Why SMEs need cybersecurity during lockdown

With thousands of organisations moving staff to remote working, businesses are left at increasing risk of cyber-attack.

Cyber criminals are exploiting the emergency working measures with estimates of around a 400% increase in phishing attacks on home workers since the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Make UK is partnering with cyber security experts, Assured Cyber Protection (ACP) to provide immediate cyber protection solutions supported by ‘protect yourself today, pay later’ payment plans in a move to help companies shield themselves at pace. The software will protect against phishing and email scams with sophisticated malware detection in place to isolate compromised machines. Continuous real-time monitoring and diagnosis of risks run 24-hours a day to alert management and staff of any issues before they take hold.

The partnership with ACP will bring immediate, comprehensive and multi-layered protection that can be remotely and quickly deployed. This will be supported with a delayed payment plan of six months that enables businesses of all sizes to protect its remote workforce and critical data.

The services will be offering ACP’s Remote Worker Cyber Protection solution which automatically detects cyber threats on each device connected to the company’s network whether from home or any other third-party network.

Some 64% of organisations have experienced a phishing attack in the past year according to Check Point’s Research Security Report 2019. Only last month, cyber criminals disguised themselves as the World Health Organisation (WHO) to steal money or sensitive information, taking advantage of the current global crisis.

Stephen Phipson, chief executive of Make UK, said: “Not being able to rely on their on-premises defences and firewalls, remote working has always been a major security weakness for organisations.

“Cyber security is more important than ever; proactivity is key. Make UK’s priority is to keep employers and employees safe and protected without the worry of additional financial outlays.”

Mitchell Scherr, CEO of ACP added: “We have the technology but what is critical is for companies to act now. Every CEO today is facing a new set of financial pressures and what was a priority for me was to find a financially viable way for companies to protect themselves fully and immediately.”

Mettle by NatWest offers FreeAgent free of charge

Mettle, NatWest’s free standalone digital business account, has announced that FreeAgent, the cloud based accountancy software for small businesses, is available free of charge for its customers. Businesses who sign up to link their Mettle and FreeAgent accounts will save at least £150 a year – the minimum cost of an annual FreeAgent subscription.

New and existing customers of Mettle can now sign up to FreeAgent directly through the Mettle app free of charge in a matter of seconds, with transactions also being shared between the two apps immediately, using API (application protocol interface) technology.

This feature ensures all transactions are synced in real time, helping reduce the chance of admin errors or duplication, and allowing both providers to provide helpful tips, so that business owners can focus on growing their business.

FreeAgent’s standard pricing is between £150 to £260 annually, depending on the size of business, but through the partnership businesses signing up for Mettle won’t be charged for a FreeAgent subscription, for as long as they hold an active Mettle account and make at least one transaction a month.

Ed Molyneux, CEO, FreeAgent said: “We’re really excited to be working with Mettle and providing small business customers with the most intuitive way of staying on top of their finances. With faster data flow and greater visibility over business accounts – not to mention the fact that FreeAgent will be completely free to Mettle customers – we believe it’s the best offer on the market for the UK’s five million small business owners and self-employed workers.”

Ken Johnstone, chief product officer, Mettle by NatWest said: “We’re thrilled to be launching an innovative partnership with FreeAgent that will not only allow businesses to have greater insight and control over how they run their business but will do so completely free of charge. FreeAgent share our passion for making it simpler to run a business, and by joining forces we now have one of the most compelling financial packages for small businesses in the UK.”

NatWest intends to build on this new partnership between Mettle and FreeAgent to provide sole trader, freelance and small businesses with simple, innovative solutions that help businesses start and grow with ease. The partnership comes weeks after NatWest announced revised aspirations to help 50,000 new UK based businesses start by 2023, alongside helping 500,000 people become an entrepreneur.

With both products being offered free of charge, the offer complements NatWest’s wider programme of specific support for small businesses during the coronavirus outbreak, including a package of £5bn of working capital support for business who need urgent access to funding during this uncertain period.

The bank is also participating in the government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme (CBILS) and has opened the scheme up to more business customers by offering loans from £5,000, available to sole traders and partnerships as well as limited companies.

1 in 3 micro-businesses risk breaking tax rules

A survey carried out by 3Gem for Amaiz, the new banking app, has revealed that just over 30% of micro-businesses don’t have a separate business bank account. These businesses risk muddling business and personal expenditure and breaking tax rules. The survey also found that 44% of micro-businesses are usually spending at least 3 hours a week on admin, with one in five spending around a day a week on getting the books in order. New banking apps, such as Amaiz, would reduce this burden considerably. The lock down is the perfect time to make the transition.

500 micro businesses were asked about their challenges with managing their business in order to help Amaiz prioritise the services they offer on their new app (launched last year), that combines bookkeeping and banking.

Jayesh Gajparia a certified accountant at Amaiz explained; “You don’t legally need a dedicated business account, unless you’re a limited company, but there are several advantages to having one. For a start, there is a huge risk that you will muddle your personal and business costs and break tax rules without a dedicated business account, as it’s far more difficult to separate expenditure out. A business separate account also helps you locate electronic receipts and prepare for self-assessment.”

Modern business bank accounts now make it far easier to identify business-related expenses and get a clearer understanding of how your company is performing. Most personal current accounts don’t supply the functionality and options that a good banking app will have.

Jay concluded; “Normally small business owners are working really hard just to keep up with the needs of their customers and manage the business. I can understand why they don’t give this priority, but now is a great opportunity to review how the business works and put in place new systems to make life easier once the business is operating again. One of the key ones should be to open a business bank account that gives you the chance to manage your bookkeeping on the go. This will save businesses up to a day a week in admin.”

In addition to combining banking with bookkeeping Amaiz gives you access to 24/7 support and the chance to question the Amaiz accountant.

