Fintech is often thought of as a consumer proposition to help people buy products, transfer money, or get personal loans quickly and easily.
However, a variety of fintech firms are shaking up the business world too, in an attempt to make your firm’s finances more streamlined, transparent, and secure.
From taking payments, to book keeping, to a complete digital banking solution, here are some of the fintech products that can help boost your business.
Ixaris
Ixaris offers payment solutions for a variety of sectors, including financial services and travel.
For financial services firms, it offers "white labelling" facilities. This allows firms to offer online payments with their own branding using Ixaris technology. It can be hosted either in a firm’s data centre, or in the cloud, depending on the facilities available.
Ixaris facilitates payments to suppliers around the world, and has a "plug and play" API option. It allows firms to receive card payments from Visa and Mastercard.
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It also offers rebates for firms, typically in the travel sector, that meet a quota due to the high level of transactions they complete.
Atom
Having received its banking license in 2015, online-only bank Atom is currently open to applications from customers, and will be rolling out its products in 2016. This will include business accounts. It promises to use data to provide a better banking experience for its customers.
Towards the end of 2015, the Durham based bank announced that it would be using biometric security to help better protect its customers.
The bank was co-founded by Anthony Thomson, who quit Metro Bank, the challenger bank he co-founded, in order help start Atom.
Ratesetter
Peer-to-peer lender Ratestetter offers business loans. These are supported by the Government-backed British Business Bank. It treats business loans under £25,000 as personal loans, but also offers full business loans for between £25,000 and £1m directly to a business.
The firm says it can make small business loans available to recipients within 48 hours, which can be a major boost to small firms who need cash quickly.
Loans are for between six months and five years, and can be cancelled within 14 days without any charge being incurred.
Freshbooks
For many firms, particularly smaller firms and start-ups, keeping the books up to date and in order can be a nightmare, and they often think they have to deploy very expensive solutions in order to do it properly.
Freshbooks offers a full suite of bookkeeping services, including invoicing, expensing, tracking and reporting. It is available for a 30 day free trial. Payments can be received using credit cards or PayPal, and billing can be done in any currency.
Invoices can be tracked from the first time they are drafted to until they are paid, and other useful facilities include automatic payment reminders to encourage late paying clients – critical for small firms struggling to keep their cash flow going.
Wirecard
Wirecard is a full-service provider of global electronic payments. It offers a check out package for an online shop, credit card acceptance and processing for merchants, as well as SEPA direct debit processing.
For those without a debit or credit card, Wirecard offers the facility to make payments directly through a bank account, increasing the amount of people who can purchase your products using Wirecard facilities.
