It worked for some founders. It will continue to work for others.

But there is a question underneath the headline that is worth asking before you decide who registers your company: do you want your incorporation handled by a bank – an institution whose interest in your company begins and ends with winning your current account – or by a independent company formation agent who has been guiding new businesses through registration, compliance, and early growth for years?

The answer matters more than the £100.

Why Banks Entered the Formation Market

Tide and ANNA Money are not independent company formation specialists. They are digital banking platforms – venture-capital-backed businesses built to acquire and retain business banking customers at scale.

Company formation is a customer acquisition strategy. When a founder registers a company through Tide or ANNA, they typically open a business bank account at the same time. That banking relationship – not the formation fee – is where the business model begins.

This explains why the formation price can be so aggressive. Tide charges £14.99 all-in. ANNA starts from £19. These prices are not sustainable on their own. They are subsidised by the anticipated value of the banking customer being acquired. Formation is the front door. Banking is the product.

There is nothing dishonest about this model – it is how both platforms describe themselves. But it is worth understanding before you choose them to register your company.

The Problem With Letting Your Bank Choose Your Bank

When you form a company through Tide, you get a Tide account. When you form through ANNA, you get an ANNA account. This sounds obvious. But the implications are larger than they first appear.

Your business bank account is one of the most consequential early choices you make. Different banks suit different businesses at different stages. A founder who needs invoicing tools and expense cards in month one may need multi-currency capabilities in month twelve. A business that starts with a single director may add shareholders. A company that begins as a simple LTD may evolve into something requiring a different structure.

When you form your company through an independent specialist formaton agent, you choose your bank separately – based on what actually suits your business. When you form through a bank, that decision is made for you before your business has had a chance to tell you what it needs.

Mint works with more than ten banking partners – Tide, ANNA Money, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Monzo, Cashplus, Zempler, Countingup, and others. We fast-track applications with all of them. We have no banking product of our own and no financial incentive to push any one of them. We give every founder the full picture and let them choose.

Neither Tide nor ANNA can offer this. The choice was made when you clicked their ad.When you form a company through Tide, you get a Tide account. When you form through ANNA, you get an ANNA account. This sounds obvious. But the implications are larger than they first appear.

Your business bank account is one of the most consequential early choices you make. Different banks suit different businesses at different stages. A founder who needs invoicing tools and expense cards in month one may need multi-currency capabilities in month twelve. A business that starts with a single director may add shareholders. A company that begins as a simple LTD may evolve into something requiring a different structure.

When you form your company through an independent specialist formaton agent, you choose your bank separately – based on what actually suits your business. When you form through a bank, that decision is made for you before your business has had a chance to tell you what it needs.

Mint works with more than ten banking partners – Tide, ANNA Money, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Monzo, Cashplus, Zempler, Countingup, and others. We fast-track applications with all of them. We have no banking product of our own and no financial incentive to push any one of them. We give every founder the full picture and let them choose.

Neither Tide nor ANNA can offer this. The choice was made when you clicked their ad.

Banks Understand Banking. Formation Specialists Understand Businesses.

There is a deeper issue beyond bank choice. Tide and ANNA are good at what they are built for: payment processing, business accounts, expense management, cashback features. These are genuine products with genuine value for the right customers. But they are not built around what new businesses actually need during and after incorporation.

They do not have specialists who will review your application before it reaches Companies House and catch the errors that cause rejections. They do not have people who pick up the phone to HMRC when a VAT query sits unresolved. They do not have accountants who will sit with a new founder and explain directors allowances, use of home as office, and allowable expenses before the first tax year closes. They do not have teams who have spent years learning how new businesses fail, what compliance mistakes cost money, and how to guide a founder through the incorporation journey rather than just process their paperwork.

Formation specialists do. Because formation – and the business journey that follows it – is the entire business, not a feature.

Mint has formed over 40,000 companies. Each one of those was a new business at the beginning of something. The questions they asked during registration – about share structures, SIC codes, director responsibilities, registered office requirements, identity verification – are the same questions the next 40,000 will ask. That accumulated knowledge does not exist in a banking app. It exists in the people who have been answering those questions, on the phone, for years.

VC-Backed and Built to Grow: What Happens When the Strategy Changes?

Tide has raised over $600 million in external funding. ANNA has received significant venture backing. Both are growth-stage businesses optimising for user acquisition and banking revenue. This is not a criticism. But it is a context that founders should understand.

Venture-backed platforms operate on a different timeline than specialist businesses. Their priorities are shaped by investors, growth targets, and the next funding round. When a strategy is not working – or when a better strategy appears – it changes. Services that are free or subsidised today may not be tomorrow. Features that attract customers at scale may be deprioritised once the acquisition phase ends.

Formation specialists operate on a different model. Mint has been forming companies since 2017. The business is built on repeat custom, referrals, and long-term client relationships – not on acquiring banking customers at volume. The incentive is to serve the founder well across the entire company lifecycle, because that is where the business model works.

When a VC-backed banking platform pivots, the founder who registered through them is a banking customer. When a formation specialist serves a client well, they are a lifetime client.

Structural Limitations That Matter

Beyond the strategic question, there are practical limitations to bank-based formation that apply to a significant proportion of UK founders right now:

Tide only supports companies with a single director and a single shareholder. If you have a co-founder, Tide cannot form your company – at any price. Both Tide and ANNA support UK residents only. If you are an overseas founder looking to register a UK limited company – a common and entirely straightforward situation that Mint handles regularly – neither platform can help you.

Both support LTD companies only. No LLPs. No companies limited by guarantee. No charities. No bespoke articles of association.

