Exclusive: Cashplus Bank’s next-gen business credit card adds ‘cardless’ payment and BNPL options

Millions of consumers and small businesses will know the pain of being turned away when trying to pay with a credit card, but for its SME customers, Cashplus Bank has a solution.

The bank is about to announce a next-generation business credit card, AltFi can exclusively reveal, which is the first credit card to come complete with a sort code and account number that enables direct bank-to-bank faster payments.

Cashplus says this makes its credit card more akin to a credit “account” that businesses can use flexibly to pay suppliers.

“We know that flexibility is crucial for small businesses, especially at a time when companies are facing rising costs,” said Paul Schooley, chief commercial officer at Cashplus.

“Business needs can change very quickly and the ability to manage cashflow by changing the terms of a loan or by using credit to cover a bill that can’t be paid by card could make all the difference to a growing SME.”

The card also uses open banking to offer guaranteed pricing, meaning customers can quickly check exactly what interest rate they’ll get before going through a lengthy application process.

Finally, Cashplus is adding some buy now, pay later-like features, with the ability to increase the repayment period on purchases from ‘up to 56 days’ to ‘up to 117 days’ for a monthly fee, and to restructure their credit card balance as an instalment loan if needed.

Development of these new features was funded by the remainder of Cashplus Bank’s £5m Banking Competition Remedies grant that the business won in 2021.

“UK small businesses provide the vast majority of private sector jobs and will be crucial to growing the economy out of recession, yet they continue to be poorly served by incumbent banks, so we want to offer flexible credit, tailored to their needs, and offer a better deal through our guaranteed pricing tools,” added Schooley.

As well as the above new features, the credit card also includes all of Cashplus’s standard features like payment tracking, categorisation and 1 per cent cashback on all spending.