Chase are briefing the media this week. For instance, from the FT:
Chase will initially offer only current accounts with a rewards programme, but intends to quickly expand into areas including personal lending and investment, and eventually even mortgages. “In the current conditions there is a massive oversupply of mortgages and lots of providers . . . but to be a full service bank and have consumer trust over the long term it is an important product line,”
Sounds like it might take 3/4 years for some of these products to appear
Marcus planned to do the same and their product development hasn’t been very quick.
I could be completely wrong here, but part of me is guessing, that quite a large portion of banking customers, won’t give a fig about Chase UK.
It’s well known, that most UK banking customers are completely apathetic when it comes to banking with many people staying with the same bank for decades, even their entire adult lives. So how are Chase UK going to capture a generally apathetic audience?
Personally, as much as I like Fintech banking with in my case Starling being the only true Fintech bank out of the 3 banks I am a customer of, I won’t be knocking on Chase UK’s door. I think for some, there is this thing that because Chase has its roots in the US, that it’s going to somehow be a game changer here. I suppose if you are one of those that seemingly needs to contact your bank frequently, something I genuinely don’t understand because I have virtually zero interaction with any of my banking providers, then perhaps you may well get the US style of customer service that some crave.
I wish Chase UK luck, but they’re hitting a tough market here in the UK where folks just aren’t too fussed about moving on. Fintech enthusiasts will love Chase UK, I’m just not sure average Joe Public will be lining up for an account.
Frequency doesn’t really matter, what makes a difference is if I ever need to get a problem sorted, knowing that the service I’m using will answer and fix it is a huge plus. If they can offer that then it may be beneficial for a lot of people.
I fully understand where you’re coming from. As I say, I rarely have to contact any of my banking providers, indeed it’s been about 12 months now since I had to contact RBS when I had an unauthorised amount of money, £9.99 if I remember correctly, effectively stolen from my RBS account via an Amazon purchase in Spain of which I had absolutely no knowledge of. But on contacting RBS, the whole thing was dealt with swiftly and professionally and I was refunded within 24 hours. So yes, i do know what great customer service is.
I’m still not convinced however that huge swathes of British banking customers are going to go for a Chase UK account. Your Fintech types, yes, they’ll be on it like a car bonnet. Let’s face, it, there are some folks out there who are quite literally addicted to banking and freely admit to having up to a dozen current accounts or more, and Chase UK will just be another to add to their portfolio.
I have to confess, I have literally dozens of accounts (pun intended) and while it works for me, I do recognise I’m very much in a minority by feeling the need to have even 2 or more accounts.
I also have fairly limited reactions with any of them, and usually only when something has gone wrong (or a quirk of their systems forces me to call them, etc, due to not being able to do something myself online).
In a way, this is the challenge facing all banks in the sector. Beyond the keen initial set of customers, they will have to do something to set themselves apart. It can’t really be the app, as Starling and Monzo have already got that specialism sewn up between them; it can’t really be the marketplace model as Revolut have concerned the market there. Even Dozens has found a niche with it’s focus on investing. It seems like they want “American-style service” to be the differentiator, but it remains to be seen how well that will scale and if they can manage to maintain it despite costs. Metro Bank has also tried (and arguably failed) to bring that model over here before; they key difference being they are also branch based.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see them launch a whole set of banking products quite quickly, so they can try to claim to be the first truly full-service mobile bank. There is a big attraction to some to have a credit card, for example, with the same provider as their current account for simplicity. There also still isn’t really a true mass-market fintech credit card, so there’s a bit of an opening there straight away.
I do agree that their chances of success are far from 100% guaranteed though!
Obviously, I don’t know you’re sitution, but how do you cope? I genuinely couldn’t be arsed to have so many accounts. I get it that if you have A LOT of cash, spreading it around probably makes sense. Even 3 accounts is enough for me. Me and the Wife would ditch our Nationwide account if it weren’t for the fact we booked two holidays abroad pre-Covid and they are essentially covered under the packaged account from an insurance perspective, otherwise, we’d CASS it all to Starling. I have my RBS account solely for salary purposes, but then I jacked my last job in a few months back prior to moving and I haven’t been bothered since to get another job, mostly because I’m lucky enough not to have to work if I don’t want to.
Once the accounts are set up, they basically run themselves!
I don’t have loads because I have loads of cash (sadly), although I would spread around my money if close to the FSCS protection limit so that’s one good reason for multiple accounts. Mine are basically for various account rewards, interest, legacies from playing the switching bonus game, and from trying out various banks or fintechs but then never closing them down.
The ones which pay rewards just have the level of activity required for the reward (usually Direct Debits to savings accounts) and once a month I just cycle the necessary pay-in money around to keep them going. I have a few Virgin Money accounts which I use as savings accounts. Other than that, I don’t use most of them on a daily basis.
I have one real “main account”, with actual Direct Debits on, and I keep a bit of a buffer of spare cash in there, but I buy everything on a cashback credit card. I never use the debit cards for any of my accounts really, I would probably even use RBS Get Cash to withdraw cash (if I needed to) just to avoid the risk of my card being eaten by the ATM.
I have all the apps on my phone, obviously, so really I find managing them all fairly easy. I totally understand why some would think it’s not worth the faff for the extra £5 here or there, but I just think I might as well when it doesn’t take me long to keep them going.
Not officially, no - the religious leader who officially uses the title of “Pope” is the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria (according to QI).
Regarding Chase - I was very interested earlier in the year but kind of “meh” now that further details have emerged. I’ll be keeping an eye on it, though.
