Investing in our Bulgaria servicing hub, to support accelerated growth
We have announced we are investing heavily in our technology and servicing hub in Sofia, Bulgaria this year, as well as growing the already substantial London team.
After launching our business banking platform in January 2017, Tide now has over 90,000 members (what we like to call our customers), we are signing up over 12% of all new business accounts, and we have 213 permanent employees in offices in London and Sofia.
In 2019 Tide has already hired 96 people in London, and 62 in Sofia. The team will continue to grow, with the Sofia team due to grow by 80%, and the London team due to grow by 25% by the end of 2019.
Scaling has been and will continue to be significant in the areas of technology and servicing, as we continue to build on our functionality and provide support to our quickly expanding customer base.
In H1 2019 the engineering team grew by a huge 210% in London. While the Sofia servicing team has grown to nine times the size it was at the beginning of the year, representing just over 50% of all servicing. Nonetheless, Sofia is not solely dedicated to servicing, with plans to have end-to-end delivery teams working from Bulgaria as well as London.
Oliver Prill, CEO, Tide said: “We have experienced an impressive level of growth over the course of 2019 and are delighted to have expanded the team so rapidly. Tide is the fastest growing business banking platform in the UK, and added over 30,000 new members in the first half of 2019.
“Since Tide’s inception we have had a highly talented team in Sofia, Bulgaria, working closely with the London team to build the mobile and web apps. We are dedicated to building our team in Sofia, hiring skilled customer service professionals, as well as tech and product talent.”
ClearBank in partnership with Tide was awarded £60m from Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Alternative Remedies Package in February 2019. As part of our public commitments to the BCR, the Tide proposition will secure 8% of the business banking market by the end of 2023, and we will build our product offering to be the one-stop-shop for small and medium sized businesses to do their banking and admin. Investing in top talent is key to this commitment.
Tide offers our growing army of members business accounts without monthly, weekly or annual, or card usage fees, and with low transaction fees. Unlike traditional banks, a new Tide account can be up and running in five minutes rather than what can be weeks on the high street. As well as offering usual business bank account features, Tide offers additional services to ease business admin, including full integration into accounting systems, such as Xero’s new bank feed.
