Solving micro business late payments

解决小微企业逾期付款问题

• 批准号: 830258
• 金额: $ 101.94万
• 依托单位: BANKIFI TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Innovation Loans
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=830258
• 关键词: Solving; micro; business; late; payments

There are 5.5M sole traders and micro businesses in the UK making up 99% of all private companies and 60% of all employees. Even prior to the pandemic micros were waiting an average of 56 days to get paid even though their invoicing terms are typically 30 days or less. According to the Federation of Small Business, this causes up to 50,000 businesses to fail annually. Since Covid the average days to get paid has leapt to 71 putting even more pressure on this beleaguered sector.Our research has shown us that micros are very reluctant to borrow, but have been forced into taking bounce back loans, overdrafts and increased credit card debt, exacerbating the existing late payments challenge. Increased debt is now the key area of focus as many of those businesses would not have been eligible for loans under normal circumstances and are likely to have significant challenges in servicing them and paying them down. Facilitating collections to prevent significant write-offs will certainly be in line with government policy.Our project is to specifically help micros in solving the late payment challenge by utilising technology. At its core is the fundamental principle of "choice". We aim to reach as many micros as possible by making our service accessible from any:1. personal or business current account,2. accounting package, and3. payment typewith a mobile-first strategy reflecting the needs of time-poor business owners to have access from wherever and whenever they need to.Prior to Covid, working capital finance has been the entry point to solving the liquidity problem caused by late payments, but with extra debt on the balance sheet the emphasis needs to shift to collecting payments with working capital finance only needed as a secondary option.Our initiative will expand our collections service, Incom£ing, to include direct debit and card payments to help businesses automate their collections as well as increase our sales and marketing efforts to onboard as many micros as is possible in the shortest period of time.The benefits to micros will be clearly measurable:1. We will help micros reduce collection times.2. We will ensure that personal current account holders can use their existing account to run their sole trading business, reducing their operating costs.3. We will ensure that every micro has access to our service from any bank account accounting package, and collections using any payment type.

英国有550万个体经营者和微型企业，占所有私营公司的99%，占所有员工的60%。即使在大流行之前，微型企业平均要等56天才能收到付款，尽管他们的发票期限通常为30天或更短。根据小企业联合会的数据，这导致每年多达50，000家企业倒闭。自新型冠状病毒疫情爆发以来，获得付款的平均天数已跃升至71天，这给这个陷入困境的行业带来了更大的压力。我们的研究表明，微型企业非常不愿意借款，但被迫接受反弹贷款、透支和增加的信用卡债务，加剧了现有的逾期付款挑战。债务增加现在是重点关注的领域，因为这些企业中有许多在正常情况下没有资格获得贷款，在偿还贷款和偿还贷款方面可能面临重大挑战。促进收款以防止重大注销肯定符合政府政策。我们的项目是专门帮助微型企业利用技术解决延迟付款的挑战。其核心是“选择”的基本原则。我们的目标是通过使我们的服务可以从任何地方访问，以达到尽可能多的微型：1.个人或商业往来账户，2.会计软件包，和3.支付类型采用移动优先战略，反映了时间紧迫的企业主需要随时随地进行访问。在新冠肺炎疫情之前，营运资本融资一直是解决延迟付款造成的流动性问题的切入点，但由于资产负债表上有额外的债务，重点需要转移到收款上，而营运资金融资只需要作为次要选择。我们的收款服务Incom£ing，包括直接借记卡和卡支付，以帮助企业自动化他们的收款，以及增加我们的销售和营销工作，在最短的时间内尽可能多的微型机上。我们将帮助微型减少收集时间。2.确保个人活期存款账户持有人可以用现有账户办理个人独资交易业务，降低经营成本。我们将确保每一个微都可以从任何银行账户会计包访问我们的服务，并使用任何支付类型的收款。