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Ask HN: Best Bank for Startups?
We've been using Silicon Valley Bank for the last 4 years and while their services generally "work", they aren't the best. We've been working with SVB to setup a line-of-credit just to have in case we need it, and we recently talked with them about their Innovators card. Unfortunately their sales people cannot show you any kind of demo so that you can see how it works or what the UI looks like even. This is a tough ask as the only way to see it is to sign up for an account and start issuing cards. We also talked with Brex about their solution and even looked into Expensify's card.
Brex was able to show us a demo and as part of the trial we attached our SVB account which causes a $0.01 deposit and withdrawal. After doing this we received an email from our SVB sales rep acknowledging the transaction: "It looks like I see a penny test from Brex on June 3rd so it may be that you just set something up." I'm not sure what's buried in the SVB ToS, but SVB sales reps looking into our transactions didn't sit quite right with me. Then we told them that we decided to go with Brex because we liked the solution and not being able to get a demo from SVB made it basically a non-starter. A couple days later we get a call from a Managing Director and he tells us that the line-of-credit will need to be venture debt and backed by equity or warrants, which we're not interested in since this is only a rainy-day LoC and we've got plenty of money in our SVB account. Fast forward to today and they tell us that they won't give us the LoC anymore unless we also agree to use their Innovator card.
Basically I'm looking for other banks that are great to work with and understand how startups work and the needs they have. I've looked at Mercury, and we have an account there, but I was hesitant to move too much away from SVB because it "just worked", but obviously now I'm reconsidering. Hopefully HackerNews has some good advice and recommendations.
- surferbayarea 6y agoFirst Republic Bank
- todsacerdoti 6y agoMercury - https://mercurybank.com https://mercurybank.com - They also have the best API available for a bank.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nikivi 6y agoMonzo if you are UK based. Maybe US too. https://monzo.com/i/business/ https://monzo.com/i/business/
- raesene9 6y agoAFAIK Monzo are pulling back on their US business, so probably only UK for now.
- tmcpro 6y agoTake a look at banknovo.com
- blatherard 6y agoYou might want to check out https://www.grasshopper.bank/ https://www.grasshopper.bank/, which is a fairly new startup-focused bank based in NYC
- immad 6y ago(I am the CEO of Mercury.com.) Lots of people switch over from SVB to us. Happy to answer any questions you have. We go out of our way to be transparent in pricing, have great customers service and "just work". We dont currently do LoCs though. Also feel free to email me (my username AT mercury.com)
- whalesalad 6y agoHappy Mercury customer checking in!
- mrajcok 6y agoMercury has been great! Used SVB at my last company and it's a big improvement.
- westoque 6y agosame here. happy mercury customer. just disappointed the webapp wasn't build mobile friendly from the start. the UI is simple enough that it should've been working on mobile! should've used a responsive CSS framework vs using css modules. recreated the wheel for not a lot of value.
- immad 6y agoWe now have an iOS app. I don't think CSS modules are the issue to making it responsive. We just decided to focus the design/engineering resources on making mobile apps instead of responsive web app. Ideally we would do both though, and hopefully we can in the future.
- bberenberg 6y agoJP Morgan Chase. They aren't sexy. They don't have a great API. They don't have a good UI. They're slow as shit to process your paperwork. Our rep calls us every time even though I have asked him to email instead. They suck in almost every single way you can imagine. But, they also tend to function like a real bank, and outside the last few months, have treated us pretty well.
- dhd415 6y agoI've had this same experience with Chase on my business accounts. They're boring but attentive on the customer service side.
- lfittl 6y agoI assume you know this, but just to mention it: For issuing cards, you can use Stripe nowadays. If you're doing this as part of your business (e.g. like Expensify is doing), its available to all US based businesses: https://stripe.com/issuing https://stripe.com/issuing The more convenient Stripe Corporate Card (which sounds like that may be your use case?) is still invite only: https://stripe.com/docs/corporate-card https://stripe.com/docs/corporate-card (I myself am queued up for an invite on the Corporate Card, and using Chase Credit Cards in the meantime, which are okay, but not great)
- cbisnett 6y agoWe are also in the invite queue for the Stripe Corporate Card, but decided to make a switch as we didn't know how long the wait would be. Brex is working on features for expense reporting and authorization is what were were told. While I don't think it's on par with Expensify, maybe one day in the future it will be which will mean one less service for us to manage.
- cweagans 6y agoAzlo https://www.azlo.com/ https://www.azlo.com/
- taormina 6y agoI've been using Azlo and it's been great for my business.
- goatherders 6y agoAzlo has been sensational. CS picks up on just a couple rings. THe deposits go in super fast. No overdraft charges. It's excellent.
- tapmap 6y agoI have had SVB see transactions from Transferwise in my account and then call me up and offer a better rate on their foreign transfer services. Interesting!
- surferbayarea 6y agoYou should switch to First Republic Forex account. We saved ~4% by switching from Transferwise to FRB on our international transfers.
- esilverman 6y ago+1 for Mercury. We (FeaturePeek) started on SVB and it was a terrible experience. Mercury has been great
- jondishotsky 6y ago+1 for Mercury!
- awad 6y agoFirst Republic has phenomenally great service and absolutely terrible tech, UI, etc. It all boils down to what your needs are from your bank. FRB are not great when it comes to lines, venture debt, etc but for day-to-day banking it's nice to have a real person on the other side.
- markvdb 6y agoRelated question: what bank would you go with for a super simple euro zone llc? The requirements are simple: - a proper EU based IBAN - SEPA bank transfer - SEPA direct debit - proper customer support - proper web experience - debit card - (preferably) limited credit card support - honest and transparent pricing There's obviously the company's home country banks, but I'm specifically wondering about banks offering EU wide services. Either I'm not looking well enough or there isn't really a decent bank offering these services EU wide: - Many more traditional banks don't seem to be interested in working with companies in different EU countries. - N26 doesn't seem to do llc's. - Revolut doesn't have a proper web client.
- S15H 6y agoMaybe have a look at bunq. They check most (all?) of your boxes.
- yangminded 6y agoA combination of a traditional bank that has certain duties towards business clients and a transfer service like Transferwise might be best. An important part of certain banks like Sparkassen or state banks in Germany is the fact that they are legally bound to serve you. Private banks like N26 on the other hand can drop you at any point.
- krn 6y ago> Revolut doesn't have a proper web client I believe Revolut Business is primarily web based, unlike Revolut Personal: https://www.revolut.com/business/business-account https://www.revolut.com/business/business-account There is also Paysera, which offers instant SEPA transfers for EU companies: https://www.paysera.com/v2/en/paysera-account https://www.paysera.com/v2/en/paysera-account