The 17th of May has been marked out in calendars across England ever since Boris Johnson announced his roadmap to easing lockdown restrictions earlier this year. This isn’t just great news for people across the country who can now sit inside the pub when it rains, plan a staycation or attend a gym class, it should also be a positive step for small businesses. In the first week of pubs, restaurants and non-essential retail being able to open their terraces and doors to the public, it was estimated that spending was above pre-pandemic levels. Over the course of the pandemic Britons’ have…
Author: sme-admin
New VAT rules for e-commerce will be rolled out across the EU in July to simplify life for businesses that sell goods online while ensuring a more level playing field with online companies from outside the EU. These rules will be particularly significant for anyone selling goods online or running an online marketplace. The aim is to: ensure that VAT is paid where goods are consumed or the services paid for are provided; create a uniform VAT regime for cross-border supplies of goods and services; offer businesses a simple system to declare and pay their VAT in the EU, using…
Winners of awards, including Nobel Prizes, the Turing Award, Oscars and Golden Globes, will be able to live and work in the UK more easily under reforms being introduced by the Home Office. From May 5th individuals who have won prestigious awards from across the sciences, humanities, engineering, the arts and digital technology will be able to take advantage of changes to the Global Talent visa route. Currently, people on the Global Talent route have to successfully apply to one of six endorsing bodies. The new fast track route launching today would allow applicants who hold a qualifying prize to fast track…
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday (Wednesday 5 May 2021) announced the appointment of Indro Mukerjee as the new Chief Executive of Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. Indro Mukerjee is a highly experienced technology executive and business leader with a track record of leading innovation and technology commercialisation at businesses of all sizes across the world – from publicly listed and multinational corporations to new venture and private equity backed technology companies. Mukerjee will take up the post immediately and will be tasked with transitioning Innovate UK from a grant funding body to an agency focused on driving economic growth…
Consumer payments have come a long way in recent years to the point where we can now make payments and split bills in an instant by tapping phones, watches or even rings on card machines. At the heart of this transformation is a new wave of challenger banks that have created a smarter, more personalised banking experience. They go beyond traditional bank accounts and offer analytics which allow us to see a breakdown of where our money is going, and enable us to split our funds across multiple pots to save for specific things. They have sleek onboarding processes, beautiful…
A new salary-advance solution, borofree has launched in the UK offering employers the opportunity to provide staff with an interest free, charge free and cost-free method of borrowing against their next pay cheque. borofree works with employers to provide staff with access to a proportion of their salary ahead of payday to purchase products and services through retailer-specific gift cards. Inspired by the need for a customer-friendly financial solution, borofree was developed to enable employers to support hard working employees improve their financial wellbeing and confidence. From those budgeting for household goods at the start of each month, to professionals…
Diginex Solutions has launched DiginexESG to help make ESG reporting faster, easier and more affordable for companies of all sizes and reporting experience. The platform also enables large organisations to collect ESG data in their B2B client network, allowing them to make more educated decisions around risk, lending, and value. Traditionally, ESG reporting has been conducted by large organisations with big budgets and resources. With pressure increasing on companies of all sizes to report their data to customers, investors and regulators, Diginex Solutions are making ESG reporting accessible and mainstream. SMEs to large organisations need an efficient and accurate way…
Demonstrating the importance of small business to the UK’s COVID-19 recovery, a new report from Xero, shows 410,000 small business jobs need to be created by the end of the year to return to the pre-pandemic jobs trajectory. Using anonymised and aggregated data of hundreds of thousands of customer records as part of the Xero Small Business Insights (XSBI) programme, developed in partnership with Accenture, The Job Ahead report suggested that UK small business job losses have been almost double those in big businesses. With small businesses employing over half of the UK workforce, a strong sector recovery will be needed to achieve significant…
For entrepreneurs who run their own mid-size company the fact is that one day it will need to be sold. Often, they haven’t accepted that fact, or even thought about it yet, and as such are not well-prepared when it comes to that day. Are you running your business for shareholder value, or just for profit? The answers will decide whether the business outlives you and whether you get a great return for years of hard work. Did you know that it typically takes a company 4-5 years to be ready for sale, so even if the notion to sell…
Today, Capalona, the UK online business finance broker, has launched its SME bank account comparison engine. The Fintech company based in Wales has already helped thousands of SMEs secure finance and compare products to support business growth. Capalona says its new search engine allows customers to compare business bank account providers to find the best-fit bank account for their business needs – ultimately helping them keep on top of their company’s finances. Capalona works with an extensive range of business bank account providers in the UK, including Cashplus, CardOneMoney, Tide, Revolut, and ANNA, and the comparison search engine is straightforward…