How can we make banking more accessible for new arrivals in the UK?

Published in

The Collective Originals

5 min readMar 30, 2022

I moved to Germany last year for my job. Within 20 minutes of landing at Frankfurt Airport with four pieces of luggage containing all my belongings, I faced barriers because I did not have a German bank account. I needed a trolley but the mechanism in the trolley wouldn’t accept any of my bank cards for the one Euro payment and I didn’t have Bargeld (cash) on me. Each time I inserted a card, the message: ‘FEHLER, KARTE NICHT AKZEPTIERT’ flashed up at me. (Translation: “mistake, card not accepted”.) I felt unwelcome and locked out (and my shoulders ached from all that luggage on the 20-minute walk to the railway station). It was as if the Germans were politely saying “Fxxx off”!

I spent the next six weeks facing more issues, all linked to my lack of access to finance as an immigrant in Germany. I found myself in countless catch-22 situations. For example, I needed a bank account to set up a mobile phone contract but couldn’t set up a bank account without a German mobile number. Also I couldn’t sign up as a resident with the German authorities, without a German phone number. Everywhere I went, I felt like an ignorant outsider. In Germany it’s YOUR problem/fault if you don’t show up with the correct documents. It is YOUR job to find out what you need to bring and look on their totally unintuitive website! If you don’t have the technical language skills for this, or a friend or relative nearby to help you, you are locked out. Thank goodness for my 85-year old grandfather who lives in Cologne who got in his car and drove me to his high street bank (still big in Germany) and talked with his human bank manager to help the “Enkelin” (granddaughter) open a bank account to unlock access to German life. Without a trusted relative or friend in Germany to guide you through the process of opening a bank account, you are frozen out of telecom companies, government, TV licence company, health insurance, Wi-Fi (the list goes on and on).

Stranded during my first week working from home in Germany: no bank account, no wifi, no mobile contract…

It got me thinking. How on earth do people who migrate from other parts of the world to the UK to start a new life do about access to finance when they arrive? Imagine you arrive not speaking the language well, or don’t have a network of friends or relatives already here, to help explain how the banking system works, what options for banking are available to you (e.g. challenger banking apps vs big high street names) and what documentation you need to open it. That is before you even look into which type of bank would be best for you in terms of facilities, exchange rates, and quality of service.

It isn’t only good for migrants, if banks could make it is easier for them to open the right type of bank account for their needs and have access to debit cards and good exchange rates. Capturing these people as loyal customers on arrival in the UK has huge business potential for financial corporations.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2018, 49% of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses have at least one immigrant founder. Companies House research found that migrant entrepreneurial activity is almost double that of UK-born people and that more than 17% of migrants start their own businesses compared with just 10% of people born in the UK. This is despite difficulties with language, tech and financial support. Banks even admitted in 2021 to CapitalMonitor that refugees and immigrants are disadvantaged when applying for finance. This overall equates to a huge untapped market for banks, and there is no excuse to for this. BNP Paribas is leading the way by offering financial services to new immigrants in France through its technology company ‘Nickel’.

Assem Allam from Egypt is a typical success story of a refugee turned UK billionaire *(credit: The Times*)

So, who are the groups coming to the UK who need help accessing finance — from bank accounts with attractive rates and payment cards, to transfer fees?

Putting myself back into that day I arrived in Germany without the local currency in cash, or any banking cards that worked, I brainstormed what would help with access to banking as a newly-arrived migrant. What would have helped me practically? What would have helped someone like myself, tired and emotional, to feel more welcome in a confusing foreign country in those first few weeks? I was ripe to become a fan of any company who could have helped me at that time. These are my thoughts:

1) Banks who want to tap into this market could put up ads in air and ferry terminals. Get business from new arrivals to the UK quickly. This could include direct access to phone numbers or apps that allow people to open a bank account that meets their needs in three minutes with just their passport details and new address in the UK.

2) Open a call centre staffed by people in the language/cultures of the largest migrant groups — e.g. in Indian, German, Chinese, Polish languages etc. and people from Ireland and the USA who can empathise with exactly the cultural differences in banking faced by their fellow nationals and can kindly help them get access to great banking quickly and safely. La Caixa bank in Spain for instance, has call centres in English for British expats in Spain who don’t know the banking system. Why don’t we do this in the UK for new settlers to make their access to finance easier? The call centre is a way to gain people’s trust early on by giving support at a crucial time which will be appreciated down the line, by both customers, future business owners, and banks.

There are doubtless many other ways we could help migrants start their new lives in the UK with great banking which opens the path to UK mobile phone accounts, and later on, borrowing to set up businesses etc. which greatly benefit both groups (banks and migrants). Migrants are a vulnerable user group who we at Capco could help for example starting with user focus groups to find out what find out what their experience of setting up a bank account was like on arrival, what the pain points were, and what technology and human support could be provided to make the changes needed to welcome them to UK and feel included.

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How can we make banking more accessible for new arrivals in the UK?

Written by Hanna Hohl Hyde