The board of Banking Competition Remedies has split the £80 million Capability and Innovation Fund Pool B grants between three large banks.

Nationwide Building Society took the lion’s share of £50 million, with Investec Bank and The Co-operative Bank getting £15 million each.

Pool B of the Capability and Innovation Fund is designed to promote competition in the market for banking services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK through the modernisation of existing business current account offerings or the development of new business current accounts or ancillary product propositions.

Each of the three successful applicants will shortly be invited to enter into a Capability and Innovation Fund Agreement with BCR. Once the agreement has been signed, progress against each successful applicant’s public commitments will be published on a quarterly basis on the BCR website.

Godfrey Cromwell, BCR’s chairman, said: “Pool B is the second group of grants from the Capability and Innovation Fund aimed at increasing competition in the UK business banking market with the overall purpose of improving financial products and services available to SMEs.

"We look forward to these organisations delivering on their public commitments and to further announcements for Pools C and D in the coming months.”

BCR received a total of 13 applications from 10 applicants for the Pool B process during an application window between 1 February and 29 March.

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