Artificial Intelligence-powered SME business account provider ANNA Money has teamed up with embedded finance innovator Shaype to launch Australia’s first all-in-one business finance “super app”, now rolling out to startups and proprietary limited (“Pty Ltd“) companies. The super app will act as a 24/7 financial co-pilot replacing fragmented financial workflows by consolidating everything from business banking, tax, expenses, company formation and cards into one seamless platform. This means no more juggling a bank, Xero, spreadsheets, accountants and multiple disconnected tools. Instead, ANNA delivers a single intelligent interface underpinned by real-time data machine learning and automation policies tailored to how businesses actually operate. While competitors have targeted freelancers and sole traders, the super app is focused exclusively on Pty Ltd businesses with more complex needs, from early-stage startups to established companies looking to scale. ANNA touts itself as “the business account that does your taxes”, and launching this product marks its official entry into the Australian market after acquiring Cape in 2024. Powered by Shaype’s secure and fully compliant infrastructure, the super app offers: Automated tax tools to handle IAS/BASprep and lodgement, GST tracking and compliance. Real-time business accounts with an Australian BSB/account number and NPP-enabled payments. ANNA-branded Mastercard corporate cards for business owners and their teams. Built-in expense management, receipt capture and real-time transaction categorisation. Business formation features to launch new entities in minutes. AI-driven financial insights and automation with human oversight and control. With 98 percent of businesses in Australia being SMEs who are often forced to rely on overly complex financial admin and fragmented financial stacks, the app could come as an enormous relief to millions of business owners, according to ANNA Money Australia. Ryan Edwards-Pritchard (pictured), CEO of ANNA Money in Australia, said, “Our partnership with Shaype marks a real inflection point for business finance in Australia. Until now, SMEs have been forced to cobble together tools that were never designed to work in sync. With ANNA, we’re changing that by building an intelligent, agentic financial system that actively works for business owners around the clock. Working with a partner like Shaype, whose infrastructure allows us to move fast, stay compliant and innovate at scale, has been critical to unlocking this next generation of SME services..” Andrew Laycock, Founder and CEO of Shaype, added, “We’re proud to support ANNA Money’s launch in Australia. This is a great example of how embedded finance infrastructure can unlock entirely new user experiences in financial services. Together, we’re empowering Australian SMEs with modern, secure, and integrated tools that simply didn’t exist before.” Learn more about ANNA Money at their website: https://annamoney.au/

Global banking regulation has bolstered the case for bigger is better when it comes to financial services in the current age. But the bigger banks grow, the harder it is to innovate the types of solutions that deliver step-changes for customers. Focused, agile fintechs are emerging thick and fast, helping the banking elephants to tie their shoelaces by solving parts of a puzzle that keeps growing as banks are forced to layer system upon legacy system and swim against the surging tide of regulation. The winner of the financial services category in the 2023 AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards, Shaype, encapsulates how fintechs are delivering for bank customers by working collaboratively alongside the big guys. Read more at AFR.com

Andrew Laycock, the chief executive and founder of Shaype, saw how the banking industry was transforming and identified an opportunity to develop a platform that could support non-banking institutions looking to compete. The platform also helps traditional banks offer modern products and services faster and more efficiently than their older systems allowed. “You’re only as good as your slowest moving part,” Laycock says. “That’s not solved by simply taking what you have and deploying it as a cloud service. Read more at AFR.com

Sydney finance start-up Shaype has defied the tech world’s capital raising drought, ruling off a $33 million round and scoring a top-up from Regal Investment Partners. Regal is back as the lead investor in the Series C round after cutting a cheque in Shaype’s $17 million Series B in July 2021 - back when the start-up was known as “Hay as a Service”. Read the full article - (pay wall)

Chief product officer at Shaype, Mark Hansell, told the roundtable that with open banking technology, you can take customer data and put it into the hands of the people that know the end customer the best, which is the business that is operating a marketplace or operating a chain of shops. “You can take that data and take the insights around brilliant customer experiences from those businesses and orchestrate movements of money automatically in the background,” Hansell said. “In doing so, you can drive massive efficiencies in things like supply chains, smart contracts, and bits and pieces like that. Read the full article - (pay wall)

When Commonwealth Bank decided it needed a new app to teach kids about money, it took a radically different approach to product development than a bank of old. Rather than getting its own teams to build the app – which includes a virtual bank account and prepaid debit card – it turned to Shaype, a Sydney-based fintech specialising in “embedded finance”. The decision points to a dramatic transformation in major bank thinking about technology and innovation. Read the full article - (pay wall)

Commonwealth bank of Australia has begun pilot tests of Kit, a new money app and digital information tool for kids. With their own Kit account and prepaid card, kids can manage their own earning, saving, and spending. Kids can earn money on ‘chores PayDay’, create savings ‘Stacks’, access their money through an ATM and tap their card to make purchases. In Boss Mode, parents have access to overarching controls such as spend limits and card and PIN protection, which can be tailored to each child in the family. The virtual account and prepaid card is issued by Shaype, using the AFSL held by parent company Hay Limited, following a supplier selection process that began in July 2021. Kit is currently in pilot with up to 5,000 customers and has been built with the help of kids, parents and caregivers along with an independent advisory panel of experts in youth mental health and wellbeing, digital services for children and families, artificial intelligence and financial capability. Read the full article

Australia’s Hay Group is launching Shaype to redefine what is possible in financial innovation, fintech and embedded financial experiences. Since launching the Hay as a Service (HaaS) offering in 2020, the team and the platform’s capabilities have grown and evolved reflecting the strong demand from clients for better financial innovation solutions. The key attributes delivered to clients include project acceleration and derisking technology execution for start-ups as well as established suppliers who can use the powerful and flexible platform to bring new products to market. The business has established a reputation for speed, flexibility, control, strong working relationships and a partnership approach. To continue to build on this strong foundation, Hay as a Service (HaaS) has today become Shaype. Read the full article

Australia’s Hay Group is launching Shaype to redefine what is possible in financial innovation, fintech and embedded financial experiences. Since launching the Hay as a Service (HaaS) offering in 2020, the team and the platform’s capabilities have grown and evolved reflecting the strong demand from clients for better financial innovation solutions. The key attributes delivered to clients include project acceleration and derisking technology execution for start-ups as well as established suppliers who can use the powerful and flexible platform to bring new products to market. Read the full article

In this episode of The FinTech Report Podcast, Glen Frost interviews Mark Hansell, Chief Product Officer at Hay-as-a-Service. Hay-as-a-Service – or HaaS – is leading the embedded finance revolution via their platform that enables any company to ‘stand up’ financial products in as little as 10 days. Australian Fintech January 28, 2022 Listen to the podcast here