Atom bank has received a £10m grant as part of the Capability and Innovation Fund Pool C grants announced by the board of Banking Competition Remedies (BCR).
The grant process is designed to facilitate the expansion of business offerings to include lending or payments services to SMEs and encourage competition in business banking.
Atom bank plans to use the funding to transform banking for small businesses and deliver an additional £3bn of business financing by March 2024.
The specialist bank will deliver a digital toolkit to support SMEs, create 70 jobs in the North East and invest £15m of its own money alongside the award.
“As a fast-growing new entrant, we know just how hard it is to get a business off the ground and we recognise that the needs of smaller businesses are different from those of larger firms,” said Mark Mullen, chief executive and co-founder at Atom bank (pictured above).
Other recipients of grants were SME lender iwoca, business payments platform Modulr Finance and global payments platform Currencycloud, which all received £10m.
Mike Laven, CEO at Currencycloud, added: "Traditional models of international payments have long failed small businesses, who have limited access to really great cross-border banking options.
"The industry has been so far focused on improving the experience when paying suppliers."
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