Form3, Countingup and PPS team up to transform UK SME banking

By Megha Bhattacharya

Cloud-native payment technology provider, Form3 has teamed up with Countingup and PPS in a bid to transform UK SME banking. The model created by the companies aims to benefit the UK SMEs by saving 8-20 hours and £15-50 per month on running SME business finances and accounting tasks.

Michael Mueller, Chief Executive Officer at Form3, said, “There is still work to be done to level the playing field and open up domestic and international business banking services for UK SMEs and Microbusinesses. Challengers like Countingup are truly innovating and disrupting this market and supported by our next-generation cloud-native technology, they can expand their all-in-one BCA to include cross border capability, which is really exciting.

PPS is regulated by the FCA and licensed by Mastercard and has an award-winning payments platform enhanced by the connection to the UK Faster Payments and BACs schemes via Form3’s real-time payment technology service. Countingup’s next-generation BCA leverages this capability converting transactional data into categorised business accounts, in real-time. The SME, therefore, benefits from a significantly simplified workflow to manage their finances and accounting, benefitting from time and cost-savings.

Tim Fouracre, Chief Executive Officer at Countingup, commented, “From the outset, we wanted to make it easier for SMEs and Microbusinesses to run their business. Using our SME’s transactional data to automate and eliminate their accounting tasks, we simplify running a business. Our collaboration with PPS and Form3 means we can offer the best in connectivity and transaction processing, allowing Countingup to focus on simplifying the SME workflow. For example, auto-matching invoices to payments, providing a real-time tax estimate and soon facilitating MTD VAT submissions.”

The initiative has also submitted a proposal for the latest BCR grant submissions.