Opening Personal bank account in the US is not so easy without a valid SSN or ITIN. Banks do no want to take risks especially after the USA PATRIOT Act and Non-residents are either denied or asked to keep at least $10,000 and higher in order to open and maintain their Personal Checking or Savings account.
Non-resident individuals, students, investors and visitors therefore find it very difficult to open accounts in the US and hence this provides Fintechs like Aeldra an excellent opportunity to grab this market.
Aeldra provides free Interest bearing checking accounts without any minimum balance requirement and no monthly maintaining fees. They also offer free ACH and domestic wires and would soon integrate Zelle with its banking interface for peer to peer transfers.
International Founders having US businesses would need a US personal checking account in addition to business checking accounts for their LLCs or Corporations and by Q3 of 2021, Aeldra plans to launch business checking accounts too.
In addition to the US, Aeldra also plans to launch personal bank accounts in Australia and Canada which can be opened remotely right from your smartphone without visiting these countries physically.
It would be interesting to see how traditional banks react to these developments in the FinTech space as few US banks having banking license have already started taking on FinTechs thus giving them a tough completion. Banks have an edge over FinTechs as they have secured banking license from regulators and hence getting regulatory approvals for new product launches or features is much easier. Also, depositors or account holders trust banks than FinTechs as its their hard earned money and no one wants to loose it.