HSBC UK just launched "My Business Finances," an accounting, invoicing, and tax filing tool built directly into its business banking platform (HSBC). Powered by Sage's Embedded Services APIs, it lets sole traders and landlords manage bookkeeping and submit tax returns without leaving their HSBC account.
The product launches in April 2026, timed to the UK's Making Tax Digital deadline. From that date, anyone with self-employment or property income over £50,000 must use HMRC-compliant software for quarterly digital reporting.
This is embedded finance in reverse. Instead of software companies adding banking, a bank is adding software.
Sage has been building toward this for years. The company's Embedded Services platform offers headless APIs that let banks and platforms white-label accounting capabilities. And HSBC is not the first: Tide launched its Sage-powered accounting tool in 2022. Sage's pitch is straightforward: banks get a new revenue stream and stickier customers, SMEs get one fewer app to manage.
The other direction: accounting software adding banking
While banks embed accounting, accounting software providers embed banking. The approaches differ.
Some take the traditional BaaS route. Lexware, Germany's leading business software provider, launched a business account powered by Solaris in late 2023. Accountable, a Belgian and German tax app for freelancers, launched embedded banking in early 2025 using Swan. Others partner with existing neobanks. NOCFO, a Finnish accounting platform, launched accounts powered by Holvi in July 2025.
Then there are neobanks that built accounting in from the start. Qonto offers invoicing, receipt scanning, VAT detection, and expense management natively to its 600,000+ customers. Tide took the partner route with Sage, combining banking and accounting into a single app for UK SMEs.
What this means
Both directions start with existing customers and try to upsell additional services. Banks leverage their customer base to sell accounting tools. Accounting software leverages its user base to sell banking products. Using one provider for both clearly makes sense for SMEs. Which side is better positioned for which customer segments remains to be seen.
