On the 14th of April 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority announced its Open Finance roadmap. It represents the next stage in the UK’s smart data revolution, building on the foundations laid by Open Banking. By expanding data sharing across a wider range of financial products, from lending and savings to mortgages, it aims to unlock faster decision-making, smoother approvals, and more personalised products for both consumers and SMEs.
At its core, the ambition is clear: to remove friction from financial services. Faster, data-driven approvals could make it easier for small businesses, particularly those that don’t have a standard credit track record (like newer businesses with little credit history), to secure the funding they need, when they need it.
On paper, this is a meaningful step forward, tackling a long-standing barrier in SME finance and opening the door to greater competition, innovation, and growth across the sector. However, while Open Finance is improving how quickly decisions are made, it leaves a more practical and immediate challenge largely untouched: access to working capital.
The real problem: access to finance isn’t the same as immediate liquidity
The current financial landscape highlights the disconnect within the FCA’s Open Finance roadmap: while the ability to secure funding is being prioritised, it is the speed at which businesses access liquidity that ultimately determines whether a business can withstand day-to-day pressures.
Many SMEs today can technically secure finance but still struggle to meet short-term obligations such as payroll, supplier payments, and tax liabilities, all of which depend on available cash. The most recent Business and Trade Committee Small Business Strategy report (UK Parliament, 2026) suggests that SMEs are owed tens of billions of pounds in unpaid invoices across the economy, with late customer payments becoming a major and systemic problem across the UK business landscape.
Further industry data shows that 90% of UK businesses experienced late payments over the past year, with nearly half reporting that delays are becoming more frequent. On average, payments now arrive more than 30 days beyond agreed terms, effectively locking up working capital for an additional month. The scale of the issue is also reflected at a macro level, with late payments estimated to cost the UK economy £11 billion annually and contributing to the closure of around 38 businesses every day.
In past years, the causes of late payments shifted from simple administrative delays to deeper-rooted financial pressures within supply chains. In many cases, businesses are not being paid late by accident. Ultimately, they’re being paid late because the cash is not there or because it’s deliberately being preserved elsewhere in the supply network.
The impact on smaller businesses is more acute than ever. With shorter payment terms and limited cash reserved, micro and SME businesses are disproportionately exposed to these delays, creating a structural imbalance in cash flow.
Faster decisions, slower money: why SMEs still struggle to access cash flow
Over the last 10 years, fintech has evolved from a niche trend into a transformative force in the global financial landscape, reshaping how financial decisions are made. However, this acceleration in decision-making has not been matched by a similar shift in how funds are processed and settled post-transaction.
In reality, the movement of money depends on a mix of existing and modern payment systems. While faster payments enable near instant transfers, widely used systems – such as Bacs – still operate on a three-day settlement cycle, meaning funds can take several days to fully clear.
At a structural level, this is because payments involve more than just sending money. Behind every transaction are two hidden steps: “payment sent” and “money available”, also known as clearing and settlement. Clearing validates and routes the payment instruction, while settlement is the point at which funds are actually transferred. In many cases, it’s the separation between the steps that introduces the delay. The instruction moves first, passing through multiple intermediaries, while the money itself follows much later, taking as much as hours or even days.
As a result, there is a growing disconnect between how quickly financial decisions can be made and how quickly those decisions can be executed in practice due to funds being constrained by processing cycles, intermediaries and settlement windows. For SMEs, this means cash is held in a limbo – technically available, but not yet accessible.
Why faster money matters more than faster approvals
Finance is inherently reactive, stepping in to fill gaps once they have already emerged. Cash flow, by contrast, dictates whether those gaps exist at all. When payments are delayed, businesses are forced to bridge the shortfall through overdrafts, short-term lending or invoice finance, introducing additional costs.
This is where payment providers are increasingly focused – real-time payment rails, improved settlement frameworks and reduced reliance on legacy systems that delay the availability of funds. The increasing importance of instant payments reflects a clear demand for greater control and visibility over cash flow.
The next phase of fintech will be less about creating new financial products and more about making existing infrastructure work more effectively in practice, with an increased focus on execution.
The future of Open Finance must focus on liquidity
The FCA’s Open Finance roadmap is an important step towards a more connected and data-driven financial ecosystem, but faster approvals do not translate into faster access to the cash SMEs rely on for day-to-day operations and cash flow management.
Responsibility for closing that gap now sits across the wider payments ecosystem. As real-time payment rails, improved settlement processes and modern infrastructure continue to develop, the focus is shifting towards ensuring that funds are not only approved quickly, but delivered and made available in real time.
Ultimately, Open Finance will not be judged by how quickly businesses can access credit, but by how quickly that credit becomes spendable liquidity in practice.
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