Tide had another transformative year in 2024, with many milestones reached and strong progress made to deliver our vision to save small businesses time and money.

One of the highlights of the year was reaching one million members globally in September 2024, an incredible number we never imagined only a few years ago. In the UK, we are proud to serve 650,000 members, equating to now more than 11% of the markets; in a nation where SMEs form 99% of the business population¹. Our business in India, which is only two years old, is at 450,000 members and growing fast. We are providing a vital digital service to entrepreneurs in key urban centres and far-reaching states across India, supporting small businesses and contributing to India’s growth journey. In Germany, we entered the market in May this year, and are emerging out of soft launch mode making inroads delivering a product to freelancers and solo entrepreneurs.

UK Growth

Tide in the UK is rapidly expanding its product offering. This year we successfully entered the savings and investment market, with a free instant access business savings account product. Tide Instant Saver has one of the best interest rates on the market, with interest calculated daily on the cleared balance at midnight. Small businesses often have larger balances than ordinary customers, so it made absolute sense to provide them with a product that allows them the benefits of higher Bank of England interest rates.

Savings was but one new product. Across our platform we are enhancing products and features always with our mission of saving time and money.

Internationalisation

Outside the UK, our growth in India has been rapid with nearly 450,000 members already, and we have 1,200 employees in the country, two years ahead of our announcement of targeting 1000 jobs by 2026. We are deeply committed to India and believe in the country’s digital transformation.

International expansion is central to Tide’s growth strategy. After the UK and India, we entered our third market Germany in 2024, and have our eyes set on new territories, which we look forward to discussing in 2025.

Acquisition

In October, we acquired Onfolk, a UK SME payroll solution, with integrations for accounting, pensions and people systems. Onfolk is now integrating into the Tide app, becoming Tide Payroll, strengthening our admin proposition for small businesses. Tide Payroll will connect seamlessly with our other finance and admin solutions. We were delighted to welcome the Onfolk team, Michael Colley, Naz Malik and Dan Hughes, to Tide as they lead Tide Payroll.  

Onfolk was our second acquisition following the purchase of Funding Options in 2023, which we have successfully integrated and scaled in the UK to a multiple of its pre-acquisition size, while rolling out credit intermediation to India and Germany.

Organic growth is our primary focus, but we will look at opportunities to acquire businesses which can quickly add to our offer to members.

APP fraud

Tackling Authorised Push Payment fraud has remained a key mission for us this year, as we continue to support and protect our members. We know too well that fraud has a devastating impact on its victims. UK Finance calculated that more than £570m was stolen in payment fraud in H1 2024, as criminals ruthlessly intensify targeting victims in the UK.

In October, the new, industry-wide reimbursement regulations from the UK Payments Services Regulator came into force, and I’m particularly proud of the way that Tideans across all departments have risen to the challenge to deliver the new requirements. We’ve made several significant changes within Tide to enhance fraud controls and to allow us to diligently review APP fraud cases at pace, and to provide our members with reimbursement where possible.

Strengthened Executive team

As we continue to rapidly scale, we reinforced our senior management team. George Schmidt, who has led growth at Tide since 2018, became CEO UK/Europe. George joined Tide CEO in India, Gurjodhpal Singh as the second Regional CEO reporting to me.

We promoted Rebecca Marriott to Chief Risk Officer. Rebecca had been Tide’s SVP of Risk and Compliance since 2018, and she is providing critical global leadership in her new role as Tide expands.

Shaun McCabe became our new Chief Financial Officer to spearhead our global growth. Shaun brings over 20 years of experience in the retail sector and has a wealth of expertise in profitably scaling high-growth companies across international markets.

Another key hire was Anna Fromme-Schoen who joined as Managing Director of Tide in Germany from PayPal Germany. Based in Berlin, Anna, along with a growing team, is expanding our presence in Germany following our product’s entry into the country in May 2024.

Non-Executive Directors

In January, Sophie O’Connor joined as Non-Executive Director at Tide, and Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee. Sophie brings her blue chip experience from Bupa, Rothesay and Scottish Widows, to deliver fresh perspectives and best practices around effective risk management.

In India, former India Administrative Service officer Srinivas Injeti was appointed as Non-Executive Director and Chairperson of the Board in this market. Ex-RBI officer Ajaya Kumar Sahoo joined as Senior Advisor to the Board.

These appointments support Tide’s commitment to driving sustainable, compliance-first business growth.

Net Zero and WIB

We are proud to champion female-led businesses, and to be committed to Net Zero. Alongside removing all our emissions through long-term carbon removals, earlier this year, we partnered with Connect Earth to introduce products, features and content to help UK SMEs in their journey to achieving Net Zero, and that has been rolled out to members. SMEs play a crucial role in the global effort to reduce carbon emissions.

As well as our commitment to Net Zero, we have pledged to help 200,000 women launch new UK businesses by 2027. In February, we launched the Female Business Owners Index looking into the main issues impacting female-led small businesses. In India, Tide also launched its first Bharat Women Aspiration Index (BWAI) to highlight the experiences of women entrepreneurs in India’s tier II and beyond cities. Tide is planning to onboard 500,000 women-led businesses in India by 2027.

Tideans: OneTeam to make it happen

There are more Tideans around the world than ever before, with more than 2000 employees helping us deliver our goals. I am delighted that so many people have joined, and speak highly of our culture.

2025 promises to be another exciting year, with a real focus on ever greater connectivity so our members can access more and more services, and saving ever more time and money.  

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References

1. Federation of Small Businesses: UK Small Business Statistics