Tide, the SME-only leader in digital challenger banking, is delighted to announce that its partner, ClearBank, a next-generation clearing bank, has been awarded a grant from the RBS Alternative Remedies Package of £60 million.

The grant is one of three from Pool A of the Capability and Innovation Fund that forms part of the £775 million package, backed by the UK Government, and overseen by Banking Competition Remedies Ltd.

With Tide providing the customer facing proposition, the partnership will use the award to challenge the oligopoly that dominates the UK business banking market.  The grant will help Tide accelerate its growth and provide SMEs in the UK with the option of a dedicated and focused banking partner that will help them grow their business.

The combination of ClearBank’s world-class payments infrastructure and Tide’s unrivalled digital banking platform means entrepreneurs and small business owners will have a genuine scale alternative to the poor customer service, high costs and bureaucracy of the high street banks.     

Before today’s announcement, Tide was already growing faster than any other business banking player and is the clear leader in digital challenger banking for SMEs.  Since it started operations just over two years ago, Tide now has around 65,000 members and a 1.14% share of the market which totals 5.7 million UK SMEs, according to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills.  Almost 10,000 members joined in the first eight weeks of 2019.

To further accelerate its growth, Tide plans to raise new investment to match the grant over the next five years through further funding rounds. The funding will be focused on driving awareness of the Tide brand, overcoming switching friction, and creating extremely powerful reasons for customers not to default to the big four oligopoly that has served SMEs so poorly. 

Oliver Prill, CEO of Tide, said: “Tide fully supports the Banking Competition Remedies’ objective of changing business banking for the better. This is why we are so thrilled that ClearBank’s application was successful.  

“We can start work today. Tide is already the fastest growing business banking service provider in the UK.  The funding will help Tide accelerate its strategy to capture a significant share of the market, and we plan to match this with further investment of our own. As well as growing awareness of our existing offer, we have exciting plans to expand the products and services we offer customers under the Tide brand, which we will announce soon.

“Tide started operations in January 2017 with the mission to deliver a wholesale rethink of SME banking in the UK. The grant and our investment plans mean we will create a genuine challenger to the oligopoly that has dominated and failed the UK SME market for too long. We want to thank the BCR for the confidence they have shown in Tide and ClearBank which we intend to repay many times over.”

Charles McManus, Group CEO of ClearBank, said: “We are delighted that the BCR has recognised the strength of our partnership with Tide in awarding us this grant. We both have the ambition to revolutionise banking services provided to the SME market.  ClearBank is committed to improving SME outcomes in the UK by leveraging innovative partnerships with leading technology and financial services providers in accordance with our banking as a service model. Our partnership with Tide will provide the SME banking market with an innovative and compelling customer proposition, using our highly agile technology.”

Tide offers its growing army of members business banking without monthly, weekly or annual, or card usage fees. The only costs are for transfers from non-Tide accounts, ATM use and cash deposits at the post office. Unlike traditional banks, a new Tide account can be up and running in as little as five minutes rather than what can be weeks on the high street.   As well as balances and payments, Tide can be fully integrated into accounting systems.  Tide was among the first to launch with Xero's new bank feed integration.”