The FinTech market is rife with competition and while most companies have gone about it politely, some have taken pot shots at others.
There are believed to be around 20,925 FinTech companies around the world, according to data from Statista. Naturally these companies are going to be stepping on each other toes to fight for customers.
While FinTech marketing has typically stayed away from taking digs at other companies, it is not an uncommon strategy in other industries. Pepsi and Coca Cola have been rivals for decades, as have McDonalds and Burger King. Each have been no strangers to taking subtle jibes at one another. BMW and Audi have also had a few marketing battles in their time. One of the most famous clashes involved a series of billboards on a single road.
As FinTech continues to grow, the industry might see more battles, but here are four times FinTech companies have taken digs at one another.
Anne Boden suggests a failed ?coupled to Tom Blomfield leaving Starling Bank to form Monzo
In 2015, Tom Blomfield and a number of colleagues left Starling Bank and went on to build rival challenger bank Monzo. Not much information has been provided about why they chose to leave and build a new business. However, Starling founder and CEO Anne Boden is releasing an autobiography later this year, which might offer some gossip on the events.
Banking On It, which is released on November 5, is being serialised in The Sunday Times and claims there was a ?coup” plot from Blomfield, Gary Dolman and Jason Bates. In the extract, Boden claims their departure happened after a tough funding round. Allegedly, Boden and Blomfield had been working together to find investors for Starling, but after a trip across America proved fruitless, relations between the two began to sour.
Blomfield claimed he and the team would be leaving the bank if he managed to secure an investment round. She writes, ?Tom made it clear that he was not able to work with me. It was all such a shock. Somehow Tom had taken my place ?? Passion Capital was in and I was out.Blomfiield was unable to work with Boden and her ?reckless behaviour,it said.
The book states Blomfield, Dolman and Bates had managed to ink a deal with Eileen Burbidge and Stefan Glaenzer at Passion Capital for funding. This led to Boden even drafting her resignation, but decided against it after it became apparent they wanted her to take responsibility to all of Starling debts, which were over ?1m. After this, she decided to stay.
Some contention has been raised about these versions of events.
Burbridge tweeted on Saturday October 24, ?[Asking] for a friend: how much of a book has to be true for it to be categorised as non-fiction?p>
?The whole thing,suggested Julian Martinez, marketing and technical writer at blockchain company Quantstamp.
?Interesting (that had been my assumption but think were both been proven naive),Burbridge replied.
Blomfield has not yet made a comment on the book or its claims.
The book looks to take a number of digs at Blomfield, including a debacle over a Christmas dinner.
Revolut hijacks Monzo Twitter post
The UK challenger banks seem to love a back-and-forth. Earlier in the year, Monzo sent out a tweet asking its followers ? If you had a magic wand, what one feature youd add to Monzo tomorrow?p>
A number of customers took to the opportunity to offer some useful product ideas. One of these was an ability to automatically transfer money from one account to another to stop the balance dropping below zero. Another suggested to offer credit and debit cards for children, which parents could give and monitor pocket money. This is a similar service offered by a number of banks that use it to teach kids about finances.
There was a long list of other good ideas and also a few ridiculous suggestions, including a local dating function.
Revolut chimed in and offered a friendly bit of rivalry. The bank said, ?Auto-switch to Revolut button.p>
This received a mixture of responses, with some loving the banter and others not. one tweeted ?Love the comment amazing,whilst another said ?Oh God, this is making me cringe.p>
Things did not turn out for the best for Revolut, with some people commenting on the company track record with customer service. Revolut customers represented 80% of the 3,100 customer complaints logged with dispute resolution service Resolver in the past 18 months concerning challenger banks.
Some of the comments directed at Revolut showed the backfire of the tweet. ?Who would switch to Revolut? Perhaps someone who has metal fetish to get that card. What else is there? No customer service that for sure. But thanks, that made me laugh.p>
?[Good] luck [trying to] speak to someone when [your] account is locked for some random reasons [or theyre] MIA whenever you have a question. Definitely switching to Monzo. I used to love Revolut. Not anymore,one user tweeted.
There were also comments on the bank treatment of staff, after claims surfaced last year of questionable experiences of employees.
TransferWise CEO mocks Starling Bank after their partnership fails
Another incident for the UK challenger banks involved TransferWise and Starling Bank. In 2017, the two companies were in talks to create a partnership, which would give Starling customers access to TransferWise services directly through the banking app. While this deal was meant to go live in 2018, it never happened. It was later commented on by Anne Boden, who claimed it failed because the bank felt it would be better to offer its own payment solution.
In May 2020, TransferWise CEO found an opportunity to take a jibe at this failed deal after a business owner tweeted, ?Does anyone have any clue how to make large international payments from Starling Bank to suppliers?Kristo K??rmann, co-founder and CEO of TransferWise, replied to this by tagging Starling Bank to say ?build TransferWise into the Starling app. Similar what Monzo, N26 and many others have done. It pretty easy.p>
This light-hearted response was picked up by TechCrunch reporter Steve OHear to tweet, ?FinTech trolling is a thing.Boden saw the tweet and replied with a humble brag, ?Sorry to be so slow in responding we have been busy lending ?258m to SMEs since Monday and also funding another ?300m [through] Funding Circle. Getting the loans to the people that need them!p>
The tweet was not taken too well by some business owners. Boden is referencing the government-backed Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) that it received accreditation for. While some businesses had successfully managed to get their much needed loan through Starling Bank, not everyone did. Of the 18,161 applications it had at the time of the incident, Starling had processed 75% of them. Many businesses had been declined, but this was a vital lifeblood for many small businesses.
Several business owners took to Twitter to express their outrage at the situation.
?[You] are like the ice cream man with his chimes on, only to find out he got no Mr Whippy to sell only ice pops but to get the ice pop you have to sing the National Anthem backwards. Then he tells you he ran out of ice pops,one rejected business owner wrote on Twitter.
A business owner parent also tweeted, ?Ive recommended you a lot over the [years and] these loans are 100% [government] backed and should be a lifeline to all new microbusiness like my [daughter], some of which havent submitted their [first] tax [return] yet but can prove all cancellations and future bookings. [Please] sort this out.p>
Stripe and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey shoots down Facebook Libra
Twitter and Facebook are giants of the social media world and it is natural for their to be a bitter rivalry between them. Facebook announced in 2019 it was creating Libra, a stablecoin that is backed by physical assets to ensure it is less volatile. The mission of Libra is to build a global payment system and financial infrastructure that would provide people everywhere with access to affordable financial services.
Libra has faced a number of hurdles along its development, as have many other digital asset companies, due to various regulatory hurdles. Stripe and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is among those who are sceptical of the platform and when asked by The Verge if he would join the initiative, he said, ?Hell no.Dorsey went on to explain that he believes Facebook did not need to create the cryptocurrency to solve its goal of broadening financial inclusion. ?I dont know if it a gimmick, but a cryptocurrency wasnt necessary to make that work.He continued, ?It not an internet open standard that was born on the internet. It was born out of a company intention, and it not consistent with what I personally believe and what I want our company to stand for.p>
This is not to say Dorsey is against cryptocurrency, in fact, he also told The Verge that he was enthusiastic about other cryptocurrencies and their future in the online world.
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