Last year, tomato pay (formerly Fractal as heard on the podcast) CEO and co-founder, Nicholas Heller joined fintech stalwarts, Tide’s Oliver Prill and Funding Xchange’s Katrin Herrling, with EY hosts Shalini Shan and Tom Bull on their Fintech Beyond Borders podcast focusing on what's happening in the fintech sector.
Nicholas Heller spoke about tomato pay's Banking BCR Capabilities and Innovation Fund win alongside untied (the UK’s accounting app).
“So we really thought about the bid and proposition, taking a lens solely on the consumer and what exists in the market.
The pandemic had started to cut into the economy at that point, Q2 there was more than a 20% drop in GDP that was largely affecting sole traders and SMEs that makeup 4.4 million of the businesses in the UK. These sole traders are traditionally plumbers, cabbies, contractors, designers and it goes across many, many professions of the fast-growing gig economy.
So we looked at some of the problems they face daily and thought okay well how can we address those such as late payments that result in the closure of 50,000 businesses each year, and cost the UK economy up to £2.5 billion. Or high transactions fee; the fact that card-based payment fees cost more than four to 20 times more than a simple bank transfer, and settlement takes a crushing seven to ten days. Plus they experience challenges around expensive tax admin costs £2.6 billion per year managing taxes and paying advisors up to £500”.
To hear more, you can listen to the insightful podcast that is now live on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and over at the EY website.
Community has never been as important as it is today, and watching the business and sole trader community struggle throughout the past year has spurred us on to take a more community-led approach to our business.
tomato pay is a simple, QR-code based payments and invoice app powered by Open Banking and built on our tomato pay API platform which offers both AIS and PIS capabilities.
Businesses and sole traders can benefit from our low-cost QR-code payments solution with no hidden fees, which saves them money compared to their current payment systems, gives them instant access to their money as cash settlement happens almost immediately, and access to all of their bank accounts in one place.
Businesses and sole traders can benefit from our quick and easy invoice solution. Invoices can be created within the app, with the option to give discounts and late penalties (pre-built into the app using gamification and behavioural science) and send nudges to remind customers and clients to pay. Plus, as you connect your bank account, payments are embedded within the app - so no need to give your bank details, and receive money owed instantly into your account.
Everyone can support their local communities thrive by paying their neighbourhood businesses in a cashless, hassle-free way.