Tattoo artist business account

truegent

Where to start? I have been a registered tattoo artist for 14 years and for most of the time I have been using my HSBC current account to receive and pay in money. I set up a Monzo account to use as it was great for allocating money in to pots and keeping track of expenses, I recently received a message from Monzo saying i was not allowed to use my Monzo account for business purposes and if I continued to do so it would be shut down. They recommended I tried a Monzo business account, so I applied and got denied due to them not supporting the tattoo industry. So I continued to look for accounts that do. I applied for revolut business and got accepted after paying the £60 yearly fee it was revealed to me that I can’t use all of their services as they also don’t support the industry. I was so annoyed with this that I asked to cancel the account and get a refund but they refused as I had used it for one transaction! I was recommended then that starling would be a great shout as they allow tattooing on the sole trader business account, it looked perfect for me as it has all the features I require. I applied and guess what…… denied! I have since received a notification from Monzo saying my account will be cancelled. I don’t know what to do now. I have a good credit rating I have tax returns for my business since 2010, my oldest bank account is 25+years old, I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. Please help with advice if you can. 

xylophone

https://www.merchantadviceservice.co.uk/high-risk-merchant-accounts/tattoo-studio-merchant-accounts/

might be some helpful information in the above

Zanderman

truegent said:

..... I don’t know what to do now. I have a good credit rating I have tax returns for my business since 2010, my oldest bank account is 25+years old, I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. Please help with advice if you can. 

Having a good credit rating, a good history of business tax returns and a bank account 25+ years old is great.  But not strictly relevant to the problem of you needing a business bank account. So one thing you're doing wrong is assuming those have a bearing on the problem - when they don't really. 

Only the long-established nature of the business might be a point in your favour with a bank (though even that could possibly be a disadvantage, as some banks do special deals for start-up businesses but not established ones).  

The problem is that you shouldn't use a personal account for business, as that breaks the terms and conditions of the account. So you should, perhaps, count your blessings that you've got away with that for 14 years. That is a sort-of positive to cling to, though I know it's not helpful just at the moment, sorry! 

It seems your more fundamental problem is that banks don't like giving business account to tattoo artists. Maybe xylophone's link above will help. Do you know any other tattoo artists and how/where they bank? 

I assume you still have the HSBC account? But if you do it, and especially if it's the only other current account you have, it might be wise not to revert to using that, just in case HSBC do the same as Monzo. With that in mind it would be worth, if you haven't already got one or two, opening a couple of additional personal current accounts with other banks, just in case anyway.  Otherwise, if it all goes wrong, you might have no bank at all.

There are loads of choices of business bank accounts out there - virtually every bank offers them in some form so maybe you'll just have to shop around a bit more, though you obviously already have to an extent.

It may well be that some of the non-traditional outfits might take a tattoo business on - outfits like Anna or CountingUp. Might be worth asking. Some of those aren't strictly speaking banks, so may work to different filtering criteria to the actual banks. 

lr1277

I haven't read the linked article posted by @xylophone, however I suggest you beware of the following.

I don't know how your customers' pay you but if it is bank transfer, ensure your chosen bank is on the Confirmation of Payee system.

Last May my mum tried to pay the care company who were looking after my dad. They had a cashplus business account. Mum's bank Nationwide refused to process a payment to the company from their website. We had to go into branch to get the payee setup and then future payments could be made on the internet.

Nationwide told us the transaction failed because at the time (May 2022), the Cashplus Business account was not part of Confirmation of Payee. However that situation might have changed since then.

HampshireH

Do you not have any colleagues or tattoo artist friends you could ask who they bank with?

pridehappy

I’d try Virgin Money, they seem to be one of the best for business accounts and have accounts specifically for ‘upstarts’. Their image also fits industries like the tattoo industry.

Plus, I believe they offer free banking and savings for small businesses.

boingy

I can't quite believe they are automatically refusing on the basis of "tattoo". It's a fairly respectable industry these days.

WillPS

pridehappy said:

I’d try Virgin Money, they seem to be one of the best for business accounts

What are you basing that upon?

pridehappy

WillPS said:

pridehappy said:

I’d try Virgin Money, they seem to be one of the best for business accounts

What are you basing that upon?

Comparing the quality, features and fees of the high street banks. I excluded online ones due to their failure with them.

penners324

Go for Tide.