• Pool A, B, C, D & F Capability and Innovation Fund recipients provide quarterly updates on Public Commitments
• Incentivised Switching Scheme residual funds recipients provide final progress updates on Public Commitments

Progress updates for Pool A, B, C, D & F recipients

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 31^st December 2021.

The public commitment updates this reporting period has seen a number of awardees deliver on their commitments such as co-investment and initiative delivery. Furthermore, market share of UK SMEs continue in an upward trend with awardees exceeding overall targets ahead of schedule.

Awardees progress against public commitments made can be found here. During the quarter business case changes were approved for Metro Bank to revise delivery timelines for some delayed initiatives and Modulr to replace one of its initiatives with one that it feels better meets SME needs.

The majority of awardees achieved strong performance as at the end of 2021 in terms of delivery particularly in lending initiatives, international payment solutions and market share. It is clear that many of the awardees are successfully challenging incumbent providers in meeting SME needs and in several instances partnering with those incumbents to complement their offerings. 2022 is a significant year in relation to spend and delivery with several awardees ahead of plan and others working extremely hard to progress their business cases in view of the external market which is now seeing a slow recovery in all aspects despite the challenges they continue to face.

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 eleventh quarter update

• Starling Bank Limited public commitment progress update
• Metro Bank plc public commitment progress update
• ClearBank Ltd public commitment progress update

Pool B tenth quarter update

• Investec Bank plc public commitment progress update
• The Co-operative Bank plc public commitment progress update

Pool C ninth 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 tenth quarter update

• Codat Limited public commitment progress 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 first quarter update

• Cashplus public commitment progress update
• Codat Limited public commitment progress update
• Swoop Finance Limited commitment progress update

The next progress updates for Pool A, B, C, D and F awardees will be in May 2022. Pool E awardees will provide their next reporting update in April 2022. 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.

Incentivised Switching Scheme

At the end of December 2021, the agreements in respect of the additional £24.1m awarded to Starling Bank, Virgin Money and TSB from the pool of funds set aside for the Incentivised Switching Scheme ended. It has been encouraging to see the good use this money has been put to in raising brand awareness of their respective SME offerings as well as the service enhancements that have been made and the educational material provided. A further 436 customers switched from NatWest in the period to December with incentives funded by the award. In the interests of transparency, it should be noted that a modest amount of £194,000 has been returned by TSB – in line with the terms of the award agreement - due to a small underspend against its business case. Further detail on each bank’s performance against its public commitments can be found here.