CFIT CEO Anna Wallace on Unblocking the UK's SME Credit Gap

For many small businesses, securing finance still means months of paperwork, delays and rejected applications. For lenders, limited and fragmented data makes it harder to assess viable borrowers efficiently.

Anna Wallace, CEO of the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), is working to close that gap. Through its coalition model, CFIT is developing SME Funding Health Checkers to improve financial readiness, with the potential to unlock £5bn (US$6.8bn) in credit, alongside Digital Company IDs to streamline verification and reduce fraud.

In this Q&A with Finance Chief, Anna discusses how better data and collaboration can make SME finance faster, fairer and more scalable.

Is the UK still the world's fintech leader or is it losing ground?

The Kalifa Review was launched with exactly this question in mind, exploring how the UK can maintain its global reputation as a fintech leader. 

We’re home to world-leading financial institutions and some of the greatest minds who are pioneering innovative solutions to tackle complex challenges facing financial services. 

However, to make sure we don’t lose our crown, we must keep pace with competitors who are making considerable headways, particularly in AI and tokenisation. 

This requires confidence, especially from investors, who need to be able to trust that the innovations they’re funding can scale.

At CFIT, we’re constantly thinking about how we can enable market confidence through a more coordinated approach within the ecosystem and developing standardised policies to ensure that innovation actually translates into real-world adoption. All of which will be essential to maintaining the UK’s reputation as a fintech leader.

What’s the biggest obstacle holding UK fintech back right now?

I think one of the biggest challenges holding the UK fintech sector back from where we know it can be is its siloed nature. 

Regulators, financial institutions, technology providers and government exist as separate entities and often try to solve industry-wide challenges on their own. This is simply not conducive to progress – in fact it is only hindering it.

CFIT exists to bridge this gap by bringing all these stakeholders together so that we can focus on actual delivery and implementation. 

We hold more power by collaborating through sharing ideas and infrastructure and developing common standards that enable multiple players to build and compete. Only then can we remain competitive and unlock growth and innovation. 

Can Digital Company IDs finally tip the balance against fraud?

Fraud has reached unprecedented levels with criminal networks now operating in highly organised and sophisticated ways. 

While financial services firms have spent billions trying to solve this issue, they have often approached the challenge in isolation.

But Digital Company IDs are no longer a nice-to-have – they are the necessary infrastructure the UK desperately needs to mitigate fraud risk, reduce compliance costs and enable the UK to compete in the global digital economy. 

A single, reusable and verified source of corporate identity can equip businesses and financial institutions with the confidence they need to fight widespread economic crime.

This isn’t theoretical demand. Research from more than 1,000 UK SMEs found that 85% were willing to pay for a Digital Company ID. 

The infrastructure already exists – the next step is a more proactive and preventative framework with standardised protocols to encourage greater adoption and scale of Digital Company IDs across sectors.

Why are so many SMEs still underserved by lenders? How does or can fintech fix it?

SMEs are the backbone of the UK economy yet continue to face persistent challenges in accessing finance often due to fragmented data, limited understanding of their own financial health and inefficiencies in lending processes. 

The average lending transaction takes six months and more than 90% of applications referred under the current Mandatory Bank Referral Scheme (MBRS) are rejected – not due to a lack of capital but a lack of visibility. 

The solution is simple: digital financial health tools that can enable small businesses to unlock faster, fairer access to finance. 

CFIT brought together partners across the ecosystem to test a few of these tools – a Funding Health Checker and a Small Business Coach – and found that access to appropriate funding and improved awareness of different financial options can unlock £5bn (US$6.8bn) in SME credit. Thus, enabling businesses to focus on their main priorities: scaling their innovations. 

Has Open Finance reached a tipping point or is it still stuck in neutral?

Open Finance helped establish the UK as a global leader in fintech by proving that secure, consent-driven data sharing can transform markets, improve consumer outcomes and unlock innovation at scale. 

The next challenge for government and industry is identifying how those same Smart Data principles can be applied beyond financial services across sectors such as property, energy, transport and health. 

For example, the government recently announced reforms to simplify the homebuying and selling process, majority of which align with CFIT’s Open Property Roadmap and focuses on reducing delays, cutting costs, digitising paperwork and preventing sales falling through. 

This is the first major Smart Data initiative of its kind beyond finance and arguably the strongest test case yet for how Smart Data can be scaled across the wider economy. 

But to truly succeed we need cross-sector collaboration to create a clear and credible roadmap for reform and match industry momentum, not just in finance and property, but beyond.

How do you make fintech innovation work for everyone, not just the digitally savvy?

Innovation only works when we design for accessibility and inclusivity. 

Fintech is not all about new technologies, but about how to scale them across the industry so that it can genuinely benefit consumers. Hence, it requires direct input from organisations outside of the fintech sector such as government, policy makers and nonprofits to determine how best to scale new innovations so they can work for a variety of people, not just those who are technologically adept. 

What’s one fintech trend the industry is underestimating today?

One of the most underrated opportunities in fintech isn’t new products or technologies, rather it is coordination. 

Areas like agentic commerce, SME data frameworks, digitised capital markets infrastructure and financial crime utilities all demonstrate so much potential, but fall through beyond the pilot stage. 

There is often a gap between successful proof-of-concept and market-wide adoption as a result of inefficient siloes, fragmented incentives and regulatory uncertainty.

CFIT exists to bridge this gap – working across the ecosystem to scale these opportunities. The return on investment will be significant, ultimately resulting in a more competitive and innovative UK fintech landscape.