Whether you know it as the ‘sharing’, ‘gig’ or ‘P2P’ economy, one thing is for certain: it’s growing at an astonishing rate.
With fleet-footed tech firms like Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit and Deliveroo leading the charge, the UK has seen a dramatic upsurge in demand from entrepreneurs and freelancers for flexible and responsive banking and lending services.
APS financial has always been at the heart of this new economy. It launched the UK’s first instant approval online business current account over a decade ago, and its first account for SMEs five years later, as part of its mission to transform the UK’s banking landscape.
APS was set up to challenge the traditional banking model ten years ago by CEO Rich Wagner. An expert in launching and managing high growth financial services businesses internationally, Rich has seen for himself what millions of small business owners go through to open a business bank account with a traditional bank – paperwork that can take half a day to complete followed by a four-week wait for a decision.
Any small business needs something simple, fast and smart, from a service provider that understands the need for immediacy. APS offers small businesses the chance to get their current accounts up and running within minutes, and it is this understanding that has enabled APS to help more than 70,000 start-ups and small businesses disenchanted with high street banks.
Although APS is not a bank, Rich and his team know banks very well – and know how they operate.
This knowledge has enabled them to launch products and services that have seen 60% year-on-year growth in demand since APS was founded. In the last full financial year, APS processed nearly £1.7 billion of funds loaded or ‘deposited’ by customers into their accounts. This is a 54% growth on the previous financial year and over seven times the volume processed five years ago.
The firm has also experienced a 93% year-on-year growth in demand for capital from SME businesses since October 2015, helping the company to turn £4.1m EBITDA profit in March 2016.
Last year also saw it issue a £5m bond offering. The money raised will be used to fund new credit products to supplement small business’ cash flow, expand existing consumer credit card lending to new markets, and increase overdrafts to existing customers.
Rich Wagner, CEO of APS financial: “The UK doesn’t need another bank. As an entrepreneur myself, I felt the frustration of dealing with financial service providers who didn’t seem to understand what I needed – and who didn’t get the urgency you have as a small firm.
“We have a decade of experience in this field and we’re powered by Mastercard. We make financial services secure and accessible to the grassroots of UK plc. The growth in demand for our services demonstrates the very real appetite for this.”
ENDS
For more information, interviews, photography or further commentary please contact Niki Wheeler, Alex Black or Alice Carr 020 7758 3900 or [email protected].