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Swoop Finance Limited was awarded funding from the Banking Competition Remedies Fund (BCR) in 2019 (Pool D) and 2021 (Pool F). As part of the funding, Swoop set out a programme of initiatives to help drive innovation and improve the financial products and services which are available to SMEs.
Public commitments
As part of the award process, all companies agreed to public commitments which were published on the BCR website up until the first quarter of 2024. As BCR finished in December 2023, the companies awarded funding moved into an ‘informal phase’ where all remaining awardees have agreed to continue to report against outstanding public commitments.
Previous reporting and remaining public commitments
All of Swoop’s previous public commitment reports and updates can be found here. Going forward, all remaining public commitments will be updated on this web page each quarter.
Swoop’s outstanding deliverables as at 1 January 2024
| Public commitments – Pool D | Original delivery date | Forward narrative |
| Commitment 2 Swoop will further invest in its proprietary, cloud-based technology and API enabled platform to deliver a sophisticated all-in-one SME finance platform. This will include a fully integrated marketplace of lenders, grant agencies, equity investors and finance product providers. Where providers have APIs available, Swoop will integrate these into its platform to deliver real-time finance decisions to customers. Swoop will deliver this integrated marketplace by Q2 2020 and will continually add more finance provider APIs as they become available. This integrated marketplace will lead to increased demand and access to funding for SMEs. Swoop will onboard 540,000 SMEs (15% of the business current account market) with at least 270,000 SMEs applying for external finance generating £4.5billion in financing secured for those SMEs by Q4 2025. Of these 270,000 SMEs will apply for a number of finance products as follows: 60,000 will apply for grants and/or R&D Tax Credits through Swoop generating £540m in money awarded to 6,000 SMEs. 202,500 will apply for debt finance through Swoop generating £3.475billion in debt finance secured for 40,500 SMEs 30,000 will apply for equity finance generating £480m in money raised for 1050 SMEs. | 2025 | Swoop expects to deliver these commitments as set out in our forecast. As a business, we saw the biggest increase in customers, revenue and SaaS subscribers across the last quarter which gives us confidence we can continue to exceed commitments for commitment 2 going into 2024 and 2025. |
| Commitment 6 Swoop commits to helping UK SMEs save £108m on FX charges – mainly on market spread charged by banks. Swoop will end this practice by analysing the bespoke cost to SMEs of making international payments with their banks. We will compare bank rates received with independent provider rates in real time via API integration and identify the best value option for our customers. SMEs will be able to open and manage an independent FX account within Swoop and will be able to take advantage of currency trend notifications. Swoop will assist 91,500 SMEs to move their FX to an independent provider generating £108million in savings by Q4 2025. | 2025 | Swoop expects to achieve these commitments as usage of our embedded FX platform for SMEs and SaaS users rose 45% in the last 6 months. |
| Commitment 7 Swoop commits to helping SMEs reduce overdraft, unsecured loan rates, and bank fees by enabling SMEs to see the value of their account and easily switch away when rates are uncompetitive – overcharges are estimated at £650m pa. Swoop’s virtual CFO will be continuously scanning the market for better rates and service and will automate switching for individual or all financial products. Swoop will assist 82,000 SMEs to either switch their business current account with an overdraft to a new provider, or replace with a better value invoice finance facility, generating £196m in savings. Swoop will assist 25,770 SMEs to open additional accounts to perform particular functions such as fast payments and deposits generating £62m in savings. 24,000 SMEs will switch their utilities provider through Swoop generating £49m in savings. 13,500 SMEs will move their business insurance provider through Swoop generating £2m savings for those SMEs. These savings will be achieved across all categories by Q4 2025. | 2025 | Based on our current performance with regard to SMEs accessing savings across our SME and SaaS platforms, we would expect to achieve all commitments laid out against commitment 7. |
Public Commitments – Pool F | Original delivery date | Forward narrative |
| Commitment 1 Swoop will provide £200m of additional lending to UK SMEs by 2023 and will provide £1.8bn within 3 years. We will do this while delivering an outstanding digital customer experience and transparent compliant process. Swoop will provide £1.5bn of Swoop Growth Loans with an additional £300m provided by new institutional partnerships on boarded in 2023. The additional £1.8bn of Swoop Growth Loans will enable SMEs to leverage other sources of finance of £250m via the Swoop marketplace of grant, equity and loan providers. | 2025 | Swoop expects to achieve this commitment ahead of schedule. |
| Commitment 2 We will directly support more than 2,100 SMEs. We commit to directly supporting at least 2,100 SMEs over the next three years. Swoop will offer unsecured loans of £0.5m to £5m, subject to affordability. We expect the highest demand will be for loan amounts of £0.5m to £1m. | Swoop expects to achieve this commitment ahead of schedule. |
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