Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR) publishes progress updates
The Board of Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR) today publishes progress updates for Pools A, B, C, D and F recipients, providing a summary of performance against their public commitments to the period 30 June 2022.
During this reporting period several awardees have delivered on commitments such as co-investment and initiatives. Market share of UK SMEs business bank accounts has continued to shift to a number of awardees. Several awardees continue to attract capital investment in a tight market evidencing the interest in their SME propositions. They are also successful in forging alliances and partnerships with more traditional suppliers in the SME ecosystem. Awardees progress against public commitments made can be found here.
Following the agreement between BCR, HMT and NatWest to continue to monitor awardees post CIF agreement termination in December 2022, BCR continues to have ongoing discussions with those impacted to support them in submitting Revised Business Cases to re-align targets where necessary. It is important to recognise that despite the many unprecedented challenges this market has seen, awardees remain fully committed to making a difference for UK SMEs. In this reporting period, six business cases from ClearBank, The Co-operative Bank, Funding Options, Swoop and Codat were submitted during the period and have since been approved. ClearBank’s proposal was a simple request to change the delivery date of its CASS product. The Co-operative Bank sought changes to several KPI targets and the timeline for and re-allocation of its CIF and co-investment spend. Funding Options requested changes to a few KPI targets and removed its target for its BCA comparison tool due to the lack of demand from SMEs. Swoop requested various changes to its KPI targets; some were increased due to significant demand and others were reduced as a result of the adverse impact of the external environment. Codat submitted two Revised Business Cases for Pools D and F which sought extensions to achieve its SME impact targets.
A summary of performance against awardees public commitments can be found in the notes to editors, with links to the full updates provided below:
Pool A thirteenth quarter update
- Starling Bank Limited public commitment progress update
- Metro Bank plc public commitment progress update
- ClearBank Ltd public commitment progress update
Pool B twelfth quarter update
- Investec Bank plc public commitment progress update
- The Co-operative Bank plc public commitment progress update
Pool C eleventh quarter update
- Atom Bank plc public commitment progress update
- The Currency Cloud Group Ltd public commitment progress update
- iwoca Ltd public commitment progress update
- Modulr Finance Limited public commitment progress update
Pool D twelfth quarter update
- Fluidly Limited public commitment progress update
- Form3 Ltd public commitment progress update
- Funding Options Limited public commitment progress update
- Swoop Finance Limited public commitment progress update
Pool F third quarter update
- Cashplus public commitment progress update
- Codat Limited public commitment progress update
- Swoop Finance Limited commitment progress update
As part of BCR’s role in monitoring the way that organisations are using the funds, BCR holds awardees to account on their progress against business plans which includes regular meetings with all recipients. For more details on how BCR monitors CIF awardees see here. The next progress updates for Pool A, B, C, D and F awardees will be in November 2022 and for Pool E awardees in October 2022. There will then be one final report as per the CIF Agreement for all awardees and after this, simplified ongoing monitoring as necessary for outstanding spend and deliverables.
