Optus Bank

"It’s important to have a personal business relationship with your banker. That’s what my business—OnPoint Media—has with Optus Bank and its Senior Vice President Kenneth Robinson. While other financial institutions regularly court my business; I stick with Optus. They’re responsive, offer solid financial products and good customer service. When I found Optus—I found the right fit for my personal and business banking. Keep up the great work!"

"I started a relationship with Optus a few years ago. My experience with the bank has been exemplary to say the least. I've recently started a new business and needed some additional funding and guidance on the proper way to structure the loans. I reached out to Kenneth Robinson, and he took the time to guide me through the process of securing the funding and the proper way to manage the financing while I was in the process of starting up. I appreciate when people go the extra mile in the area of customer service. Kenneth and Optus had no obligation to help me in the way that they did. I probably would have done business with them anyway. However, after this experience I have made the decision to make Optus my only bank. I would highly recommend them to anyone that is looking for a bank that actually cares about you as a customer and not just an account number."

"The vice president of Optus bank Kenneth Robinson has always been very polite and provided positive financial insight for my company. I was initially referred to the bank by Midlands Technical College, after completing a Women's Fast Trac Entrepreneur course. Several other small business owners in the class spoke highly of the experience that they had with Mr. Robinson. So, I decided to reach out to give him an opportunity to do business with me and my team. Mr. Robinson is highly intelligent and has excellent communication skills! He works diligently to assist his customers on the best products that will work for them. I look forward to continue working with Mr. Robinson as he expands his footprint with OPTUS Bank"

"If you are in the Hemp/CBD space, please read this before opening up an account. When we first met Optus in 2019, they were hungry for our business. We are in the Hemp/CBD space. Let's flash forward to 2022. We didn't see problems earlier because we just initially kept money in their bank. We started using the account more actively around August 2021. I will first share a few personal experiences with Optus bank. We planned a company incentive trip to Jamaica, where we took 31 of our top leaders on an all-expense paid trip. During this process, we learned that they do not do wires from within the bank; this is handled through a third-party company. This could delay the process by several days. While we finally got at least one of the two requested wires out, it was so delayed that I ended up wiring money out of my personal account. What made this even more frustrating is that we had communicated to Optus days in advance that we would be sending these wires. Despite this and several other customer service failures, we gave them numerous opportunities. A few months later, we received a notice that they were shutting our account down because we were all of a sudden a "high" risk customer. We sell Hemp/CBD. They knew and approved our bank account in 2019 and marketed themselves as a Hemp/CBD friendly bank. We have heard from several of our colleagues in the hemp industry that this is a common occurrence from Optus bank. If you are in the Hemp/CBD space, find another bank. We are a debt-free African-American female owned company with a 5-star rating on both Google and Facebook and a 3 1/2 year track record. We have over 25,000 customers. Optus prides itself on helping to empower women and black and brown people. We conduct full panel testing on our products ensuring the highest level of quality and product integrity. When I researched further today and saw all the 1-star reviews from Optus disgruntled customers, I realized that they do not care about their customers. At least they should have the respect to answer customer reviews, whether negative or positive. I honestly feel as if we were profiled. As owners, we consist of one Medical Doctor (OBGYN for over 30 years), a 3rd term State Senator, a former corporate executive for a 50 BILLION dollar company and a Real Estate Developer. We are all professional African-American women. To resolve the alleged "high-risk" issue, a few individuals on our team had to agree to submit various items like credit reports, apply for hemp handler licenses in South Carolina, and submit fingerprints and background checks. This seemed extreme, especially when you understand we had ZERO banking related issues or problems with this bank and we DON'T SELL MARIJUANA. We paid hundreds of dollars for all of these various requests over 30-days when in reality they had already made up their mind. To further escalate the matter is the lack of professionalism shown by the Optus team on the last day our account was active. I will not go into details, but it was the most unprofessional experience I have ever been through as a Black Woman CEO in a space where we are barely represented. We paid the price for the war on drugs; the main stream cannabis world doesn't want us on the other side of the plant. We run a 5-star Hemp/CBD business below .3% THC with COAs to back it up, but that is not enough. This company is not in support of black and brown businesses. You cannot treat customers poorly and think there is no accountability."

"We absolutely love Optus bank! When we were having trouble with our small business’ procurement of PPP funding, Optus came through for us. This allowed us to stay afloat during the pandemic and now we’re operating at capacity. We have since transferred all of our bank needs over to them from the Big Bank that couldn’t/wouldn’t help us survive (rhymes with Smells Largo)."