untied unveils first open banking service to pay HMRC

untied, the UK’s personal tax app, today announced that one of its users made the first-ever open banking-enabled tax payment to HMRC. This landmark payment was powered by untied’s partner, tomato pay as part of the companies’ SMART (SMEs Manage Accounts Receivables and Tax) initiative, backed by the Banking Competition Remedies Capability and Innovation Fund.

Making an open banking payment to HMRC using untied’s service ensures that the payment reaches HMRC directly; quickly and securely. This method of payment reduces the risk of errors and fraud by removing the need to enter HMRC’s bank account number or sort code. untied’s users can now authenticate the tax-payment directly from their own mobile or via online banking through a seamless end-to-end process. The service is currently in private beta and will be rolled out in the coming months.

Nearly three million people in the UK already use open banking-enabled products to manage their finances, access credit and make payments. The number of open banking payments, which run over the UK’s Faster Payments network, rose to over four million in 2020, a 12-fold increase since 2018.

Open banking has continued to provide opportunities for untied and tomato pay. It has enabled the two businesses to create modern, useful financial products and services to help sole traders and SMEs.

untied’s new service provides trust and additional peace of mind that payments will be routed securely to HMRC. This is especially relevant today as the rise in coronavirus tax scams throughout 2020 has made it more important than ever for the public to feel confident when making tax payments.

untied supports the government’s guidance to consumers on identifying and reporting HMRC phishing emails, texts and phone call scams.

Kevin Sefton, CEO at untied, commented: “This is another milestone for untied as we continue to innovate in response to customer needs. I’m delighted that our users can use the latest technology and be confident that their tax payments will reach HMRC safely and securely.”

Nicholas Heller, CEO and co-founder at tomato pay and Fractal Labs said: “We’re proud that tomato pay has played its part alongside our remarkable partners, untied, in today’s momentous achievement. We’re particularly glad to see that HMRC payments no longer need to be the burden it once was for sole traders”.

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For further information:

Chantal Heckford, pr@untied.io

About untied: untied is the UK’s personal tax app. It’s built for people, not accountants and is designed especially to help sole traders to get on top of their taxes. untied is the only end to end app that enables users to link their bank accounts, makes tax sense of their transactions and files directly to HMRC.

untied launched untied lite in April, the first tax product designed specifically for gig/platform workers. untied’s partners include Revolut, Deliveroo, Stuart and Deloitte. untied is regulated by the FCA, supervised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation and recognised by HMRC. An untied user submitted the UK’s first ever fully mobile tax return in January 2019. untied partners with tomato pay/Fractal Labs in the SMART initiative backed by the Banking Competitions Remedies Capability and Innovation Fund.

Find out more about untied.

About tomato pay: tomato pay is a platform-as-a-service that is reinventing how Small-Medium-Enterprises (SMEs) execute payments and access financial services. tomato pay helps financial institutions (FI) and their SME clients save money by providing a smarter payments engine and an insights platform to deliver the right product, to the right SME, at the right time.

Find out more about Fractal.

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