Tide starting to offer payment processing for SMEs in partnership with Adyen

On its mission to help small businesses streamline their finances, SME banking service Tide plans to launch the ability for its account holders to accept customer card payments.

The feature will initially launch as Tide Payment Links, with account holders able to include a payment link on their invoices.

Payment processing will be handled by Adyen, the $73bn Dutch payments group, with the two fintechs announcing a partnership today to enable the feature.

“Accepting card payments can be difficult and expensive for one-man-bands such as freelancers and contractors, Tide Payment Links will be a simple option to add to invoices and we hope it will help small business owners to get paid more quickly,” said Mark Hazzard, VP of financial services at Tide.

Hazzard also teased that the tie-up with Adyen to offer payment links is just the start of Tide’s ambitions in the payments space.

“We look forward to introducing many more payment acceptance products to Tide members in due course, offering a wide array of options for small businesses to receive payments.”

While the partnership is clearly powerful, several questions remain. Tide hasn’t announced when payment links will launch and, importantly, what kind of fee will be charged for the processing, merely hinting that it will be “low cost”.

By offering payment links, Tide is further encroaching on accountancy platforms like Sage and Xero. With more payment processing options in the future, this could challenge dedicated SME payment firms like Stripe and Checkout.com.