Santander UK begins roll out of app for payments, cash flow management and invoicing to support UK companies

  • Roll out of CashFlow Manager app begins for selected Santander UK Corporate and Commercial Banking customers 
  • CashFlow Manager enables businesses to view account balances from multiple banks in one place and collect payments from customers instantly using QR codes
  • The app is among the first of its kind to be offered by a UK bank and has been created in partnership with fintech, tomato pay

 

Santander UK has begun the roll-out of an innovative new mobile app, built using open banking technology, for its Corporate and Commercial Banking clients. The app provides Santander UK’s clients with a ‘single view’ of numerous account balances and transactions across their different banks. Created by tomato pay1, an open banking fintech for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the CashFlow Manager app is also designed to speed up payments through QR codes and simplify invoicing.

CashFlow Manager displays in one neat location all balances and transactions for accounts businesses hold with their various banks. Santander UK’s clients who use the app can link and view their banking details for up to 98% of UK banks.

The app analyses each business’ data to provide it with categorised insights into its spending, for example how its payroll expenditure on a given month compares to its average over a prescribed period. By analysing a business’ transactions, CashFlow Manager also assesses its future cash flow position to provide detailed forecasts.

Speeding up the payments process is at the heart of the app, and among its key features is a QR code-based payments collection facility. CashFlow Manager enables businesses to request payments from their customers by showing a unique QR code either in person or online. When customers use the QR code to pay, the payment is settled immediately in the business’ bank account. 

Another of the app’s key features is an invoice processing facility, which is designed to save businesses time by streamlining and semi-automating what is otherwise a manual and time-consuming process. CashFlow Manager embeds the elements of quoting, contract creation and invoicing for businesses to work with their suppliers. It integrates contract acceptance and payment instructions to speed up the process by which companies do business with, and pay, their suppliers.

The app is being tested with selected Santander UK Corporate and Commercial Banking customers with a view to it being launched more widely to customers following the initial roll-out phase. Santander UK is one of the first banks to offer this type of open banking-based app with cash flow forecasting, transaction categorisation and QR code-based payments to UK companies.

John Baldwin, Head, Commercial Clients, Santander UK said: “SMEs are working incredibly hard to get on the road to recovery from the pandemic. The CashFlow Manager app is designed to help them by removing the manual and time-consuming workload involved with day-to-day banking so they can instead focus on running and growing their business. The QR-code payment collection and invoicing features of the app also have brilliant potential to speed up payments to businesses.”

Nicholas Heller, CEO and Co-founder, tomato pay, said: “Together with Santander UK, we’ve created an app that joins two critical elements – cash flow management and payments – to give businesses back their time and money otherwise spent on unnecessary admin and payment processing fees. After a tough year for UK businesses, we wanted to create something with a tangible impact, giving them financial freedom from the minute they log into the CashFlow Manager app.”

More information about the CashFlow Manager app is available on Santander’s website or from Santander’s local relationship team.


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Notes to editors
1) For more information about tomato pay, visit: www.tomatopay.co.uk/

Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. At 31 June 2021, the bank had around 20,900 employees and serves around 14 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.

Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in the Europe, North America and South America regions, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Its purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising over €120 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of the first half of 2021, Banco Santander had €1.1 trillion in total funds, 150 million customers, of which 24.2 million are loyal and 45.3 million are digital, 10,000 branches and 190,000 employees.

tomato pay is a simple, QR-code based payments and invoice app used by businesses and sole traders who want to receive payments in a fairer, cheaper and more ethical way. Businesses and sole traders can benefit from a low-cost QR-code payments solution with no hidden fees, which can save money and time compared to current payment systems. It offers instant access to money as cash settlement happens almost immediately. It also offers access to all bank accounts and transactions in one place. Businesses and sole traders will also be able to benefit from a quick and easy invoice solution later in the year. Invoices can be created within the app, with the option to give automated discounts, late penalties and send nudges to remind customers and clients to pay. Plus, businesses can connect their bank account as digital payments are embedded within the invoice from the app - so no need to send bank details, and businesses will receive money owed instantly into their account. Everyone can support their local communities and help them thrive by paying their neighbourhood businesses in a cashless, faster, cheaper, hassle-free way.