More than a quarter of firms face nine-week bank delays

More than a quarter of UK businesses wait more than nine weeks for banking or payment integrations to go live, according to research commissioned by Finexer. The findings come as HMRC pushes for greater connectivity between business financial systems.

The survey of 418 senior business leaders at UK organisations with 10 to 500 employees highlights delays, security concerns and technical complexity in the adoption of bank-connected automation.

Some 27% of respondents said their business waits more than nine weeks for banking or payment integrations to become operational. Nearly a quarter, 24%, identified data security or privacy concerns as the main barrier to adopting or expanding bank-connected automation, while 22% cited the difficulty of fitting new technology into existing systems.

The figures come amid wider government efforts to digitise financial administration. HMRC has said disconnected systems create unnecessary administration for businesses, with accounting software, payment platforms and banking systems often failing to communicate.

Integration gap

The research suggests the problem extends beyond implementation times. Earlier findings from the same study showed that only 10% of UK businesses have highly automated banking and payment workflows, while 39% said staff had to trace, compare or re-enter payment information across multiple systems during the past year.

That points to a broader gap between policy aims and day-to-day finance operations. While many companies are moving towards more automated processes, fragmented systems continue to create manual work.

Almost half of finance leaders, 48%, said their organisation already uses automated matching of payments to invoices or internal records. A further 25% said they plan to introduce Pay by Bank within the next two years.

For companies handling banking data, payments, account verification and reconciliation across different platforms, adding new tools can require multiple integrations, separate security standards and significant technical work. The study suggests this complexity can limit the gains businesses expect from automation.

"The Government wants a more digitally connected economy, but more than a quarter of UK businesses are waiting over nine weeks just to get banking and payment technology working. That's a pretty stark reality check. HMRC is right to recognise that disconnected financial systems are a problem, but businesses don't need another digital ambition. They need systems that actually work together. Until we tackle the complexity and security concerns holding back integration, we're at risk of digitising the paperwork without fixing the processes underneath it," Ravi Ranjan, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Finexer, said.

Policy backdrop

The findings come as the government continues work on digital financial reporting, including the rollout of Making Tax Digital and plans for mandatory electronic VAT invoicing from April 2029. Those measures are intended to reduce manual administration, but the survey suggests businesses may struggle to connect the banking and payment systems needed to support them.

Respondents came from sectors including accounting and bookkeeping, payroll and HR, ERP and financial management, legal, property, utilities, financial technology and B2B software. The sample was weighted to reflect the UK population.

Open banking has been promoted as one way to reduce fragmentation by allowing businesses to connect permissioned banking data, account-to-account payments and verification tools within the software they already use. In practice, however, businesses still face questions over security, compatibility and implementation time.

This is likely to matter most for mid-sized companies without large in-house technology teams that still need to connect several financial systems. Delays of more than two months can affect finance operations, especially where payment matching, reconciliation and verification still involve manual intervention.

Ranjan said: "The UK doesn't need more financial technology. It needs the technology it already has to work together. Security shouldn't come at the expense of automation, and connecting financial systems shouldn't take months. If we're serious about improving productivity, we need to stop measuring digital progress by how much technology businesses adopt and start measuring it by how much unnecessary work it actually removes."