Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Revolut, the challenger digital bank, has made two of its business accounts free for freelancers and small businesses.
The bank is suitable for entrepreneurs who travel or trade overseas a lot. Its currency exchange rates are far lower than high-street banks and customers can hold, exchange and transfer 29 currencies. Employers can issue fee-free corporate cards to employees to reduce expenses when they’re abroad. Revolut also integrates with apps including Slack, Xero, FreeAgent and Zapier. Future bolt-ons include expenses management.
More than 100,000 businesses in Britain and the rest of Europe have signed up for the service.
Although Revolut will not say how many customers it wants to sign up by scrapping its £25 per month, product owner James Gibson said: “We got feedback from small businesses that £25 a month is too much for them. Now that we’re free, we want customers to come and give us a go.”
And although there is no subscription fee, international transfers are charged 0.4pc above the interbank rate.
Revolut for Business has also introduced more flexibility into its paid-for plans, enabling customers to either upgrade or downgrade their plans at any time.
Gibson said: “We understand first-hand how frustrating it can
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KPMG urges SMEs to speak to banks before shock of no-deal Brexit
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Small businesses should speak to their banks about their debt facilities now, ahead of a possible no-deal Brexit, advises KPMG.
Banks have been putting small businesses under the microscope, figuring out which ones would be most vulnerable if Britain were to crash out of the European Union without a deal.
SME lending could be tightened up as the shock of a no-deal Brexit reverberates around the economy.
“Credit could be a little squeezed in the interim. If you haven’t had that conversation with your high-street bank, best have it now,” said Richard Bernau, director at KPMG.
Small businesses should ensure that their working capital facility remains intact should the UK suffer a disorderly exit from the EU, check the employment status of European Union nationals, and make sure their international supply chains are robust.
Although the Bank of England believes the banking sector is well prepared for a no-deal Brexit, SMEs could still find their access to credit dry up in a sudden downturn.
“Any bad or malign economic impact will have an impact on their ability to lend and the terms they are prepared to do so,” Andrew Pilgrim at EY told the Daily Telegraph.
Bernau said that banks
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Co-Operative Bank offers new business customers 2½ years’ free banking
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
The Co-Operative Bank has nearly doubled its free-banking offer for start-ups and SMEs from 18 months to 30 months.
New small business customers will benefit from free everyday banking – subject to certain transaction limits and a minimum credit balance of £1,000 – making it, says the Co-Op, the best introductory offer in the market.
The Co-Op bank aims to double its market share over the next five years, with a particular focus on supporting ethically minded businesses. One in five SMEs (22pc) are set up with a broader social purpose in mind.
In 2018, the Co-operative Bank had over 84,000 SME accounts, including 750 co-operatives, 5,000 charities and 218 credit unions, making it the seventh-biggest provider for business current accounts.
SME customers will then go on to the standard Business Directplus tariff once the 30-month period expires.
Official data indicates that businesses are most likely to struggle in their second year, says the Co-Op. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), one in four (26pc) of the approximately 380,000 businesses established each year are likely to struggle or fail within their first two years.
Existing Business DirectPlus customers currently in their introductory period will see it extended
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British Business Bank increases small business support by 27pc
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
British Business Bank, the Government economic development bank, increased support for start-ups and smaller businesses by over a quarter in the past year.
It has supported over 89,000 businesses in the UK with £6.6bn of finance in 2018-19, an increase of 27pc from £5.2bn the previous year, according to its annual report.
Over 90pc of the finance was delivered through smaller, newer or alternative finance providers. The bank announced 13 new delivery partners across its programmes during this period, lifting the total number of providers it works with to more than 130.
Almost half of the £6.6bn involved providing capital to SME lenders, a third consisted of equity placed with venture capital fuinds, and the rest spent by the BBB guaranteeing borrowing by businesses.
Indeed, the BBB has become one of the largest investors in venture capital funds. Unicorn companies that the BBB has backed through VCs include Revolut, Graphcore and TransferWise.
Meanwhile, the bank’s regional development funds, aimed at levelling the playing field for access to finance, now support more than £240m of funding.
The bank made a pre-tax profit of £81.3m over the period.
Lord Smith of Kelvin, chairman of the British Business Bank, said: “Smaller businesses are
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Barclays rapped by UK watchdog over way it treats small business
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Barclays has refunded small business clients an average of £2.50 each after it misled them into opening unnecessary current accounts to access other services such as loans.
About 800 affected Barclays small business clients shared the £2,000 compensation.
The financial services group reported pre-tax profits of £1.5bn in the first quarter.
Britain’s competition watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority has told Barclays to improve the way it treats small businesses. The rules, which Barclays signed up to in 2002, prevent banks from insisting that businesses open or maintain current accounts before they can access other products.
Barclays breached the rules by preventing small and medium-sized businesses that had premium accounts from transferring funds to or from accounts outside Barclays, and also by telling deposit account holders that they had to open a current account as well.
However, the Competition and Markets Authority is prevented from imposing fines for flouting rules.
“The bank’s actions led to unnecessary costs to some SMEs who were made to hold accounts they did not need,” the CMA said.
