Craftsmen, merchants, liberal professions, under the status of microenterprise, sole proprietorship or company: everyone needs a high-performance professional account. The banking networks are their historical interlocutor. But as with retail banking, online establishments have also attacked this market by cutting prices, now joined by fintechs specializing in professional customers.
Leader of these new players, the independent Qonto has already won over more than 200,000 customers. Crédit du Nord launched Prismea, its digital bank dedicated to this clientele, at the end of 2019, while Blank (Crédit Agricole) opened its virtual doors in February 2021.
Some independents are now in the hands of banks, such as Anytime, bought by Orange Bank, or Shine, by Société Générale. And the list of digital players present in this niche is still long, with, among others, Memo Bank, Fiducial Bank and Hello Bank, whose pro offer was inaugurated in May 2021.
Most of the online services adapted to the self-employed are offered from around ten euros per month, for the simplest offer. Or even less: N26 and Revolut offer autoentrepreneurs a free account. “Neobanks are four to five times cheaper than networks, notes Maxime Chipoy, president of MoneyVox. This is good news for professionals who, until recently, had no choice but to go through a network bank with high prices and little transparency. » Because small professionals do not have the ability to compete to negotiate, unlike larger companies. “The regulations protect individual consumers, with, for example, caps on certain costs. Professionals do not benefit from this advantage”, also points out Mr. Chipoy.
Administrative support
One of the advantages of digital services for professionals is that their offer and their interface are specifically designed to meet their needs. “We provide comprehensive administrative support to the self-employed. It concerns the account and payments of course, but also quotes, invoices, declarations, and it includes help with accounting,” notes Simon Parisot, Managing Director of Blank, the digital entity of Crédit Agricole which is aimed at all small professionals, regardless of their legal status (sole proprietorship, SAS, SARL, etc.). “We have entered into a partnership with Urssaf which allows us to take care of the declarations, then the payments, in place of our professional client”, adds Simon Parisot.
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