PrePay Solutions (PPS), Europe’s leading prepaid and digital banking specialist, has partnered with new business bank account provider, Coconut, to enable the delivery of  an app-based account that uniquely manages tax and expenses for freelancers and self-employed people.

Despite accounting for 15% of the workforce, many of the UK’s 4.9m self-employed community do not have access to appropriate money, tax and expense management tools. HMRC’s Making Tax Digital Initiative, which will require all small businesses and self-employed people to file quarterly tax from April 2020, will compound this issue for unprepared freelancers.

Under the new partnership, PPS is providing full banking infrastructure and card technology to help Coconut deliver its account, which will help freelancers to manage their finances and prepare for the implementation of Making Tax Digital. Using the transaction information from the cards provided by PPS, Coconut will also be able to offer more personalised products to its customers.

Ray Brash, CEO of PrePay Solutions, said: “It is exciting to be working with a company as innovative as Coconut. As with any partnership, the chemistry has to be right and the Coconut team is perfectly aligned with our company vision and ambition.  Freelancers, sole traders and small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but they are completely underserved when it comes to fit-for-purpose digital banking & account tools. Working together with Coconut, we’re offering a completely new type of product to a growing and underserved group, helping them to benefit from personalised accounts that truly meet their business needs both now and in the future.”

The Coconut account includes a smartphone app featuring fully-automated tax management and expenses tools, as well as a contactless Mastercard for making payments in store and online. An account can be opened in minutes on a user’s mobile, and offers instant notifications on all transactions, in addition to a function for storing receipts, all feeding into a real-time tax assessment preview to help budget for tax bills.

Sam O’Connor, CEO, Coconut, added: “We’re really pleased to be working with the PPS team – they have created the best banking infrastructure product in the UK and are bringing some of the most innovative financial products to market. We’ve worked together to deliver our product in record time with our Beta launch this January. PPS is a crucial long-term partner for us.”

Coconut specialises in making business accounting instant and effortless. The company is backed by leading tech accelerator, Techstars, and was recently named one of the ten winners of theNesta Open Up Challenge, a competition to award grants to innovative businesses using new Open Banking APIs.