August 18, 2020
Fractal Labs is now tomato pay
18th August 2020 Fractal, together with untied, are delighted to announce that its SMART (SMEs Manage Accounts Receivables and Tax) solution has won its £2.5 million Pool E bid for the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Capability and Innovation fund, designed to improve the financial products and services available to small businesses. Fractal and untied will use the BCR bid winnings to save 50,000 businesses a year and to help them thrive.
Six winners were awarded grants from 92 applicants.
Congratulations to all of the other winners in this round of the Pool E grants. This award validates the winning propositions and our combined potential to help SMEs. The fund is making a significant contribution to bridging the gap in financial services available to the smallest of businesses.
Working capital is the lifeblood of any business, and nowhere is this more important than for the 4.4 million sole traders in the UK. The covid-19 crisis has exposed how vulnerable sole traders are to shocks in their working capital cycle, and the need for a technological tool that alleviates their pain.
Through SMART, Fractal and untied combine their market-leading technology and progressive regulatory changes such as Open Banking and Making Tax Digital to offer a single, SME centric solution which addresses the three levers that have the largest bearing on their working capital needs – revenue, costs and cash – thereby securing jobs, serving taxpayers, and broadly supporting the economy over the years ahead.
Fractal and untied’s commitments
Nicholas Heller, Fractal CEO and co-founder said: “We are grateful to the BCR Capability and Innovation Fund panel for selecting Fractal and untied, and we are excited to take up the opportunity to help the UK economy during these difficult times. Their trust in our ability to support sole traders is a testament to the teams’ execution and vision. In partnership, Fractal and untied are deeply committed to supporting SMEs with the SMART solution and fulfilling our mission to help the economy recover and prosper.
As part of the bid, we will increase our diversity efforts and open a new office outside of London to continue to catalyse new fintech hubs.”
Kevin Sefton, untied CEO said: “This award highlights solutions that bring valuable services to SMEs and address gaps in existing business banking propositions. Together we are committed to ensuring that as many businesses as possible take advantage of the unique benefits that SMART brings – from invoicing and payments through to tax optimisation and submission all in one package. SMART combines untied’s market-leading tax simplification with Fractal’s revolutionary invoicing, forecasting and flows in a way that is designed around the needs and banking choices of the sole trader.”
Why sole traders?
You can see the original press release about Fractal’s and united’s joint bid here, why it is so important for financial providers to throw their support behind sole traders right now here, and unbiased feedback for the SMART solution from sole traders here.
Furthermore you can see our experiences on cultivating a diverse workplace as a long-term strategy here, and our commitment to creating more jobs for young people and outside of London here.
To find out more about the initiative and our partnership with untied, you can contact Lisa Leid at lisa@askfractal.com. Or, if you are interested in partnering with us to create new SME-focused solutions, you can contact the team at partner@askfractal.com.
About Fractal: Fractal is a platform-as-a-service that is reinventing how Small-Medium-Enterprises (SMEs) execute payments and access financial services. Fractal helps financial institutions (FI) and their SME clients save money by providing a smarter payments engine and an insights platform to deliver the right product, to the right SME, at the right time.
Find out more about Fractal.
About untied: untied is the UK’s personal tax app. It’s built for people, not accountants and is designed especially to help sole traders to get on top of their taxes. untied is the only end to end app that enables users to link their bank accounts, makes tax sense of their transactions and files directly to HMRC. untied launched untied lite (formerly untied for gig workers) in April, the first tax product designed specifically for workers in the gig economy. untied’s partners include Revolut, Deliveroo, Stuart and Accenture. untied is regulated by the FCA, supervised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation and recognised by HMRC.
Find out more about untied.
About Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Capability and Innovation Fund: This is a package of measures with the aim of achieving the objective of promoting competition in the market for banking services to SMEs. It stems from state aid measures given to RBS and approved by the European Commission in 2009. £100m is currently being redeployed through “Pool E”, of which £20m is available to facilitate the commercialisation of financial technology that is relevant to SMEs.
Find out more about the BCR Capability and Innovation Fund
untied is recognised by HMRC, supervised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation and a registered account information services provider regulated by the FCA (FRN 910169). untied is a registered trademark © 2019-2024 - UT Tax Ltd. Content is general information only and not tax or other advice.
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