But it was Barclays itself that turned whistle blower, reporting its transgression to the CMA, and it has since moved to patch the problem, allowing affected customers
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Virgin Money aims to increase SME banking market share by 40pc
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Virgin Money, the new name for the rebranded CYBG, plans to offer SME business banking within branches by next summer.
Virgin Money wants to increase its share of business banking current accounts from 3.5pc today to 5pc.
The new Virgin Money SME business banking service will launch a Virgin Money business account in the first half of 2020. The business account will offer online and mobile services for businesses, including digital account opening, money management tools, fully automated lending and other services such as accountancy and tax management.
Three hundred relationship managers in 40 business banking centres will be established, supporting small and medium-sized businesses. (By comparison, Barclays, which currently has a 24pc share of the business banking market, offers a network of 1,500 relationship managers.)
The bank says that it wants to one of the top three in CMA service quality ranking for business customers.
The move comes as CYBG drops its historic Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank brands in favour of an all-encompassing Virgin Money.
CYBG says it is still assessing what its eventual SME business banking network will look like. “This is an opportunity for us to look at our network,” the bank said.
However, one signpost is
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Regional business growth – investors called on to narrow the gap
by Stephanie Spicer • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Stephanie Spicer on Small Business
Regional business growth investment inequality is set to worsen without significant changes and job growth, business investment and infrastructure in the regions could suffer most, according to the trade association for regional business investment – the UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA), which is launching a series of investment seminars for all interested parties.
The Association cites a new independent report by the UK 2070 commission, (the independent inquiry into city and regional inequalities in the UK, chaired by Lord Kerslake) which says the UK is one of the most regionally unbalanced countries in the industrialised world and the disparities will widen unless the government adopts a radical programme of investment.
UKBAA says a huge shift in emphasis is needed towards regional funding support to address this inequality in the next few years. One of the biggest problems it highlights is the UK’s regions is a lack of investment into small, growing, businesses. This it says, creates further gaps in terms of wage and job growth with fewer businesses able to grow and scale apace with their London counterparts.
It adds that there is currently a lack of awareness regionally in wealthy individuals as to the wide
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Q&A Ian Rand, CEO of Barclays Business Banking
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Ian Rand, chief executive of Barclays Business Banking, looks down from the 30th floor of his Canary Wharf eyrie in headquarters and sighs.
Rand, the personable boss of SME lending, who has been with Barclays for over a decade, worries that there is a huge divide between most small businesses and the white-hot tech startups raising millions in the City of London beyond his window.
“A typical business is not a fintech in Shoreditch,” he says. “A typical SME is a man or a woman in a white van, with a single shop where they’re struggling to pay the rent and the rates, and they’re finding it difficult to get someone to man the till on a Saturday.”
The ex-army officer, who spends a lot of time on the road speaking to business owners (“Norfolk, Wales, Leicester and Sunderland,” he says, recounting where he’s been to in the last couple of weeks), is responsible for over one million Barclays Business Banking clients. Businesses range in size from startups through to companies with turnover of up to £10m.
Barclays, which currently has a 24pc share of the business banking market, offers a network of 1,500 relationship managers at
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Barclays business CEO worries SME lending bubble could burst
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Barclays Bank business banking CEO Ian Rand worries that Britain’s peer-to-peer SME lending market could be a bubble about to burst.
According to the British Business Bank, the value of peer-to-peer SME lending grew by 51pc in 2017 to £1.7bn.
However, the Barclays business banking CEO says that entrepreneurs turned down for loans by high street banks turn to alternative lenders. This could see the collapse of an alternative lender if lending criteria becomes too lax.
Rand told Small Business: “There were a lot of people that banks wouldn’t lend to who went to Wonga instead. That didn’t work out too well for them or for Wonga. I am nervous that we could be going down the same path with business lending.”
Rand said that new fintech entrants to small business lending do not have the same “duty of care” as high street banks if SMEs get into distress and cannot repay their loans. This is because some are not signatories of the Standards of Lending Practice, which all the high street banks have signed.
Distressed debtors
In the past RBS has been criticised for the small number of distressed debtors that emerged from its Global Restructuring Group recovery
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Nationwide wins £50m prize to help boost small business banking
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Nationwide Building Society has won a £50m grant to help support small businesses.
The award is part of a £775m programme funded by Royal Bank of Scotland as a condition of its bailout during the financial crisis. A total of £425m will be given in cash grants to rival business banks and financial technology companies, while a further £350m is being used to encourage RBS customers to switch to alternative providers.
Investec and the Co-Operative Bank, which won smaller awards of £15m each, have also pledged to match the prize with their own investments.
Nationwide will use the money to deliver new services for SMEs. The building society will match every pound received over five years to shape new products and services.
Nationwide says 7,000 branch workers will be trained in business banking and it will create a further 400 jobs. including at the society’s head office in Swindon, Wiltshire.
The society is the only major high street provider currently not to offer a business current account.
Five big banks dominate 85pc of the business lending market, where switching levels are low.
Nationwide aims to shake up the market by focusing squarely on supporting the UK’s 5.6 million SMEs. Among