Everyday People Financial Corp. (TSXV: EPF) (“Everyday People” or the “Company”), a financial technology and consumer financing company, is pleased to announce that, further to the letter of intent entered into April 22, 2022, pursuant to a definitive agreement dated October 27, 2022, EP Care Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, has formed a joint venture with SEB Administrative Services Inc. (“SEB Admin”), a subsidiary of Smart Employee Benefits Inc. (TSXV: SEB) (OTCQB: SEBFF) (“SEB”), an Insurtech provider of cloud based, end-to-end IT and Benefit Processing solutions for the life and group benefits marketplace and government, to launch a “Healthcare Spending Account Mastercard® Program”, offering a challenger product to traditional employer health spending accounts.
Healthcare Spending Accounts (“HSA”) help business owners save on medical costs by turning an after-tax personal medical expense into a before-tax business expense. This plan is a smart and efficient option for the modern-day entrepreneur helping the plan member minimize coverage gaps between government and employer funded healthcare and other health insurance options.
The Mastercard® HSA solution is unique to the Canadian marketplace and is particularly applicable to small companies and self-employed business owners. In Canada, 97% of all businesses are small businesses, representing 1.2 million companies1, 10.3 million employees2 and 0.9 million gig workers3,4.
Together, Everyday People and SEB are the first to introduce this integrated employee healthcare spending account and credit card program into the Canadian market. This program represents a large specialty opportunity targeting the HSA market, currently estimated at over $8 billion premium in Canada5 and over $98 billion in the United States6. Our combined resources and client base position the new joint venture to capture significant market share in the overall HSA Canadian marketplace.
“A joint venture with SEB to offer a healthcare spending account program for small business owners and their employees is yet another way that Everyday People, along with one of its partners, provides people with greater financial flexibility,” states Barret Reykdal, CEO of Everyday People. “Giving small business employees access to a healthcare spending account helps fill coverage gaps, allows individuals to manage healthcare spending and to direct funds according to their healthcare needs. The solution provides an instant, easy to use, efficient method of transacting in the form of a card-based platform. Today, Everyday People offers similar specialty credit payment card solutions in multiple markets. The HSA solution adds to the Company’s extensive digital banking solutions portfolio.”
Within the joint venture, Everyday People will operate as the program manager and SEB will operate as the HSA program administrator and adjudicator. SEB has an established customer base of employers who use SEB’s proprietary benefit administration and billing solutions (including SaaS solutions) to self-administer health benefit programs for their employees.
“This innovative program will streamline operations, increase accuracy and boost efficiency, and offers employees a reduction of out-of-pocket burden and costs normally associated with traditional healthcare spending accounts,” states Mohamad El Chayah, COO of SEB and President & CEO of SEB Admin. “Members of this HSA program are issued a spending account for healthcare and wellness services tied to a Mastercard®. This provides more financial flexibility in managing healthcare options and an improved customer experience, allowing immediate reimbursement of healthcare expenditures at the point of sale.”
