Late payments shouldn’t be an accepted part of doing business — yet for millions of people across the UK, they still are. Before we built Payment Bear, we were dealing with the same frustrations ourselves: work delivered on time, invoices sent, and then… silence. Weeks of waiting. Awkward follow-ups. Unpredictable cash flow. The stress adds up.
We started asking a simple question: “Is it just us, or is everyone struggling with this?”
The answer was loud and clear.
52%
UK small businesses are regularly paid late
£23.4b
is locked up in unpaid invoices at any given time
1 in 4
SMEs say late payments threaten their survival
This isn’t a niche problem. It’s one of the biggest structural issues facing UK businesses today.
So we set out to build something better
As founders with deep experience in fintech and the real-world application of Open Banking, we knew there had to be a smarter way — a way to reduce friction, remove manual chasing, and finally give businesses control over when they get paid.
Open Banking gives us a unique opportunity to rethink how invoices are sent, received, and paid. Instead of outdated card rails, clunky portals, and manual data entry, we could build:
- bank-to-bank payments that are instant and fee-free
- smart incentives to encourage early payment
- automation that stops invoices slipping through the cracks
- a payment experience that’s simple for clients and powerful for businesses
The goal wasn’t just to make invoicing “easier.” It was to change the system — to replace a broken, stressful process with something that just works.
Built alongside real UK businesses
From the very beginning, we’ve worked closely with freelancers, agencies, and growing SMEs to understand the real bottlenecks in getting paid. Every insight, every improvement, every feature has come from solving real problems for real people.
And the results speak for themselves:
fewer late payments, faster cash flow, and happier clients.
We believe getting paid shouldn't be the hardest part of running a business
Whether you’re a solo creative or a growing organisation, you deserve a system that gets invoices paid on time — without stress, awkwardness, or endless admin.
Payment Bear exists to make that happen.
