How to Choose a Bank For Your Freelance Business
Your bank should not be an additional source of stress.
I am a financial geek. I spent 20 years in banking and fintech before deciding to make a hard career pivot into content marketing and journalism. I do things like make budgets for fun. Managing the finances of my freelance business gave me no pause because I knew what I needed to do.
Of the many tools in a freelancer’s tech stack, a bank is a big one. At the recommendation of a fellow freelancer, I chose a neobank that was geared toward small businesses. Neobanks are essentially fintechs that are backed by brick-and-mortar banks. It had connections to apps like Stripe and PayPal. Online banking and the mobile app were pretty sleek, and I could set aside “reserves” to make sure that my account always had money to pay my freelance bills.
Then I got an email one day that my reserves had been overdrawn. I was immediately confused because I wasn’t expecting any activity on the account. I logged in and my account balance was $0.00. Cue panic.
Because I’ve worked in banking-related fields, I was familiar with the Chime story: a neobank that randomly closed customer accounts and made it difficult for people to get their money back. I thought I had found myself in a Chime situation. I immediately…
