Pandemic support: Santander UK to rollout cash flow management app for SMEs
Santander UK has begun rolling out an app that helps smaller companies track their cash flow and invoices, as lockdown gave way to a boom of new small businesses.
The app, called CashFlow Manager, will let clients have a ‘single view’ of various account balances and transactions across their different banks.
It also analyses each business’ data to provide categorised insights into spending, such as how its payroll expenditure on a given month compares to its average over a certain period.
The bank has so far injected £300m to bolster its tech-based services as the popularity of online banking has rocketed since last year.
The rollout has already begun for a select number of the lender’s corporate and commercial banking customers.
“SMEs are working incredibly hard to get on the road to recovery from the pandemic,” head of commercial clients at Santander UK, John Baldwin, said, adding that the app is designed to ease some of the time-consuming workloads many small business founders face.
The pandemic has been the sole reason for around 26 per cent of new businesses opening this year, research from fintech firm Tide found earlier this week.
The Covid-19 crisis offered a ‘unique’ opportunity for entrepreneurs, with 21.8 per cent more businesses incorporated in the year to March 2021 compared to last year, according to data from Companies House.
Several banks have upped their support for the UK’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) since the pandemic began in the late months of 2019.
HSBC opened up a £15bn lending fund for businesses with a turnover of up to around £42m (€50m), in a bid to buoy businesses with less capital backing.
NatWest let business owners signup for free online courses and virtual events.
While Metro Bank offered financial support for businesses that did not need additional capital but an extra hand with existing facilities.