Neither offers the range of ongoing Companies House services that growing businesses need: director changes, share transfers, confirmation statements, registered office changes. The formation may be fast and cheap. The support infrastructure that follows is not there.

What Honest Pricing Actually Looks Like

Mint’s formation fee starts at £4.99. The £100 Companies House fee is charged on top, separately and clearly. You pay both. There is no subsidy, no banking product attached, no monthly subscription unlocking the headline price. What you see is what you pay.

Included with every Mint formation at no extra condition:

• A named Application Assistant who guides you through the entire process – from application to certificate to any question that arises afterward. This was previously charged at £19. It is now free for every customer.
• WhatsApp support throughout your formation journey. No other UK formation agent or banking entrant currently offers this.
• A real person who will call Companies House and HMRC on your behalf when queries arise. Not a chatbot. Not a ticket system. A qualified specialist who knows how to navigate both organisations.
• A free accountant consultation covering directors allowances, use of home as office, allowable expenses, and any early-stage tax question – delivered by a qualified human accountant.
• Enrolment into Signal Biz Hub – a business support network with training, tips, and community networking for new founders.
• Your choice of bank.

The Question to Ask Before You Register

When a bank offers to form your company cheaply, the question is not whether the offer is genuine. In most cases, it is genuine. The question is what you are getting in exchange for the price – and whether that trade makes sense for your business. Are you comfortable having your bank chosen for you at the moment of incorporation, before your business has started?

Are you forming as a solo UK resident, with no co-founders and no plans to expand the shareholding – or does any part of your setup fall outside the narrow parameters that bank-based formation supports? Do you want the company registered and then left to navigate the rest alone, or do you want a specialist in your corner for the first month, the first tax year, and the first time something goes wrong?

Formation is a ten-minute process. Business is not.

Mint Formations pricing is honest, its service is built around the full journey, and its interest in your business does not depend on which bank account you open. Mint Formations is genuinely independent to guide you through the process and provide options. If that sounds like the right fit, [compare our formation packages →].

Mint Formations is an authorised Companies House formation agent (ACSP). All information about Tide and ANNA Money is based on publicly available information from their websites and is accurate at the time of writing.

The post Tide and ANNA Are Banks, Not Formation Agents – Why That Distinction Matters appeared first on Mint Formations Blog.

We have been meaning to write this piece for a while. Not to show off — though we are, honestly, incredibly proud of Andy — but because his story says something important about who Mint Formations is and why we exist. The photo says it all: two people standing on the lawns of Buckingham Palace, genuinely delighted to be there, surrounded by the kind of occasion that reminds you what public service is actually for.

Andy, the independent who keeps winning

Most politicians need a party behind them. A machine. A brand. Decades of voter loyalty baked into a rosette colour. Andy has never had any of that — and he keeps winning anyway.

Standing as an independent in Whitehill, Bordon, and Lindford, Andy has taken on the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and even the new Reform bandwagon — all at the same time — and defeated them all, election after election, by significant margins. No party funding. No national campaign. Just genuine trust built one conversation, one doorstep, one community issue at a time.

Walk down the street with Andy and you will see exactly why. He does not just know his constituents — he knows their names, their families, their frustrations. They stop him, not the other way around. That kind of connection cannot be manufactured. It is earned, slowly, by actually showing up.

From the palace gardens to your local high street

Andy currently serves as Cabinet Member at Hampshire County Council — representing around 1.4 million people at the highest level of local authority — as well as Deputy Leader of East Hampshire District Council and Leader of Whitehill Town Council. He is overseeing multi-million pound infrastructure projects and is at the very centre of Local Government Reorganisation: a once-in-a-generation reform that will reshape how every community in the UK is governed for decades to come.

At the local level, his focus has always been intensely practical. Championing local policing. Fighting to retain community amenities. Funding youth projects. Supporting post-16 education. These are not abstract policy positions — they are the things that determine whether a community thrives or quietly falls apart.

For local business owners, Andy is a rare resource. He understands the realities of running a small business from the inside — the late nights, the cashflow pressures, the grants that exist but nobody tells you about, the networks that can open doors if only you know where to knock. He has spent years connecting businesses to funding, support, and opportunities that would otherwise have slipped through the cracks entirely.

Why Mint exists

Mint Formations was not started to process company registrations. It was started because we had seen too many new businesses left to figure everything out alone — registered, invoiced, and forgotten by the platform that signed them up.

From day one, our purpose has been the same: help businesses get started properly, give them the tools and knowledge to grow, and stay with them long after the paperwork is done. Every service we offer — from company formation and confirmation statements to director changes, company restoration, and GDPR compliance — exists because founders need reliable, knowledgeable people in their corner. Not just a checkout page.

We measure our success by yours. That is not a marketing line — it is genuinely how we think about this business. When a founder we registered two years ago calls us to say they have just taken on their first member of staff, that matters to us. When a client needs to restore a dissolved company and we get them back on the register, that matters. We are in it for the long run — because that is the only way to build something worth building.

We are not a platform. We are people.

There are plenty of ways to register a company in the UK. Formation agencies like 1st Formations, Your Company Formations, and Companies Made Simple will process your application quickly. Banks like Tide and Anna will open you a business account. These are useful tools — but when you need more than a tool, they have very little to offer.

Mint is different because the people behind it are different. Our MD was invited to Buckingham Palace not because he built a slick product, but because he has spent years genuinely improving the lives of people around him. That is the culture Mint operates from — and it is what you get when you work with us.

When you register your company with Mint, you are not feeding a faceless machine. You are working with real people who are rooting for you — people who will pick up the phone, who know your name, and who measure their own success by how well your business does.

The post Our Managing Director was invited to Buckingham Palace — by The King appeared first on Mint Formations Blog.