GoCardless and Pennylane to enable SMEs to automate payments

By Megha Bhattacharya

GoCardless, a FinTech in account-to-account payments, has joined forces with Pennylane, a financial management and accounting platform designed for companies and their accountants, to offer SMEs and start-ups a seamless way to manage and collect recurring payments. The partnership will combine Pennylane’s new subscription management functionality, enabling businesses to automate the creation of recurring invoices and accounting, with GoCardless’ global bank debit network, allowing them to automatically debit their customers when each payment is due.

Rachel Astall, Director of Partnerships at GoCardless, said: “We’re excited to work with Pennylane, a company that is a great cultural fit with our own. With its vision to be the best financial operating system for startups and SMEs in Europe and our mission to take the pain out of getting paid, this partnership revolves around our mutual obsession to help merchants save time, reduce costs, maximise cash flow and, ultimately, focus on what they do best. We can’t wait to grow with Pennylane and our joint customers.”

News of this partnership comes after Pennylane announced an $18m funding round in June led by Sequoia Capital, becoming the first French start-up the famed VC invested in after establishing its European team. Founded in 2020, Pennylane now supports more than 1,200 business leaders and 100 accounting firms.

Arthur Waller, CEO at Pennylane, said: “We are very happy to work with GoCardless, with whom we share the same ambition: to facilitate the financial management of SMEs so that business owners can focus on their customers and the growth of their company. Automating sales management and providing companies with better visibility of upcoming payments are two key elements in achieving this ambition.”