Just wondered what peoples thoughts were on this ‘business bank.’
I think Starling has come out looking really good as a business bank during the crisis, as one of the few neo business banks to be able to offer BBLS loans they have probably seen a surge of new accounts being opened. I find the business bank platform to be pretty good and haven’t had any issues yet.
I find it interesting that Mettle seems to be making all the same mistakes as Bo when it comes to a new fintech venture backed by RBS. There is very little added benefit from the offering, you don’t get access to products and resources you would if you were an RBS customer, and the news feed from Mettle seems to be the same old drab ‘behind the curve’ alerts that Bo suffered from, alerting customers to features and services that have been offered by the competition for ages.
I suspect that Mettle will go the way of Bo within a year, especially as other fintechs in the space make more progress and high street banks bring out business bank offerings that are much more attractive offerings.
I would love to know how these things get approval in the first place and what KPI’s are used to determine their success.
I moved from Co-op Business Banking to Mettle earlier in the year. Mettle integrates with FreeAgent (which they supply for free) and it’s a winning combination.
If another bank offered FreeAgent with the account would you stick with Mettle given the lack of fscs protection etc or are you pleased with other aspects of the account other than the integration with FreeAgent?
You can get FreeAgent (for free) with RBS and NatWest.
All the money held in your Mettle account is covered under the FCA safeguarding requirements and the corresponding regulations. The purpose of safeguarding is to protect and return customer money if a company fails.*
*The corresponding regulations refer to Electronic Money Regulations 2011 and Payment Services Regulations 2017. If you want to learn more about these regulations, please visit the FCA website.
Mettle is not some emoney app on the Appstore, as Loot was. It is NatWest. I think it’s a fairly safe bet, relatively speaking. Safer than Monzo, probably.
To be fair, even when Loot collapsed, customers did get all of their money back.
So if they were considered a bit dodgy, and the system worked then, perhaps it shows that an e-money license actually is relatively safe?
After all, the client funds are always required to be ringfenced and deposited at a “Tier 1” U.K. financial institution (basically, in layman’s terms, a “too big to fail” bank).
Depends. A broker that collapsed the other year was under the same rules for handling of client money, which is supposed to have been segregated in “too big to fail” banks. Apart from it wasn’t as there was account fraud. And yeah, people didn’t get all of their money back.
And I don’t mean investment risk losses. But like actual cash held… lost.
Whilst it is an e-money license, Mettle is a subsidiary of the National Westminster Bank Plc which is owned by Natwest Group. All money will be safe unless Natwest Group collapses, which I doubt as it is still majority owned by the Government.
Even if the Government somehow let Natwest collapse (which they wouldn’t as they would lose their large investment and their actions 12 years ago would seem pointless), the money will be ring fenced. Yes, in theory an administrator could use the money to run administration but more than likely, they would just take the money from Natwest Group as a whole.
But Natwest Group is a ring fenced bank and doesn’t have to accept liablities of their subsidiaries. They can let Mettle collapse under their emoney license, without the ring fenced Natwest Group balance sheet used to bail Mettle’s customers out.
Also, under FCA safeguarding of client money requirements, they must split client funds across at least two fscs institutions thus half the Mettle money is not at NatWest. Or maybe none at all, if they managed to get a better deal for that elsewhere.
Ring fence banking is between investment banking and retail banking. Business banking isn’t investment banking, it is part of retail banking. Mettle is a part of Natwest Bank, part of the retail side of Natwest Group. How is Natwest Bank ring fenced from Mettle? Genuinely interested in working out how this subsidiary isn’t within the retail side of the bank. I guess company law might be able to do it but the Group would get terrible press for it. I see a gentle wind down if a failure, just like Bo.
I believe that NatWest Bank plc have a wholly owned subsidiary company called Mettle Ventures Limited.
Mettle is owned and operated by this company, which is legally separate from NatWest even though it it owned by them.
Bó operated in a similar way, as that was owned by a company called NatWest Holdings Ltd. However, that company was “inside the ringfence”, in terms of legal structure, so FSCS did apply to money in Bó.
Interesting, although not surprising that they would ultimately want to offer full FSCS protection, even more so when you consider that they are owned and operated by a licensed bank already. I wonder if Mettle will eventually become the small business banking brand for NatWest, with NatWest Business for medium-sized and their other offerings for large corporate customers?
That kind of segmentation would make sense, although Mettle does seem focused on being a branch-less experience to compete with Monzo, Starling, Revolut and Tide.
