We've just unveiled Bourn's new brand identity. New logo, new colours, new visual language. It looks brilliant.
But this rebrand marks the beginning of a new chapter – not just for Bourn, but for how banks and fintechs can work together to genuinely solve the working capital challenge that's holding back UK SMEs.
A Different Approach from Day One
From the start, we made a deliberate choice about what kind of company we wanted to be.
We've been through the age of SaaS. The last decade has been dominated by technology platforms – many of them have done genuinely brilliant work. But most follow a familiar pattern: build a piece of technology, sell it into banks or lenders, collect your subscription fees, move on to the next enterprise customer.
We wanted to approach things differently. We wanted to look through the lens of the customer first. Really understand what SMEs' pain points were around working capital:
- Do they actually need working capital, or is there a different issue at play?
- Are they looking to invest in growth opportunities?
- Are they just trying to navigate a difficult period?
- What's genuinely stopping them from getting the funding they need?
To solve the customer's issue properly, we had to take a slightly different path. We had to be hyper-focused on creating a solution that could genuinely solve those problems – not just deliver technology to banks and hope it gets used.
That meant being a regulated fintech ourselves. Being FCA-authorised. Building the full infrastructure. Becoming genuinely accountable for the outcome, not just the output.
Flow and Fluidity
When we briefed our design partners on the rebrand, we kept coming back to two concepts: flow and fluidity.
Working capital shouldn't be something you have to stop and apply for every time you need it. It shouldn't require forms and manual processes that pull you away from running your business. It should flow naturally alongside your operations – expanding when you're growing, available when you need it, invisible when you don't.
Think about how the best financial infrastructure works. You don't think about it. It's just there, enabling what you need to do.
Capital that moves with your business rhythm. That understands your sales cycles, your payment terms, your cash flow realities. That adapts in real-time based on what's actually happening in your business, not what happened six months ago when you last filled in a form.
Traditional invoice finance added friction. Modern fintechs have reduced some of that friction. We believe there's an opportunity to eliminate it almost entirely – to make accessing working capital as natural as checking your bank balance.
Embedded Fintech
We use the term "embedded fintech" quite deliberately.
It's about embedding ourselves into the real financial infrastructure that businesses use every day – accounting systems, banking platforms, payment flows – and becoming part of how they naturally operate.
The businesses we serve don't want another platform to log into. They want their cash flow problem solved so they can focus on what they do best: growing their business, serving their customers, creating value in the economy.
So we've built the Flexible Trade Account to feel exactly like what businesses have always understood and valued – an overdraft – but powered by modern technology, real-time data, and receivables security. No surveys. No PDFs. No spreadsheets. Just connect your accounting system, connect your bank account, and access working capital that grows with your invoices.
Simple for the business. Secure for the bank.
Closing the £22 Billion Gap
There's a £22 billion working capital gap in the UK. Thousands of businesses that can't say yes to growth opportunities because the cash isn't there when they need it.
It's the natural result of overdrafts becoming capital-inefficient for banks to provide, while traditional invoice finance remained too clunky and administratively heavy for most SMEs to want to use.
A gap emerged. Fintechs stepped in with faster, digital alternatives. But most of those alternatives are funded by expensive capital, which gets passed on to businesses in higher rates.
What we're seeing now – and what our partnership with NatWest demonstrates – is banks recognising there's a better way forward. They can deploy their balance sheet to SMEs through a modern, data-driven model. They can provide working capital at competitive rates. They can serve businesses they previously couldn't reach, or couldn't serve profitably.
The technology exists. The regulatory framework exists. The customer demand absolutely exists.
What's needed is partnership. Banks bringing capital and trust. Fintechs bringing technology and operational models built for the modern economy. Both working toward the same goal: making sure productive businesses have the working capital they need to grow.
Partnering with Banks to solve the problem at scale
Which brings me to what this rebrand really represents: a shift in how we think about distribution and impact.
To genuinely address the £22 billion working capital gap, you can't do it alone. You need partnerships with the institutions that have the capital, the trust, and the customer relationships. Banks and lenders who want to serve SMEs better but need a modern operating model to do it profitably. Platforms and accounting systems where businesses already manage their finances.
What excites me about where we are now is seeing this partnership model actually work in practice.
Together, we can reach businesses at the exact point they need help. Not through marketing campaigns or cold outreach, but by being there in the systems they already use, at the moment they're thinking about cash flow.
That's how you solve a problem at scale. Not by building the best product and hoping people find it. But by embedding that product into the infrastructure that businesses and their financial partners already rely on.
What This Represents
When you look at our new visual identity, you're seeing a company that's ready to scale. That's moving from proof of concept to genuine market presence. That's partnering with one of the UK's largest banks to make embedded working capital a reality for hundreds of thousands of SMEs.
The flow and fluidity you see in our design language – that's what we're building into the financial infrastructure of the UK's growth economy.
We're a regulated fintech partner, accountable for outcomes, focused relentlessly on solving real problems for real businesses.
And we're entering this new chapter alongside partners like NatWest who share that vision:
A financial system that works for the businesses driving growth, creating jobs, and building value in communities across the UK.
Bourn is reinventing the business overdraft for the growth economy. Our Flexible Trade Account gives SMEs real-time access to flexible, secured working capital. We partner with banks to bring the cheapest funding on the market to the businesses that need it most.
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