Are you tired of struggling to open a bank account for your business or personal needs? In this podcast, Clint Coons addresses this common challenge and offers a better solution with Barry Sloane, Chairman and CEO of NewtekOne. Before becoming a part of NewtekOne, Mr. Sloane served as the Managing Director at Smith Barney, Inc., overseeing the operations of the Commercial and Residential Real Estate Securitization Unit.
Clint and Barry will shed light on the benefits of opening an account with NewtekOne as the premiere banking option built for businesses. Learn why NewtekOne stands out as a superior choice, offering specialized services tailored to the needs of entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and business owners. Accelerate your journey towards savings goals with a specialized business account tailored for growth.
*Annual Percentage Yields (APYs) advertised are valid as of April 30, 2024, and are subject to change at any time without prior notice. Certain accounts require a minimum and maximum deposit amount required to open an account. Penalties may apply to early withdrawals. Fees may reduce earnings. To learn more, visit NewtekBank.com.
If you are a current Anderson Advisors Platinum Member and would like information about setting up a bank account with Newtek please reach out to your team.
Clint: Hey, what’s up guys? It’s Clint Coons here. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about banking. A lot of people have questions when they set up a business entity. Hey, who do I go to, to open my bank account? I know this can be challenging because I have several business entities, and I’ve run into this problem time and time again.
There are a lot of banks out there that just don’t understand limited liability companies—corporations, Wyoming LLCs, Delaware LLCs—and they ask for all this information. You wonder, why do I need to provide this? They don’t even understand what I’m providing.
We’re going to be talking to someone who started their own bank. He’s a founder of his own bank. His name’s Barry Sloane of Newtek Bank. There’s someone that we here at Anderson have established a relationship with, we’ve started working with them, our clients are working with them, and they’ve had great success opening up their business bank accounts. With that, I want to invite Barry on so we can talk about now, what it takes to get a bank open? Barry, how are you doing?
Barry: Clint, doing great. Thank you for having me today. Appreciate it.
Clint: Awesome. Now your company is quite different from most financial institutions. Really, if you could explain for us, why are you different and what is your specialization?
Barry: I think from the standpoint of our relationship with Anderson Advisors, the company’s entire focus is dealing with entrepreneurs, independent business owners, what some people refer to as small and medium sized businesses. We don’t really do any consumer banking. We obviously take consumer deposits, but there’s no consumer funding.
All of our products, our business solutions and financial solutions are geared towards entrepreneurs, independent business owners, and small- and medium-sized businesses. That is our total focus, as well as the fact that we do everything remotely. It’s all done on camera. You don’t have to have an in-person visit. You don’t have to go into a bank branch. We really understand the client well and service their needs in a frictionless manner.
Clint: That is a problem. I run into this all the time. People were saying, well, I have to go find that certain banker at a certain location on a specific day in order to get my account opened. I really don’t have the time to do that. But with your bank, what we found is you can be anywhere in the country and you can open up an account. How great is it to be in that position?
Barry: To Anderson’s credit, they recognized the problem and the issue. They partnered with Newtek. Newtek One is the holding company. Newtek Bank National Association is the 50 state nationally chartered banking institution. We do business with customers in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. We’re 24/7/365.
We’re able to do the business remotely. The customer, for just the standpoint of opening up a bank account, doesn’t have to go into a bank branch. They don’t have to bring their operating agreement, have things notarized. Everything can be done online.
Clint: To what I originally started talking about in the opening was, it doesn’t matter if you have a Wyoming LLC, a Delaware, Ohio limited liability company. It can be anywhere in the United States and you can assist them.
Barry: Anywhere in the United States, we can help them through our digital account opening process that we developed in a seamless manner. Going to the Anderson website, you can connect to all the new tech opportunities.
Clint: All right. You’re well aware of our clientele, the people that are watching this video right now. If you can speak to them, how can Newtek help an Anderson client? Because if I’m an Anderson client, I’m trying to consider, do I want to set up an account with Newtek? Why would I do that over the local B of A or Chase?
Barry: When we acquired the bank and developed our business model, our business model has been around for 25 years, the bank we’ve owned now for 18 months. It’s a very well capitalized bank. We did it with customers that Anderson frankly caters to, and we can help them grow their business in a variety of different ways.
For many of them that are collecting rent, we have a unique billing manager system that allows them to invoice the client, and they can get their rent paid electronically through an ACH or a credit card. We can give them free document storage unlimited through the Newtek Advantage business portal. We can help them make payroll. They can actually see their web traffic analytics right in the Newtek Advantage. There are a lot of free opportunities that we give Anderson clients through the Newtek Advantage.
Typically, your clients, if they go to B of A or JP Morgan, they could deposit their money and they’re lucky if they get a loan. We’re the largest government guaranteed small business lender in the United States by loan volume. We make loans, we help them process payments, we manage their IT remotely 24/7/365. We’re 50-state licensed insurance agencies, so we can help them ensure their real estate, ensure their business, provide them all of these things we can do in the Newtek advantage.
Clint: When you talk about payroll, when I have my company running, I’m ready to start making payroll, you can handle all that because a lot of people think of ADP or their local bank as being their payroll provider, but that can all be run through Newtek?
Barry: All can be run through Newtek, and you can access the payroll from the business portal, which leads into the bank. You’ve got one place to go to for all of your Newtek clients, for deposits, for loans, for payroll, for insurance. It’s not a current menu. You could choose whatever you like. There’s no requirement that you have to do one if you do the other, but Newtek provides a full service business portal for an independent business owner.
