Virgin Money partners with Codat to boost business bank offering

Virgin Money has partnered with financial and accounting software provider Codat to strengthen its digital business banking offering.

Codat’s financial technology offering would facilitate the easy and secure exchange of data between Virgin Money and its business bank customers.

Under the partnership, Codat will undertake the responsibility of driving the insight, which will be offered by the Virgin Money to the customers as part of its SME Wellness Tracker, planned to be launched later this year.

Also, the partnership is exploring further applications of technology to advance the bank’s Working Capital Solutions for SMEs, and data-driven insights for relationship managers.

Virgin Money Group business director Gavin Opperman said: “Our Working Capital Health proposition will be unique to the business banking market and Codat is an important ingredient which will help us realise our ambitions in this area.

“A key part of our approach is collaboration with external partners like Codat, bringing expertise and knowledge to help build a compelling customer proposition.

“By introducing clever, intuitive software, customers will have a new level of insight to help them understand their own business, allowing them to manage efficiently and grow their operations.”

Virgin said that its partnership with Codat is part of its Working Capital Health proposition, which aims to transform its existing business current account.

Also, the partnership will address the bank’s commitment related to the recent £35m award from the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) Capability and Innovation Fund.

Codat is a UK-based start-up established in London in 2017, which provides solutions that connect the internal systems of small businesses to banks, fintechs and other financial institutions, facilitating the flow of business data back and forth in real-time.

The company received £7.5m in awards from the BCR Capability and Innovation Fund to commercialise financial technology for SMEs.

Also, Codat received investment from Index Ventures in 2020 and announced several new commercial and data partnerships including with Microsoft.

Codat CEO Pete Lord said: “We’re thrilled to be working with the team at Virgin Money because they recognise the importance of building a bank with the best data infrastructure from the outset.

“Our API offers many powerful use cases that strengthen the relationship between bank and customer. It is a foundation for the future of banking and a journey we are very excited to partner on with Virgin Money.”