After being an international student himself Tahem Veer Verma has just launched the North Loop a bank focusing on international students going to the US. Verma has already a successful business history with the English Language learning app Enrugu which gave him confidence and experience for this new business adventure.
From his personal experience as an international MBA student at Cornell in 2017 he said he had “struggled a lot with opening a bank account, getting a credit card and just about all the banking experiences possible”. So after 10 years of his first international studies experience he decided to fix this problem and help many other students just as he was in the past.
The most important diferencial at the North Loop is that customers doesn’t need an US social security number to be able to apply. International students can sign up for an account before they travel to the US, and “their debit card is already waiting” on arrival, said Verma, mailed to an address provided.
The bank was launch less than a month ago and already have more than 20.000 international student application only because of word of mouth recommendation. For the long term Verna explains that the plan is to partner with international student agencies to spread the news and get students ready with their free account before even arriving in the US.
The new bank also helps with the fact that you don’t have to go in person to a bank branch to open your account. “ If you’re in a smaller college town like Cornell was, there are no national banks there,” he explained. This means travelling to another city location to set the account up.“You’re constantly reminded that you’re not a priority.”
North Loop will also help students that usually had to arrive in the US with a lots of cash in their pockets as this was the only way to bring money from home.
“We are starting small, aiming for 30-40,000 this year, and in the next few years, we’ll scale it up, so that by year 3, we’ll have 500,000 users on platform – some of whom will be graduated by then,” he said.
