Exciting shifts are happening in UK fintech, especially around online payments for small businesses:
1. Ryft raises £5.7m to simplify split‑payments
Edinburgh–based Ryft just secured $7.3m Series A to power real-time, multi-payee transactions for marketplaces and bookings a game-changer for UK peer‑to‑peer and SME platforms
2. UK open banking still grows even vs card rails
March saw 27 million open‑banking payments in the UK, though that’s dwarfed by nearly 2 billion card transactions in February. Volume’s climbing fast, but public awareness still trails on pay‑by‑bank options.
3. Santander teams with Worldpay
This new tie-up bolsters secure, scalable merchant payments across the UK – signalling that major banks are leaning into low-cost, integrated online payments.
Why this matters for SMEs:
- Real-time, low-fee rails (Ryft, open banking) challenge card-based cost models.
- Mainstream traction (Santander + Worldpay) could push pay-by-bank into everyday use.
- Consumer education and merchant adoption are still critical hurdles.
For anyone exploring cheap online payment options in the UK, I’ve pulled together five of the lowest-cost systems complete with features, support levels, and pricing breakdowns, in this article:
5 of the cheapest online payment systems for businesses in the UK
Would love insights from those testing these tools: are you seeing quicker settlements or better margins? And how is customer uptake compared to traditional card payments?