44
THE BIG INTERVIEW
public.
IBS Journal: What’s the manpower behind your call centres and advisors?
RK: We have a team of 30 based in our offices. It’s a funny one because I’ve had a number of customer-facing businesses and have experienced outsourcing abroad and the service was crummy. I put a call centre in my office and it was brilliant – the quality went up straight away. I got staff all over involved in the process and it helped them empathise with the customer and realise that they had a responsibility to them.
MC: We know that we have to deal with people on a human to human basis. Having that connection where a real person is advising you on which credit card to choose or asking you if you’d like your salary to be swept into a savings account when it arrives tomorrow, that’s a crucial connection. We don’t want to be a bank that says “oh no we’re digital, we don’t do people.” If there were a way for us to build a cost-effective branch network we would do it – it’s only with some trepidation that we’re willing to say to people “we’re sorry we don’t provide a branch service.”
IBS Journal: How do you differentiate yourself from other new entrants like Mondo or Atom?
RK: Well, there are only two truly digital challenger banks (as we get called sometimes). Atom and us. I say that because Mondo doesn’t have its licence yet. Then there’s a whole load of people who don’t plan on getting a licence. To answer your question head on we’re different from Mondo because they’re API driven and will offer current accounts only. Atom is saying “we’re going to be a mobile bank and mobile is enough.” What we’re trying to be is a full-service bank…savings accounts, cards, current accounts, loans…We’re not saying “we want to be a bank”. We want to be a bank that combines natural banking with a service not unlike price comparison services. We want to work in tandem with the customer [hence the name].
MC; Most banks are primarily product-focused. Some sell through branches, some sell through digital. Our primary purpose is to be an advisory service. We want to help people manage their money better. Secondarily we’ll look at products
like cards or current accounts. If your existing card or current account is doing you just fine then we won’t try to sell you a Tandem replacement, though. We outsource the customer to specialists when appropriate.
IBS: Are you going to be in partnerships with these companies you might recommend to your customers?
RK: Exactly the opposite. We’re going to avoid partnering with corporates because we want to partner with our customers. Essentially we’re going to be the corporate’s worst nightmare – we’re going to give our customers actionable insights and show them where they can make savings by switching. Eventually we want to be able to actually make the switch for them and then keep switching them when an even better offer turns up.
MC: We’re going to do what you would do if you had the time and the energy to find these deals yourself.
RK: We’re actually using the rails of the price comparison industry. We’ve set it up so that not only do we get a commission when you switch but the customer gets one too – we split it, so if we get 60 you get 40. We don’t have any bias at all between any of the providers as we ask for a flat rate. We set it up in the backend so that it’s completely agnostic.
www.ibsintelligence.com © IBS Intelligence 2016
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