Banking Competition Remedies (BCR), the independent body established to implement the £775 million Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Alternative Remedies Package, has opened the application window for Pool B of the Capability and Innovation Fund.

The fund is designed to support the development of wider competition in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) banking markets. The fund comprises of four pools with a total value of £425 million. The process for Pool A and Pool D is currently underway.

Pool B is a combined value of £80 million, split into a £50 million and two £15 million grants. The pool aims to facilitate the modernisation of existing business current account offerings or the development of new business current accounts or ancillary product propositions for SMEs in the UK.

The deadline for submission of questions about Pool B is 21 February, with an application deadline of 29 March. Public announcement of which firms get the funds are expected during the week of 20 May.

For all four pools of the Capability and Innovation Fund, BCR has engaged an outside contractor, Baringa, with specialist procurement and evaluation experience to receive and analyse the applications via a rigorous and detailed process.

BCR’s evaluation committee will discuss the output of this process and present a set of supported applications to the board, for consideration and final decision.

At the end of last year, the BCR announced the 11 organisations which met the eligibility criteria for the Incentivised Switching Scheme.

The purpose of the Incentivised Switching Scheme is to provide funding of up to a maximum total of £275 million to SME customers of RBS’ Williams & Glyn business, to switch their business current accounts and loans to ‘challenger’ institutions.

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