Atom Bank, iwoca, Modulr Finance and Currencycloud awarded £40m from RBS banking competition fund
Four UK financial firms have been handed a combined £40m today from an RBS fund aimed at boosting business banking competition.
Atom Bank, iwoca, Modulr Finance and Currencycloud were awarded the new capital as part of an effort to boost lending and payments services to SMEs in the UK.
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The board of Banking Competition Remedies (BCR), an independent body established to inject £775m from the RBS state aid alternative remedies package, received 76 applications for the latest round in its funding.
The fund is a condition of the government’s £45bn bailout of RBS during the financial crisis.
Last month Atom Bank raised £50m from investors, including under-fire fund manager Neil Woodford, partly to investment more in technology.
Godfrey Cromwell, BCR’s Chairman, said: “The four selected organisations address these areas and complete our portfolio of CIF grants.”
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He added: “Now the emphasis is on monitoring each recipient’s reporting and deliverables. Their public commitments can be seen on our website and performance against these will be regularly updated there.”
All four organisations has provided BCR with a set of public commitments stating what they will deliver with these funds, with progress of their pledges set to be published on a quarterly basis.