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THE BIG INTERVIEW The Tide is turning
New entrant Tide is a bank, but not as we know it, George Bevis, Founder and CEO of Tide, tells IBS Journal
Senior Editor Scott Thompson
and better value.
And in 2012, I had the opportunity to author a landmark report into UK small business policy for a political party. This project allowed me to document the extent to which archaic banking processes were hindering small businesses, nationally and internationally, and evidenced the extent to which small businesses were simply not a priority for High Street banks but were massively underserviced and underappreciated. And so, shortly afterwards, I set about working to create the best banking service in the world for small business and sole traders, which we now know as Tide.
IBS Journal: What have been the highlights thus far? I
GB: It would be remiss of me not to flag how fortunate and grateful I feel about the reception Tide received when we were pitching for investment. We only pitched to three venture capitalists and two invested, arguably the top two early stage investors in Europe.
BS Journal: How did you come to set up Tide?
George Bevis: My career path to date has afforded me a somewhat unique perspective on small business banking. The early foundations for Tide were laid from 12+ years working with a number of leading banks and credit providers, in roles spanning strategy, product and innovation. What I took from this period was a deep seated dissatisfaction with the limitations – often self imposed – that hindered any real customer centric innovation and service enhancements.
In truth, this view was likely also heavily influenced by my extra-circular entrepreneurial aspirations which I had been doggedly exploring since University. This first hand experience of small business banking and the resulting frustrations encountered on many occasions planted the seed of wanting to find ways to make small business banking easier, more helpful
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But I must also say that, without doubt, my number one highlight has been the enthusiasm shown by the public following our unveiling. Tide really was born from a mission to fix the frustrations and limitations of small business banking. I knew we were not reinventing the wheel, but what we were doing was developing a service which makes life a hell of a lot easier for small business owners and sole traders while helping them save time and money.
This seems to really resonate and each day a tide of people are registering for priority access (forgive the pun). Our Alpha members have been so enthusiastic about the product also – it really feels like we have reached such an exciting part of our journey and the whole team are so energised as a result. And finally, Tide is being driven by a team of supremely talented staff and elite backers and each are, in their own way, a constant source of inspiration.
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