My bankers are Hoares , one of the recurrent puns in Jack Aubrey novels.
For someone who loves a pun so much, it's hilarious that he never gets that one.
C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
61–70 of 98 posts
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#62The article keeps saying their advantage is their ability to "find solutions other banks can't". I don't know what that means. Exotic loan terms? Collateralizing difficult-to-value assets?
Big banking is about standardizing things so that they remove all of the thinking and make things more fungible. Standard people with standard jobs buying standard houses and only some numbers change.
But there are enough non-standard things around that also benefit from banking. (No, I'm not talking about crime or bad actors, just people who don't standardize their business for some reason or another.)
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#63And Sir Tony Hoare invented the Quicksort!
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#64The article keeps saying their advantage is their ability to "find solutions other banks can't". I don't know what that means. Exotic loan terms? Collateralizing difficult-to-value assets?
Perhaps without duties to investors or depositors they aren't hung up on rules and risk mitigations, specifically a banker being able to make decisions based only on their own judgement.
Hoare is unilimited liability company. Partners are responsible with their personal assets.
They are more risk averse than normal bank, they trade growth to stability.
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#65I'm a customer of Hoare's. AMA.
What're some surprising facts about it that are unexpected to an outsider?
There's a well in the cellar of their head office.
The partners (who I kinda assumed would be silent) are actively involved in day-to-day decision-making about stuff like lending and new customer applications (I met with one of the partners when I applied for an account and he then had to get the agreement of his partners before they accepted me as a customer).
Their online banking service is a lot slicker than I expected. While they obviously make an effort to preserve their offices in the traditional style you see in the photographs in the linked article, I get the impression that, behind the scenes, they employ totally up-to-date technology.
They donate a significant chunk of the bank's profits to charity, through the Golden Bottle Trust - https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/The%...
Their pens are really good.
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#66I'm a customer of Hoare's. AMA.
What do they provide you that's worth the extra fees?
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#67I remember in my shop assistant days getting cheques from customers who banked with them. It felt like the punchline of an elaborate joke. At the time I was selling bikes. The kids from the council estate would have their parents or grandparents save up all year in a special book, paying by instalments. Then, at Christmas time, they would get a Raleigh bike, not quite the cheapest but certainly not the most expensive…
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Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#68[deleted]
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#69I'm a customer of Hoare's. AMA.
any specific disadvantages to Hoare, or are there things that you miss that you enjoyed with a more trad bank?
Re: C. Hoare and Co., a British banking dynasty in business for more than 300 years
#70Fun fact, Edward Hoare, one of the owning family, is a mind mapping enthusiast who created the https://www.thortspace.com “collaborative visual thinking tool”.