Tide member Atinuke Awe, who recently hosted a Mastercard Strive UK masterclass on ‘Accessing Alternative Finance’, as part of its Thrive Street event in Manchester, UK.
- Fintech makes it easier for women to start and run their own businesses at scale
- Tide ‘Women in Business' content series to inspire, inform and champion female members
- Members will be directed to Mastercard's Strive UK programme for free access to training and advice on tackling business challenges
Tide, the leading business financial platform, has announced it will help 200,000 female-led businesses start out by the end of 2027. It is the first fintech to support female-led SMEs on this scale.
The commitment is part of Tide's efforts to promote gender equality and remove barriers to female entrepreneurship. The move builds on an earlier milestone, when Tide announced it hadonboarded 100,000 female-led businesses - 10 months ahead of its 2023 end-of-year target1.
Women in Business content series
Female-led businesses make up just a fifth (20%) of all new businesses in the UK2. To address this and other challenges, Tide is launching a Women in Business content series to inspire, inform and champion female Tide members.
Tide members will be directed to Mastercard's Strive UK programme. Strive UK includes free access to training and targeted advice to tackle business challenges such as creating a social media strategy, setting up an online shop or accepting online payments.
A recent survey of 2,000 Tide members3 showed that more than half (53%) of women in the UK find it challenging to start their own business. They cited a lack of mentors, operational knowledge, and self-confidence as some of the most significant barriers. The survey showed business mentoring and learning and development are areas where female business owners need support.
Heather Cobb, SVP Member Engagement at Tide, said: “Having listened to our members, we know the struggles they face when starting and running a business and we want to make that process as easy as possible. A mere 5.6% of women in the UK run their own business4 - much lower than developed economies such as Canada (15%) and the US (11%). Today’s commitment is just the beginning of our journey to improve gender equality in entrepreneurship and we look forward to working with Mastercard and others to achieve this goal.”
Kelly Devine, President, UK&I at Mastercard said: “There’s so much we can do to support women entrepreneurs if we work together. Entrepreneurs told us that they often don’t know where to look for credible support services, so it’s great that Tide is helping women find support, inspiration and information that will help them start and grow a business.”
Fuelling growth with Mastercard’s Strive UK programme
Mastercard’s Strive UK programme, an initiative of the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth, focuses on helping small businesses with digital skills, especially those led by women and ethnic-minority owners.
Through Strive UK, Tide members can:
- Build a personalised business action plan with Enterprise Nation’s Make a Plan tool.
- Connect with experts in strategy, marketing, technology, finance and more for 1:1 or small-group business mentoring through Digital Boost.
- Access their very own board of experienced business people for 12 months, connect with a mentor, or get free technology advice through Be the Business.
A community for female business owners
Tide’s Women in Business content series will spotlight lessons from running innovative businesses, helping the community of female Tide members supercharge their ventures. One such member is serial entrepreneur and social advocate Atinuke Awe, who recently hosted a masterclass on ‘Accessing Alternative Finance’. Tinuke is the founder of Mums and Tea (social platform for Mums),Learning with Ez (diverse educational resources) and co-founder of Five X More CIC, an organisation committed to changing Black maternal outcomes in the UK.
Tide also has a growing member base in India, following the launch of its product in December 2022. Tide has set a target of supporting 500,000 women-led businesses to start out by the end of 2027. To achieve this, it recently launched the Sarthika web portal, an initiative to help female business owners navigate the delivery of India’s government assistance schemes.
About Tide
Founded in 2015 and launched in 2017, Tide is the leading business financial platform in the UK. Tide helps SMEs save time (and money) in the running of their businesses by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable and connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting. Tide has over 500,000 SME members in the UK (over 9% market share) and over 50,000 SMEs in India.
Tide has been funded by Anthemis, Apax Digital, Augmentum, Creandum, Goodwater, Jigsaw, Latitude, LocalGlobe, Passion Capital, SBI Group, SpeedInvest and Tencent, amongst others. It employs 1,350 professionals worldwide, was awarded the ‘New Market Entrant of the Year’ at the UK-India Awards 2022 and is among the Sunday Times Fast Track Disruptors to Watch. Tide’s long-term ambition is to be the leading business financial platform globally.
About Mastercard (UK)
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
