SEB & Everyday People Financial Form Joint Venture to Launch Health Spending Account Mastercard® Program Across North America

November 1, 2022 – Mississauga, ON: SEB Administrative Services Inc. (“SEB Admin”), a subsidiary of Smart Employee Benefits Inc. (“SEB” or the “Company”) (TSXV: SEB) (OTCQB: SEBFF), an Insurtech provider of cloud based, end-to-end IT and Benefit Processing solutions for the life and group benefits marketplace and government, is pleased to announce, further to the letter of intent entered into April 22, 2022, pursuant to a definitive agreement dated October 27, 2022, that it has formed a Joint Venture with Everyday People Financial Inc. (“EP” or “Everyday People”), a financial technology and consumer financing company, 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, SEB and Everyday People 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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

Sources:

1 https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03126.html

2 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2022004-eng.htm

3 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019025-eng.htm

4 https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03147.html

5 https://ayacare.com/hsa-wsa/

6 https://www.devenir.com/research/2022-midyear-devenir-hsa-research-report/

About SEB Administrative Services Inc.:

SEB Administrative Services Inc. (“SEB Admin”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Smart Employee Benefits Inc. (“SEB”), is a third-party administrator (“TPA”) providing leading edge cloud-based, fully bilingual, benefit processing solutions using SEB Admin’s proprietary and customized technologies, solutions and services of Partners. SEB Admin’s “FlexPlus” platform provides single sign-on connectivity for all group benefit stakeholders. FlexPlus® has over 20 modules supporting multiple revenue models, capturing over 90% of all benefit processing activities for all benefit types. Each module can operate standalone or as an integrated solution. SEB Admin manages benefit plan environments for more than 50 of Canada’s name brand companies and government entities and greater than $1B of premiums. FlexPlus® cloud-enabled solutions support all plan designs – traditional, flex, cafeteria, hour bank, dollar bank, marketplace – via co-sourced, fully outsourced or SaaS models. Our solutions turn cost centers to profit centers for many of our clients and channel partners.

For further information about SEB Administrative Services Inc., please visit: www.seb-admin.com.

About Smart Employee Benefits Inc.:

SEB is an Insurtech company focused on Benefits Administration Technology driving two interrelated revenue streams – software/solutions and services. The Company is a proven provider of leading-edge IT and benefits processing software, solutions and services for the Life and Group benefits marketplace and government. We design, customize, build and manage mission critical, end-to-end technology, people and infrastructure solutions using SEB’s proprietary technologies and expertise and partner technologies. We manage mission critical business processes for over 150 blue chip and government accounts, nationally and globally. Over 90% of our revenue and contracts are multi-year recurring revenue streams contracts related to government, insurance, healthcare, benefits and e-commerce. Our solutions are supported nationally and globally by over 600 multi-certified technical professionals in a multi-lingual infrastructure, from multiple offices across Canada and globally.

Our solutions include both software and services driven ecosystems including multiple SaaS solutions, cloud solutions & services, managed services offering smart sourcing (near shore/offshore), managed security services, custom software development and support, professional services, deep systems integration expertise and multiple specialty practice areas including AI, CRM, BI, Portals, EDI, e-commerce, digital transformation, analytics, project management to mention a few. The Company has more than 20 strategic partnerships/relationships with leading global and regional technology and consulting organizations.

For further information about SEB, please visit: www.seb-inc.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information in this release may constitute forward-looking information. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “plans”, “targets”, “expects” or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “an opportunity exists”, “is positioned”, “estimates”, “intends”, “assumes”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate” or “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might”, “will” or “will be taken”, “occur” or “be achieved”. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management’s expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. 

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE COMPANY’S CURRENT EXPECTATIONS AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. HOWEVER, THE COMPANY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY INTENTION OR OBLIGATION TO UPDATE OR REVISE ANY FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION, WHETHER AS A RESULT OF NEW INFORMATION, FUTURE EVENTS OR OTHERWISE, EXCEPT AS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange Inc.) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

All figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated.

Media and Investor Contact

John McKimm
President/CEO/CIO
Office (888) 939-8885 x 2354
Cell (416) 460-2817
john.mckimm@seb-inc.com
www.seb-inc.com
Mohamad El Chayah,
COO of SEB
President & CEO SEB Administrative Services Inc.
Cell: 416.418.0619
mohamad.elchayah@seb-admin.com
www.seb-admin.com
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