Business savings
A business savings check reads your company's bank transactions through open banking and compares what you pay for banking, cards, insurance, energy and international payments with other providers.
A business savings check reads your company's bank transactions through open banking and compares what you pay for banking, cards, insurance, energy and international payments with other providers.
It runs in the same Swoop account as a funding search, and you decide whether to move anything.
A year of business bank statements shows two kinds of outgoing. The first is the cost of the work itself: stock, materials, wages and subcontractors. The second is the cost of being in business at all: the bank's own charges, card fees and interest, insurance premiums, gas and electricity, and the margin a bank or payment firm adds each time it changes pounds into another currency.
The second group shares three features. Each is a contract that renews or carries on by itself: an energy contract can roll on to a new fixed term or move to out-of-contract rates, an insurance policy renews at a new premium, and a bank can change its tariff after giving notice. Each is priced in a way that makes comparison hard: unit rates and standing charges, exchange rates with the margin built in, premiums that depend on a sum insured you declared years ago. And each is paid by direct debit or card, so the money leaves every month without anyone in the business signing anything.
These costs can rise without a decision being made. A business that agreed a fair energy price three years ago and let the contract lapse may now be paying out-of-contract rates, which Ofgem describes as more expensive than fixed-term contracts. A company that moved to larger premises may still be insured on the old rebuild figure. A firm that pays one European supplier every month may never have asked what margin its bank adds to the euro rate.
The Start a funding search button opens a Swoop account for your business. The same account runs funding searches and the savings check, and it can link to Companies House and to your accounting software.
You choose your bank and approve read-only access in your bank's own app or online banking. Swoop is registered with the FCA as an account information service provider, reference 833145.
Swoop sorts the outgoings by category and compares them with the providers it works with for bank accounts, credit cards, insurance, energy and international payments. For energy you also upload your latest bill, so the tariff and the VAT charged can be checked.
Where another account, card, policy, tariff or payment provider costs less for your pattern of spending, you see the figures and decide. Each new provider runs its own application and checks before anything changes.
The comparison covers the providers on Swoop's platform. Swoop states that it receives commission from some of the providers it features.
Open banking lets you give a regulated firm access to a payment account without handing over your login details. You approve the connection at your own bank, which confirms it is you with its usual security steps. An account information service, which is what the savings check uses, reads account details, balances and transactions. Making a payment from your account is a separate regulated service, called payment initiation, and the savings check does not use it.
Access lasts until you withdraw it or it lapses. Under rules the FCA set in policy statement PS21/19, the provider must ask you to reconfirm your consent at least every 90 days. If you do not reconfirm, it must stop reading the account.
Bank data shows what left the account, to whom and when. It does not show the terms behind each payment. An energy direct debit gives the monthly amount; it does not give the contract end date, whether you are on a deemed rate or what commission a broker added to the unit rate. An insurance direct debit gives the premium; it does not give the sum insured or the excess. Swoop asks for your latest energy bill for this reason, and its insurance team asks about the cover you hold.
The check also cannot see costs paid from somewhere else. A director who pays a company bill on a personal card, or a business that runs part of its spending through a second bank, leaves gaps in the picture unless every business account is connected.
Price is one test among several. A cheaper bank account with nowhere near you to pay in cash, an insurance policy with a higher excess or narrower cover, or a payment firm whose customer money is safeguarded under FCA rules but sits outside the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, can cost the business more when something goes wrong.
Lenders read the same bank data. A funding search through Swoop can use the connected account to show lenders your turnover and cash flow, as described in how open banking is used in a loan application.
A fixed-term energy contract may carry an exit fee if you leave before its switching window. An insurance policy cancelled part-way through may return less than a pro-rata share of the premium. A bank overdraft has to be agreed with the new bank, or repaid, before a current account switch.
Account fees, interest on balances, deposit protection at £120,000 and switching through the Current Account Switch Service.
Read more →Who owes the balance on a company card, where section 75 stops, and what carrying a balance costs.
Read more →Contract types, Ofgem's rules for smaller businesses, broker commission, rollover rates and the taxes on the bill.
Read more →Transfer fees, the exchange rate margin, forward contracts and how a payment firm protects your money.
Read more →Compulsory employers' liability and motor cover, the other policies, and how the average clause cuts a claim.
Read more →The firm reading your data must be authorised or registered with the FCA, and you can check it on the FCA register before you connect. You approve the connection at your own bank, and you never give the firm your banking login. Swoop is registered as an account information service provider, reference 833145. The access reads balances and transactions, and you can withdraw it at any time, either with the provider or through your bank's access dashboard.
An account information service can read your account but cannot make payments from it. Making a payment through open banking is a different regulated service, called payment initiation, which needs its own consent each time. The savings check uses read access. If you decide to switch a provider, the payments to the new provider are set up by you or by the new provider with your agreement.
Cancel the connection with the provider that holds it, through the dashboard the Open Banking standards require it to offer, or cancel it at your bank, which keeps an access dashboard listing every firm that can read your accounts. Access also stops if you do not reconfirm your consent when the provider asks, which FCA rules require at least every 90 days.
Reading transactions through open banking is not a credit search. A credit check comes later, if you apply to a new provider for something that involves credit, such as a business credit card or an overdraft with a new bank. That provider tells you before it searches, and the search can be recorded on the company's credit file and, where a director's details are checked, on the director's file.
Swoop's UK platform compares business bank accounts, business savings accounts, business credit cards, business insurance, business energy and international money transfers. The comparison covers the providers on Swoop's platform, and Swoop states that it receives commission from some of them.
Finance is subject to status and to the lender’s terms. A personal guarantee makes you liable for the company’s debt if it does not repay, and it can be enforced against your own assets, including your home. Nothing here is a personal recommendation.
Funding searches run on Swoop’s platform. Swoop Finance Limited is a credit broker and not a lender, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 936513). Buzz Accounting Ltd introduces businesses to Swoop and may receive a fee from Swoop when funding is arranged. Business funding is separate from the financial advice Equity & General Financial Services Limited gives through this website. Finance is subject to status, and a lender may ask a director for a personal guarantee.
If a lender asks you to guarantee the company’s borrowing, our advisers can advise on life cover for that debt.