SEB Embedded, the banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform of Tier 1 Swedish bank SEB, chooses Thought Machine’s cloud-native core banking platform, Vault Core, to power its new BaaS offering.
Using Vault Core, SEB Embedded launched a banking service for its first client, Hemköp, one of Sweden’s supermarket chains.
Leveraging Vault Core’s capabilities as the foundation of its BaaS offering, SEB Embedded introduces Hemköp Matkonto––a product that offers current accounts designed to help customers manage food budgets and earn loyalty points at the Swedish retailer.
This service allows customers to load and spend funds, “earn loyalty points and benefit from in-store discounts at Hemköp.”
The product, which includes a linked debit card with Apple Pay, features self-service options, including card life cycle management such as “freeze, block, reorder, setting/viewing PINs, and viewing card details for online purchases.”
SEB Embedded plans to scale the services to a broader customer base in the future, with more product launches and clients expected throughout the year.
SEB Embedded enabled the launch of Hemköp’s banking proposition “in less than 10 months,” after its collab with Thought Machine in December 2023.
Using Vault Core’s smart contracts-based product-building framework, SEB Embedded developed the offering with control over its product roadmap–an advantage over “traditional or cloud-retrofit core banking systems.”
Emelie Eriksson, Head of SEB Embedded, comments that with Vault Core, SEB Embedded aims to transform banking by “integrating excellent financial products into customers’ daily lives.”
Eriksson added that their partnership with Thought Machine, a technology leader by the highest standards, has empowered them bring solutions to market faster.
Thought Machine’s CEO and founder, Paul Taylor, comments that SEB Embedded’s go-live on Vault Core in “under 10 months demonstrates the speed and control a truly cloud-native platform provides.”
Taylor added that by independently using their smart contract and Universal Product Engine system for this product, they’ve shown banks worldwide the possibilities that emerge “when embracing modern engineering practices and moving beyond legacy systems.”
SEB Embedded is setting a standard for innovation in banking through BaaS, and they are pleased that Vault Core is at the “heart of this new service.”
SEB’s collab with Thought Machine began in 2018 with the bank using Vault Core in SEBx, its innovation studio.
SEBx was established to explore tech which inspired the creation of SEB Embedded—a service designed to enable businesses to “embed and monetize financial services without becoming a bank.”