By Mark Hansell - 22 Feb 2022
Mark Hansell is the Chief Product Officer of Shaype. He is equally passionate about product and customer experience as he is about technology and innovation. He is a leading advocate for embedded finance and Shaype's atomic suite of pure microservices. Mark is based in Sydney.
How Shaype is leading the way
Shaype is an embedded finance platform that allows any company to offer its customers financial products without having to build those products themselves.
We often describe Shaype as a B2B2C business because we serve our clients who in turn have their own customers. We do the heavy lifting to deliver an amazing financial solution while our clients remain focused on, and in complete control of, the end customer experience.
Our clients know their customers... We know financial services... And we bring those strengths and skill sets together.
What is embedded finance?
There is a misconception that embedded finance is just a re-branded version of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS). And there’s actually a huge difference.
With the traditional BaaS model you get a black box that you need to shoe-horn your customer experience into. Sadly, compromise is inevitable, and then you’re stuck with an inferior result.
Embedded finance flips this on its head.
As Shaype, our approach begins with understanding the aspirational experiences our clients want to deliver to their customers. Then – and only then – we incorporate the very best financial products and experiences within those customer journeys.
Put simply, BaaS is a commodity solution, whereas embedded finance is fully tailored, without the compromise.
Shaype delivers two core value propositions
There are two core value propositions that Shaype delivers:
How to offer financial products when it’s not your core business, and
Eliminating the problems and restrictions of legacy systems
The first challenge our clients face can be complex, daunting, and scary. Namely, how do you launch a financial product and safely move your customers’ money around when you're not actually a financial services company?
Our solution is to remove that complexity and allow customers to get to market fast by prioritising flexibility and adaptability. We do this by building customised products tailored to the individual needs of our clients' customer journeys.
Since the inception of Shaype, legacy has been an issue we have put front and centre as we have been building our platform. One of the big advantages we have, being 100% born in the cloud, is our cloud-based microservices platform, so we can build solutions that are immediately upgradeable on an enterprise-wide basis.
Our clients don’t need to worry about legacy constraints. We are constantly improving our platform with industry-leading features, tested in market, and Shaype ensures rapid delivery of new products and product upgrades.
How our clients customise Shaype’s full suite of tailored microservices
Our clients can choose from our range of microservices that starts with our core payments offerings and continues through our full suite of additional solutions like fraud management and data insights.
Customisation is key, whether it’s:
Cards and payments processing (as a Visa Principal Partner Shaype can issue the full suite of Visa cards using your business brand)
Bank transfers and non-scheme payment rails (NPP, DE and BPAY)
Automated onboarding solutions like know-your-customer (KYC) and know-your-business (KYB), and
Utilisation of Hay Group licences (e.g. AFSL) and can offer flexible solutions where clients access that licence or operate under their own).
Types of businesses Shaype serves
As Shaype continues to grow, our solutions are appealing to brands across a far wider set of market segments than we initially expected. That said, we generally help businesses with one of three profiles:
Startups These are clients in the early phase of their journey looking for a full end-to-end payments solution that they can build their own ecosystem around. What they’re looking for is a cost-effective solution that they can implement, test and iterate.
Established companies We also help more mature businesses that are new to financial services and embedded finance. They’re looking for a platform that seamlessly integrates with their existing ecosystem. Having access to Shaype’s white label solutions is a big plus for this client group.
Financial services companies The third group is established financial services businesses that have a specific need – like access to instant payments – and want to go to market very quickly. Although they have an immediate requirement, their priorities will evolve and change, so the chosen solution has to be future-proofed. Our “no legacy” promise means that when a new challenge arises, the Shaype platform will have the functionality.
We're excited about what the future holds for Shaype and embedded finance in both the Australian and international fintech markets.
To find out more about embedded finance and how you can offer your customers financial products and services using Shaype’s full suite of tailored microservices, reach out using the contact form.