The challenger bank – which focuses on the 4.5 million sole traders, freelancers and contractors – promises plug and play accounting built in.

Countingup's business current account launch comes as the 31st January self-assessment tax deadline approaches for many sole traders.

The launch comes after it raised £555,000 in angel funding to finance the building of an accounting bank for UK SMEs.

The Countingup banking app allows sole traders to open current accounts via their smartphone in just five minutes.

The account comes complete with a UK sort code and account number, as well as a contactless Mastercard.

“Inception to launch of our business current account has taken just over four months and that's down to a fantastic team who are determined to make running your business as simple and as automated as possible,” said Tim Fouracre, founder and CEO of Countingup (pictured above).

Tim added that sole traders had been neglected by the mainstream banks, which focused on larger businesses.

“Often, sole traders are forced to use personal accounts because the process of setting up a business account is arduous, slow and expensive.

“This creates a huge headache when trying to make sense of your business finances.”

Countingup has also found that many small businesses do not use accounting software, which means that their only engagement with their business finances is at the end of the tax year.

Therefore, businesses and their accountants miss opportunities to improve profitability.

“We're launching today with banking,” added Tim.

“The accounting functionality will be rolled out throughout 2018.

“We're already providing a profit-and-loss report and automatically categorising transactions from the beginning.”

Businesses can join the waiting list by downloading the Countingup app from Google Play or the App Store, and the business current account is free to get started with.