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Comment by ylhert | Hacker News Reader

absolutely. First Republic and SVB are the only two banks that know how to work with startups. The more mainstream banks really don't understand the challenges of being a startup. They'll ask for things like your businesses tax return from the previous year when you try to open an account... and then get confused at what to do when you explain to them that you have only existed for 2 weeks.

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Calling BS on this. I've started several companies and opened Wells Fargo accounts for all of them within days of incorporation. Now, if you are talking about _borrowing_ money from the bank I think it makes sense to have to show some businesses financial history. Simply to open an account : in my experience all you need is the relevant incorporation paperwork and some money.

A while back, I had a major bank in Australia act completely puzzled that I might want a credit/debit card for my 10 year old web business. They appeared to have no offering and couldn't comprehend my need. I was trying to explain that I used it to pay for online services like hosting, domain registration and the like. It was like I was speaking a foreign language.

The only option they mentioned involved keeping thousands of dollars essentially in escrow. The bills I was needing to pay were easily less than that each year, let alone monthly as I paid.

Hearing banks confused by remotely atypical businesses no longer surprises me.

I can only speak to my experience and those of my friends who have started companies. This is the kind of experience we had

I realise theres a proclivity to be anal here but there's a lot of companies incorporated in the US every day and generally one of the first thing every business does is open a bank account. I'm not saying what you said isn't true, but I sincerely doubt it's representative. Borrowing, I agree is a different matter.

It's quite interesting in Poland, where you formally have to have a company bank account in order to register a company and banks refuse to open one for you unless you give them your company registration numbers (which you get after registration). So basically, you have to lie.

What did you have to lie about?

Did you lie about the company registration number to the bank? If so, how did it happen to match the one you were eventually assigned?

Or did you lie about the bank account number when registering the company? How did you guess the one the bank eventually was going to assign to you?

> They'll ask for things like your businesses tax return from the previous year when you try to open an account.

This seems far-fetched... I walked into my Credit Union with my corp documentation and left with checking & savings accounts in less than 45 minutes. It was painless.

> They'll ask for things like your businesses tax return from the previous year when you try to open an account

What? I've done this in a few hours, both in Colorado and Ontario. Go online, register, print out registration, go to bank, open account.

Or is this a different kind of account or something?

If all you are doing is opening an account then your registration docs alone are enough. There has to be more to this.

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