A small business owner’s diary entry on the surprisingly Kafkaesque process of simply trying to give a bank your money

I want to open with a simple fact that still, six months later, makes me want to lie down on the floor of whichever bank branch will let me: all I wanted to do was give a bank my money. That is the entire ask. I run a small homeware business, I have actual revenue, actual invoices, an actual VAT number, and yet the process of opening a single business current account took longer than it took me to actually build the business itself.

The First Application, Rejected With No Explanation

My first application went to one of the newer digital banks, on the strength of a friend’s recommendation and a slick app that made everything look effortlessly modern. Three weeks of silence later, I received a one-line rejection with no explanation whatsoever, no appeal process, no human to speak to, just a closed door and a faint sense that I had somehow failed a test I was never shown the rules of.

The Second Attempt, at an Actual Branch, With an Actual Human

Chastened, I went to an actual high street branch, sat across from an actual human, and was told, kindly but firmly, that I would need to provide eighteen months of personal bank statements, proof of address for both myself and my business, a full business plan, and a letter from my accountant confirming that I am, in fact, a real person running a real business. My accountant, bless her, wrote the letter. It took her four days to receive a reply confirming they’d received it.

The Waiting, Which Deserves Its Own Section

What nobody tells you about business banking is the sheer volume of waiting involved. Waiting for verification calls that never come. Waiting for a case handler to be “assigned.” Waiting for a decision that takes six weeks despite every document being submitted correctly the first time. I have waited longer for a bank account than I waited for my flat’s completion date, and my flat involved an actual chain of other buyers and sellers all doing their own waiting simultaneously.

The Moment It Finally Happened

Account number four, at a slightly older, more traditional bank, finally said yes, five and a half months after I started this entire ordeal. I actually cried a little in the branch, which the very kind woman behind the desk seemed neither surprised by nor particularly moved by, suggesting I am far from the first small business owner to arrive at her desk in a state of quiet, accumulated despair.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me at the Start

Apply to multiple banks simultaneously rather than sequentially, because the sequential approach cost me months I will genuinely never get back. Have every document ready before you start, even the ones you don’t think you’ll need, because you will absolutely need them eventually and the process moves at the pace of the slowest missing form. And brace yourself, emotionally, for a process that treats a legitimate small business with revenue and a genuine trading history with roughly the same suspicion as a shell company laundering money through a car wash.

Where Things Stand Now

I have my account. My business is thriving, relatively speaking, and I am, at long last, able to pay my suppliers without routing everything through my own personal account like some sort of financial fugitive. If you are currently mid-application and reading this in a state of similar despair, I promise it does eventually end, even if it feels, somewhere around month four, like it genuinely never will. Further small business diary entries continue at bohiney.com, with additional London business coverage available at prat.uk.

SOURCE: https://prat.UK/