Last edited by soconnor; 6 June 2017, 17:08.

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Freeagent, Xero, Sage, all good products...

    Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
    Doesn't Freeagent do that already?
    Hi @northernladuk, cloud accounting packages are great for certain types of self-employed people and businesses. But they are stuck with really poor data from banks. We will integrate with all of the above to provide categorised transactions with evidence attached. This will achieve a level of automation that's not currently possible. We want customers to be able to use whatever tools and packages they want to alongside our bank account.

    Leave a comment:


  • SeanT
    replied
    Wow, does that mean that banks will have to actually add value to get customers?

    Leave a comment:


  • Cirrus
    replied
    PSD 2?

    Originally posted by soconnor View Post
    I'm afraid we've only got one CTO. He's called Allistair Crossley and he does have a smashing beard,
    Our condolences to Alex Speller - one time Freelance CTO and still on your website.

    Is all this to do with https://www.evry.com/en/news/article...as-we-know-it/?

    Leave a comment:


  • northernladuk
    replied
    Originally posted by soconnor View Post
    We're creating a business bank account for freelancers and self-employed people that tells you how much tax to save, automatically categorises your expenses and helps you stay on top of client payments. worked with in the past.
    Doesn't Freeagent do that already?

    Leave a comment:


  • soconnor
    replied
    Message from Coconut

    Hi Everyone

    I spotted this, so thought I'd respond. I'm Sam, Co-founder and CEO of Coconut.

    We're creating a business bank account for freelancers and self-employed people that tells you how much tax to save, automatically categorises your expenses and helps you stay on top of client payments. That said, we're not becoming a bank. Your money will ultimately be held by Barclays.

    We became freelancers a couple of years ago and found the money side of things painful. We're using the rich payments data that banks currently throw away to drive out manual process from money management and accounting. This should have been done a long time ago, but banks have been really slow to innovate.

    I'm afraid we've only got one CTO. He's called Allistair Crossley and he does have a smashing beard, or is it designer stubble... Being a startup focussed on freelancers, we try and work with our customers where possible. We also want to promote them, so that page on our website is really dedicated to the people we've worked with in the past. We're going to change the title of that section to make it clearer.

    We really appreciate any feedback so keep it coming. And get in touch directly if you have any questions sam at (you can guess the rest).

    We'll be launching our full product later this year. And we'll be making a dev ops hire too. We're always looking for great developers so ping us a note if this sounds interesting.

    Sign up for updates or to get involved in early testing.

    I look forward to your comments.

    Sam

    Leave a comment:


  • SueEllen
    replied
    Originally posted by JoJoGabor View Post

    Anyway anyone who is anyone has a beard nowdays. I think that's why my career is limited, I can't grow one
    Don't worry fashion goes in cycles.

    Clean shaven will be back in soon....

    Leave a comment:


  • squarepeg
    replied
    Originally posted by SeanT View Post
    Wonder when they'll be hiring for DevOps...
    or accountants... bankers... lawyers... ;-)

    If the rate is good, work for them, but don't put your own money into their accounts.

    Leave a comment:

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