Birmingham-based fintech Saible has raised £2.9 million to deploy a parallel payment system designed to halt the cascade of late payments that plague UK construction supply chains. The funding round, which includes an initial £2.1 million tranche plus an £800,000 extension, arrives as Parliament moves to ban retention payments and enforce 60-day payment caps across the sector.
The timing reflects a broader shift in how investors and regulators view construction finance. Late payment costs the UK economy an estimated £11 billion annually, according to the Department for Business and Trade. Construction firms now report insolvencies at higher rates than any other UK sector, with 4,450 firms failing in 2025 alone. That scale has opened space for payment infrastructure startups to compete on regulatory certainty and operational defensibility rather than slick user interfaces.
Saible’s Digital Parallel Payment Account operates by holding project funds in trust with regulated banking partner Griffin, releasing them simultaneously to all approved suppliers once work is verified. Rather than allowing money to cascade down a supply chain where each contractor can delay or withhold payments as free working capital, Saible routes funds in parallel, eliminating the hold-up problem entirely. Project owners pay a 0.25% fee; suppliers pay nothing.
Co-founder and chief executive Jarvey Moss described the cost of late payment beyond balance sheets: “Late payment in construction goes beyond the balance sheet. It creates pressure that runs through businesses, workers and families. When firms are waiting months beyond agreed terms, people are left worrying about whether they can pay staff, suppliers, and themselves.” On large projects, funds pass through four or five entities before reaching workers, and at each stage a payment can stall.
The regulatory environment is pushing urgently toward solutions. Recent research from accountancy firm Menzies found that 93% of construction and property firms report late payments, with invoices averaging 53 days overdue. A further 86% are already in, or at risk of, serious financial distress. The 2024 collapse of contractor ISG left more than £1.1 billion in unpaid debts, with hundreds of subcontractors never compensated for completed work.
Licensed Payments Infrastructure as Regulatory Moat
Saible is piloting its model on a public-sector footbridge project with the Environment Agency and BAM Nuttall. The pilot tests whether the parallel payment structure can operate within existing procurement rules and whether project owners will adopt the 0.25% fee.
The construction payment problem is not the only market attracting regulated fintech infrastructure. UK-based B2B cross-border payments platform Damisa has received its Australian Financial Services Licence from ASIC, joining the ranks of payment platforms seeking regulatory licenses across multiple jurisdictions. Founded in late 2024, Damisa supports more than 25 currencies and facilitates settlement through automated stablecoin orchestration and treasury management.
Damisa CEO Jordan Lawrence, who previously co-founded Volt, emphasized that regulatory licensing operates as a structural competitive advantage. “In regulated payments, the licence is the moat,” Lawrence said. “Anyone can build a slick payments UI. Very few can sit on the right side of the regulators in every market they operate in.” He noted that each license requires months of scrutiny, capital commitment, and operational discipline-barriers that create defensibility for platforms that clear them.
Damisa raised £2.25 million in its April 2025 pre-seed round backed by investors including Fuel Ventures and Greyhound Capital. The startup launched its commercial offering in Q3 2025 after receiving its Australian license, suggesting that regulatory approval can unlock market entry for fintech platforms targeting specific corridors or geographies.
Payment Infrastructure as Sector Consolidation
Construction is not the only sector where payment infrastructure has become a competitive focal point. The shift away from point-solution startups toward deeper infrastructure plays reflects investor recognition that payment timing and settlement certainty matter as much as the core operational tool. London-based Prolo raised £4.2 million to address cash-flow constraints by offering contractors 90 days of credit, tackling the problem from the credit side rather than redesigning fund movement itself.
These parallel approaches-Saible’s simultaneous release versus Prolo’s extended credit terms-suggest that no single payment architecture will solve construction’s underlying structural problem. Construction still involves multiple tiers of contracting, retention clauses embedded in commercial agreements, and unequal bargaining power between large general contractors and smaller subcontractors. Payment timing tools can ameliorate the friction, but they cannot eliminate the incentive for larger entities to hold payment as working capital.
Parliament’s push toward mandatory 60-day payment caps and retention bans may eventually constrain that behavior through policy rather than infrastructure. Until then, fintech platforms that secure both regulatory approval and customer adoption will accumulate the operational data and relationships needed to become embedded in project finance workflows.
Saible’s pilot with the Environment Agency and public-sector procurement represents a deliberate strategy to test the model against the strictest compliance requirements first. Public procurement often sets standards that private contractors later follow, making government adoption a proving ground for payment infrastructure startups. Whether that translates into market penetration across the £200 billion UK construction sector remains an open question-but the funding momentum and regulatory tailwinds suggest payment infrastructure will remain a focal point for construction fintech investment through 2026.