To help business owners during this difficult time Amaiz is offering the following:

• One month fee freeze for Starter plan users (no 20p transaction charge).
• One extra month for Advanced plan users (£9.99 fee waived).
• Users currently in their opening trial month will have this extended by a month afterwards.

Welsh start-up wins business contract in South America

Welsh Start Up Datalyse expands its operations to South America and increases the number of staff working in Wales and Spain from two to seven full time employees.

CEO, Marc Castro age 29 and CTO, Marc Gulluci age 30 originally from Spain founded Datalyse in 2017. They opened the start-up in Cardiff, South Wales after Marc Castro saw a gap in the market having worked for a call centre after studying at Cardiff University.

Castro said, “I was frustrated at the disjointed nature of how a call centre I worked at was operationally run. Staff were continually stressed, which part of which was due to outdated software that was not fit for what we were doing. In turn, this impacted on our customer service which meant we had many unsatisfied customers.

‘Along with my colleagues I asked for an upgrade in the CRM software. My line manager explained the business would rather continue paying the high price rather than disrupt the operations of the business in learning how to use a new software system. This is when Datalyse was born.

‘Our mission was to make an easy to use CRM at an affordable price for contact centres and SME’s.”

Once Datalyse had started to offer CRM solutions to SME’s, they expanded on their offering and included other software integrations.

Datalyse was referred to a South American company in Columbia called Emporio. In the last 4 months Emporio has extended their requirements from CRM. We now provide international numbers along with other software solutions that integrate into their current telephony system.

Datalyse now has 7 employees, two based in Spain and 5 in their headquarters in Cardiff and the cloud based software as a solution provider has grown 110% since January 2019 in revenue.

Marc Castro continued, “We are really excited in the growth of Datalyse and by 2021 we will increase our staff count to 12. My role involves empowering staff and moving the company forward through day to day operations. This includes obtaining further business contracts from small to medium size businesses.

‘Part of our mission is encouraging growth through solutions to become agile whilst reducing costs and increasing productivity for our clients and our business.

‘Every contact centre whatever the sector whether in insurance or finance and so forth should have an easy to use, cost effective solution that they can use for their own business growth.”

Datalyse is set to grow its sales, marketing and programmers department by the end of this year as it expands its offerings to the automotive sector next.

Service built in weekend to support 5m self-employed over COVID-19 income loss

This weekend a team of self-isolating entrepreneurs from London’s burgeoning fintech sector – built a proof of concept which aims to support the UK’s 5m self-employed in the COVID-19 economic crisis.

The idea allows a self-employed person to self-certify and evidence their loss of income due to coronavirus through a web site. The service then uses open banking to collect historic banking data, proving previous income and predicting future loss of income.

The group believes this could ease the significant administrative burden on the civil service and the already stretched banking sector in the United Kingdom, and ensure Britain’s vital small business sector makes it through this crisis. With this tool banks could release loans faster to businesses meaning entrepreneurs could bounce back faster from disruption.

The self-employed are required to self-certify at https://covidcredit.uk/ using a simple web form. With consent, Covid Credit will then securely access twelve months of data from the individual’s bank account, using open banking, demonstrating historic incomes and potential loss of earnings. The result is a minted declaration document that serves as self-certification by the sole trader.

The group recognises that the UK government has taken significant steps to ensure the long term viability of the economy through the coronavirus crisis, but the 4.9 million self-employed and small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy which generates £275bn to the UK economy. Ensuring these businesses, not only survive, but thrive, is critical to the ongoing economic success of Great Britain. As such, the group is hoping to share the work with the widest possible audience and to trial with a small group of self-employed in the coming days.

Freddy Kelly, founder and CEO of Credit Kudos comments:

“The Covid Credit team came together as a group to design a concept that verifies the income trend of self-employed workers. The process features self-certification combined with impartially retrieved banking data to deliver a comprehensive view of someone’s income. In this way, we hope, the government may be able to assess the self-employed in the same way that they can the full-time employed. Additionally, the project has been created in open source so that it is simple to use and can be rapidly adopted by HM government.”

Jamie Campbell from Fronted comments: “During unprecedented times such as these, we all need to pull together to solve major challenges. We have demonstrated the power of the UK’s fintech community in developing an innovative and secure platform in rapid timeframes which has the potential to meet the needs of millions across our nation. We are hopeful that the government will share our optimism in using Covid Credit to design a solution for the self-employed.”

From a technical perspective, the teams have developed a standalone Python web application which is running on Google Cloud. This application interacts directly with the Credit Kudos API which, in turn, is aggregating data from individuals’ bank accounts and applying a number of pattern recognition algorithms in order to deduce the key income figures for the statement. In this proof of concept only sole traders are supported but the Covid Credit team believe that this group can be extended once government support is offered.

Simon Taylor, co-founder of 11:FS comments: “The government is working incredibly hard to support UK business at such an unprecedented time. We believe Covid Credit can provide a crucial piece of this complex puzzle, in identifying and validating the needs of self-employed people and businesses affected by COVID-19.

“The opportunity to assist our government in supporting 5m businesses is enormous, and we believe by sharing our leading-edge collective expertise and knowledge in developing products and services underpinned by open banking, we can play a part in delivering a life-changing service for these businesses banks and the civil service.”

The team are currently engaging with a number of key stakeholders across HMT, HMRC and the FCA in a bid to move into a beta testing phase then to a wider roll-out. The fintech consortium, which includes Credit Kudos, Fronted, 11:FS, Coconut, Capital on Tap, Mazuma, SeedLegals and TrueLayer have pledged to ensure that Covid Credit transitions as smoothly and as rapidly as needed from beta to roll-out.

To date, all team members contributing to the development of Covid Credit have been self-isolated.