ClearBank, Tide partner to help UK SMEs in Covid-19

By Sunniva Kolostyak

ClearBank has partnered with business banking platform Tide to help small and medium-sized businesses in the UK turn recovery from Covid-19 into a growth opportunity.

The two companies have applied for £25 million and £35 million in grants from the RBS £775 million Alternative Remedies Package to strengthen challenge to high street banks.

tide   By applying to Pool E of the Capability and Innovation Fund, ClearBank and Tide aim to provide financial support and products to help SMEs benefit from opportunities despite uncertainty from coronavirus and Brexit by capitalizing on the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda.

Moreover, SMEs will be able to meet demand for digital services and become more sustainable.

Blending ClearBank’s payments infrastructure and Tide’s digital banking platform, the venture will provide an alternative to high street banks and address issues in the Open Banking agenda.

The two It will increase efforts to tackle barriers to competition in business banking and give SMEs the tools to turn crisis into opportunity. These include leveraging Open Banking to remove friction, improving funding opportunities with access to debt and equity, and help SMEs become more digital, supporting digital payments and business development.

Additionally, the £35 million grant will support post-Brexit assistance by providing payment functionality to support SME imports and exports and prepare for a sustainable future as contributors to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking’s Bankers for NetZero initiative.

Commenting, Charles McManus, Group CEO of ClearBank, said: “Unlike traditional banks, our platform-based approach provides not only choice for SMEs but also rich opportunities for product partners. We have the capability to deliver deep integrations with third parties quickly and at scale and by committing to integrate with at least 25 SME partners, there will be significant opportunities for innovative SMEs to provide curated, value-add solutions.”

Oliver Prill, CEO of Tide, added: “Competition and choice in the business banking space is more important than ever and needs to be addressed urgently. Switching accounts has been made unnecessarily sticky, with old barriers remaining and the Government’s response to the coronavirus crisis reinforcing them. For example, repayments under the critical Bounce Back Loan Scheme will link millions of SMEs to the big five for many years. ClearBank’s world-class payments infrastructure combined with Tide’s unrivalled business banking platform mean that we can develop innovative ways to get around this, particularly by using Open Banking in the way it was intended.”