Atom Bank, iwoca, Modulr and Currencycloud get £10m BCR grant
The Board of Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) announced it will be issuing four £10 million grants to lending and payments organisations who have pledged public commitments.
As part of the Capability and Innovation Fund (CIF) Pool C grant process, Atom Bank, iwoca, Modulr and Currencycloud will all benefit from a multi-million cash injection.
Public commitments include creating new UK jobs, providing greater company transparency and fighting UK SMEs’ corner.
The grant will help with expanding iwoca’s customer base and making £5 billion available to support Britain’s SMEs. Its also commits £13 million on top of its £10 million grant, promising the launch of OpenLending by 2020 – a customisable self-serve “plug & play” platform for SME fintech partners.
“Winning this grant is a huge milestone for us,” says iwoca’s CEO and co-founder Christoph Rieche. “We’re confident that we’ll be delivering on our commitment.”
He added: “iwoca is the only SME lender in the UK with the scale, level of experience and technology to dramatically expand and transform access to finance for small businesses. Winning the grant enables us to accelerate our mission to make finance available to one million SMEs.”
Modulr, Atom Bank and iwoca all committed to creating new jobs across the UK. Modulr promised 53 in Edinbrugh and 11 more in other UK regions, Atom Bank pledged 70 new jobs and apprentice roles in Durham and iwoca stated they will open a new office in either Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds or Bristol with “at least” 50 staff.
Currencycloud has sworn to “help 10% of UK SMEs” who are trading internationally to access better cross-border experiences, whilst also investing £30 million more of its own funds into helping SMEs more generally.
“Now the emphasis is on monitoring each recipient’s reporting and deliverables,” says BCR’s chairman, Godfrey Cromwell.
BCR received 76 applications for the Pool C round this year.
