Digital Banking: Today’s Challengers, Tomorrow’s Masters?
Here’s a question for you: Is Virgin Money. Once an outsider in the provision of financial services, now a mainstream player? Our answer is a resounding “yes”.
Despite racking up millions of customers in recent years, digital challenger banks are still facing a lack of trust among Brits, most of whom do not even have faith that these new lenders will exist in a years’ time, two new reports suggest.
The likes of Monzo, Revolut and Starling have transformed the UK banking market over the last five years, outflanking high street giants and winning fans with their slick mobile interfaces.
Yet analysis by fintech Plum of 450,000 people who have linked their bank accounts to its app via Open Banking shows that many are not using these neobanks as their primary accounts.
More than nine in ten Plum customers are linking traditional high street banks, suggesting challengers still have a way to go before becoming the trusted partner for the majority. Of the 91% that link a traditional bank account to Plum, just two per cent have linked a neobank as their second account.
There is also a gender divide, with women only making up a third of those that do use a neobank as a primary account.
The Plum data also shows that challengers are having limited success in getting their customers to sign up for premium, paying, subscriptions. From all the customers that have Revolut as the primary account with Plum, only 27% are paying for a subscription. For Monzo, it is 10%.”
Historical Performance And IFISA Process Guide
- Money&Co. lenders have achieved an average return of more than 8 per cent gross (before we deduct our one per cent fee).
That figure is the result of over £20 million of loans facilitated on the site, as we bring individuals looking for a good return on capital together with carefully vetted small companies seeking funds for growth. Bear in mind that lenders’ capital is at risk. Read warnings on site before committing capital.
- Money&Co. has been lending for over 5 years and has only had two bad debts so far, representing a bad debt rate of 0.03 per cent per annum.
All loans on site are eligible to be held in a Money&Co. Innovative Finance Individual Savings Account (IFISA), up to the annual ISA limit of £20,000. Such loans offer lenders tax-free income. Our offering is an Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) that can hold the peer-to-peer (P2P) business loans that Money&Co. facilitates. For the purposes of this article, the terms ISA and IFISA are interchangeable.
So here’s our guide to the process:
- Step 1: Register as a lender. Go to the login page, and go through the process that the law requires us to effect. This means we have to do basic checks on you to comply with money-laundering and other security requirements.
- Step 2: Put money into your account. This is best done by electronic transfer. We can also process paper cheques drawn in favour of Denmark Square Limited, the parent company of Money&Co.
- Step 3: Buy loans in the loan market. Once you’ve put cash in your account it will sit there – and it won’t earn interest until you’ve bought a piece of a loan. It’s this final step that requires lenders and IFISA investors to be pro-active. Just choose some loans – all loans on the Money&Co. site can be held in an IFISA – and your money will start earning tax-free interest.
The ISA allowance for 2019/20 is unchanged from last tax year at £20,000, allowing a married couple to put £40,000 into a tax-free environment. Over three years, an investment of this scale in two Money&Co. Innovative Finance ISAs would generate £8,400 of income completely free of tax. We’re assuming a 7 per cent return, net of charges and free of tax here.
Once you have made your initial commitment, you might then consider diversifying – buying a spread of loans. To do this, you can go into the “loans for sale” market. All loans bought in this market also qualify for IFISA tax benefits.
Risk: Security, Access, Yield
Do consider not just the return, but the security and the ease of access to your investment. We write regularly about these three key factors. Here’s one of several earlier articles on security, access and yield.