There are a lot of attractive benefits that we give the Anderson clients—the free document storage, the free web traffic analytics, the ability to make payroll from the portal, the ability to see their payment processing data from the portal. All this information is right at their fingertips.
Clint: One question that comes up from clients. Let’s assume that I live in Florida, but I have a Wyoming corporation. I’m using it to conduct business in multiple states just periodically, say flipping property, and I want to pull payroll out of it.
When that client approaches their local Florida bank and they say, I need to set up payroll for my Wyoming LLC, oftentimes what they’re going to hear is you can’t do that until you register that LLC in the state of Florida in order for us to handle payroll. Does it work similar to Newtek? Is that a requirement that someone would have in that example if they were using your payroll service?
Barry: I think the difference is that we understand the business model of Anderson Advisors. We understand the Anderson customer, so we’ll be able to help the client navigate the difference between a mailing address, a business address, and get them set up so they’re going to pass Bank Secrecy Act, any money laundering issues, and know your customer issues because we understand the setup.
Typically, if you’re speaking to an ADP salesperson, or you’re going into the thousands of Bank of America branches, the people in those organizations don’t know Anderson, they don’t know the customer base, and they don’t know how your relationships are set up. We do. We’ve been schooled on it, and we’re set up specifically to be able to handle this.
Clint: How do Anderson clients interface typically with Newtek One?
Barry: They would go right to the Anderson website. If they’re Platinum members, that particular section, they’d be able to access all the Newtek business solutions that are available through Anderson. It’s all right there on the Anderson website.
Clint: Just a matter of you go to the Platinum portal, you can then reach out through some links, and start that account opening process seamlessly.
Barry: Precisely. Exactly. Through digital account opening, yes.
Clint: Awesome. One of the questions I know that people are probably considering right now is the financial strength and whether or not you’re FDIC-insured. Last year, there were some issues with some banks. If I’m going to move money over there, that’s probably somewhere on the top of my list of concerns that I have with any bank that I’m working with.
Barry: It’s a fair comment. I would say this, the Newtek Bank National Association is very well capitalized. The capital ratios of the bank, depending upon which ratio you’re looking at, ranges from 16% to 22% of capital. That’s about double what the average bank is. Typical bank is 8%–10% capital. We’re 16%–22%. We’ve got the bank very, very well capitalized.
I’ll also point out that the bank is owned by Newtek One, Stock symbol, NEWT, a publicly-traded company. Our financials are available upon request. More than happy to send you a copy of our quarterlies, which are 10Qs or the annuals, which are the 10Ks. Investors can take a look at those whenever they like to see how well capitalized our bank is.
Clint: How about the FDIC insurance?
Barry: All of our bank accounts are FDIC-insured; that’s really important, yes. This is a real OCC-chartered bank, Newtek Bank National Association, a member of the FDIC. All depository accounts are FDIC-insured.
Clint: If I’m working with Newtek, do I have the ability to do wires, checks, transfers, maybe with Zelle or those other types of programs that are out there?
Barry: I think it’s important to note that first of all, our commercial demand deposit account pays interest. It’s 1%. Our commercial money market account, you can move your money from your demand deposit to your money market account, is currently 3.5%. These interest rates are quoted as APY.
If they want to deposit personal money with us, our consumer high yield savings account is currently 5.25% APY and our 6-month CD is 5.55% APY. We have some of the highest rates. In addition to that, ACHs and wires are free, no charge, and there is no charge for servicing the account. There’s no statement fee. It’s a very user friendly, cost-effective solution for Anderson clients.
Clint: Okay. Everything’s in digital, so I’m running everything online. Do you guys have an app yet?
Barry: There is online banking, and you can get a Newtek Bank app to be able to see your deposits and see other information in the bank from the Newtek Bank app.
Clint: One of the things that I personally have in my banking relationships, and we’ve been talking about this too, is to be able to connect all of my accounts under one login. You can have seven different LLC accounts and your personal account with Newtek. When you log in, you can see all that data under that one login?
Barry: We have certain limitations to how many accounts you can link to our account, and that’s done for safety and security reasons. You can link a certain number of accounts, and you could make a request based upon us knowing you as a customer, your credibility, your creditworthiness, and what you’re doing, multiple accounts to the account.
Clint: Perfect. It’s been a great relationship working with you. I know you’ve really helped our clients get those accounts open without all the problems that people have run into in working with local banks who, as you stated, just don’t understand their customers and their customers’ needs.
Is there anything else you’d want to tell the people who are watching this video right now if they’re on the fence thinking about Newtek Bank, why they’d want to make that move over to you?
Barry: I think that, first of all, there’s no harm in having multiple bank accounts. Our bank account is free. There’s no charge to open up the account. You might as well try us versus your B of A account or your Wells account. Look at the interest we pay versus what they pay, look at what they’re charging you for wiring money, and then look at all of the other free solutions we give you—document storage, web traffic analytics.
Your clients may wind up wanting to put their personal money in the bank because they’re going to be paid a fair rate of interest for their money. We say try it. It’s not going to cost you much. You’re going to be able to do it while you’re home with your slippers and your house coat or however you want to dress for that particular event. It’s very easy to develop a relationship.
Important to note, Newtek’s been around since 1998, been a publicly-traded company since September of 2000. I’m the original founder. We have a retail mentality, we care about our customers, and we clearly care about Anderson customers very much.
Clint: Great. Barry, hey, thanks for taking the time to come on and explain Newtek Bank and the benefits to being an Anderson client because they have access under our special relationship.
Barry: Thank you, Clint. Appreciate the opportunity to reach your audience. Very valuable. Thank you.
Clint: Awesome. Thanks.