In an exclusive interview with Specialist Banking, Oliver Prill, CEO at Tide (pictured above), revealed that the ClearBank Tide Business Banking proposition had agreed with the Banking Competition Remedies to achieve at least an 8% business current account market share by 2023, although it will target 10%.

He added that the SME digital challenger bank was targeting the 5.4 million SMEs that were not mid-sized.

It currently has a 1.2% overall market share, with nearly 70,000 users.

Tide recently formed a partnership with ClearBank, which last week secured £60m of funding through the Banking Competition Remedies.

The funding will be released in tranches for every percentage market share gained.

ClearBank will provide the payments infrastructure, while Tide will supply the customer-facing platform.

Tide is weeks away from moving its customers to FSCS-protected current accounts, run by ClearBank, instead of the current set-up, whereby the current accounts are provided by PrePay Solutions.

Tide also plans to develop a trial switching service via Open Banking whereby customers can operate their old bank account alongside Tide through the Tide app.

“So, you can try Tide, and presumably then … either you become a secondary switcher, so in perpetuity you leave your other account open,” said Oliver.

“Or you say: ‘Spending money on that other account with zero benefit, why not shut it?’

“So that’s what we call trial switching.”

It will then look at introducing special onboarding teams.

These will allow customers to access physical teams, which will support customers during the switching process.

However, Oliver doesn’t think the switching product on its own is enough.

“Just because we offer a great switching service, doesn’t make anyone switch.

“It just removes the fear of switching.

“Therefore, the next thing we’ve done is [introduce] very powerful attractors.

“Powerful attractors are really what can save you time, so we’re going to massively upgrade our game on administration, so payroll tools, accounting tools etc.

“[And] we will enter the acquiring market … because, basically, SMEs are getting a very raw deal on that one.”