The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Open Finance roadmap, introduced in April 2026, is meant to be a major step toward a more data-driven financial system. Building on the foundations of Open Banking (OB), the initiative aims to extend data sharing beyond current accounts to a wider range of financial products, including lending, savings and mortgages.
The premise is simple: allowing financial data to move more freely can accelerate decision-making for lenders, as well as the delivery of services. For businesses, this could improve their ability to secure finance, particularly for those that have struggled to access credit in the past or those without an established borrowing history. On paper, the FCA’s roadmap stands to reduce one of the industry’s long-standing barriers and encourage fairer competition among players.
But for many SMEs, the challenge is maintaining consistent liquidity. The gap between credit approval and the availability of usable funds remains the persistent issue. Businesses face financial pressures in real time and, while Open Finance may improve how lending decisions are made, the FCA has yet to address how quickly funds reach merchants’ accounts.
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Approved finance does not translate to immediate liquidity
The current financial landscape highlights a disconnect in the FCA’s Open Finance plans. While securing funding is a priority, the speed at which businesses can access liquidity remains an issue.
A business may be expecting incoming funds yet still be unable to meet payroll, pay suppliers, or settle tax liabilities on time. The issue is not always whether money will be paid into merchants’ accounts, but when it becomes available to cover day-to-day financial pressures.
Late payments aggravate this challenge. UK SMEs are owed tens of billions of pounds in unpaid invoices and around 90% of firms report having experienced late payments over the past year, with nearly half reporting that delays are becoming more frequent. On average, payments arrive over 30 days past agreed terms, keeping vital working capital locked away for weeks beyond expectations.
The cause of late payments is also shifting. What was once driven by inefficiency is now increasingly structural. In many cases, it reflects pressure within supply chains, where cash is either unavailable or deliberately held back elsewhere in the network.
The effect goes beyond individual firms. Across the wider economy, late payments cost an estimated £11bn each year and contribute to thousands of business closures. Smaller companies tend to feel the impact most; with tighter cash reserves and less room to absorb delays, they are more exposed when payments do not arrive on time.
The system makes decisions faster than it moves money
Over the past decade, fintech innovation has transformed how financial decisions are made. What used to take days can now happen much faster, but this acceleration in decision-making has not been matched by a similar shift in how funds are processed and settled post-transaction.
Today’s payment ecosystem operates on a hybrid of legacy and modern infrastructure. While some rails enable near-instant transfers, others such as Bacs still operate on three-day cycles, creating irregular fund availability.
To understand the gap, it helps to look at how funds actually move across the ecosystem. Every transaction goes through two stages: clearing and settlement. Clearing validates and routes the payment instruction, while settlement is the point at which funds are transferred. More often than not, it’s the separation between the steps that introduces the delay, reflecting a structural feature of how the wider payments ecosystem is currently structured.
Essentially, funds remain in transit until settlement is complete. For SMEs, that creates a familiar problem. While decisions can be made rapidly, their execution might be delayed by constraints within processing cycles, intermediaries and settlement windows. Cash ends up in limbo; visible on the books, but not yet available for use.
Rising demand for instant payments points to the need for better cash flow oversight and real-time access to funds. The next phase of fintech will not be about launching more products, but about improving existing infrastructure so money arrives when businesses actually need it.
The future of Open Finance must focus on cash availability
Ultimately, Open Finance will be judged on whether it improves how businesses get access to finance, not just how much data is available.
While the FCA’s plan is a positive step toward an integrated, data-centric financial ecosystem, rapid approvals alone do not guarantee that SMEs will have timely access to operational funds or improved cash flow management.
Narrowing this gap is now a shared responsibility across the entire payment ecosystem. As real-time payment rails, enhanced settlement protocols and modern infrastructure continue to evolve, the focus must shift from simply approving funds to ensuring they are delivered and available for use instantly.
Until funding approval and liquidity move at the same pace, the gap SMEs face will remain: only the process around it will get faster.
Mark Andreev, COO at Exactly.com
