Morgan Stanley is using a new feature from Hyperlayer to let eligible wealth management clients receive securities-based loan proceeds in their existing accounts, with restrictions on how the money is used enforced automatically.
Hyperlayer, a programmable banking technology company, built a layer that works with Morgan Stanley’s existing systems, the company said. The feature lets eligible clients reach loan proceeds in accounts they already use while enforcing restrictions on how the money is spent.
Rob Rooney, Hyperlayer’s CEO, was formerly a senior advisor at Morgan Stanley for technology and innovation. He explained to The Financial News Network in an interview that the loan deposit program allows for something of a virtual segregation of loan proceeds. Rather than ending up in a walled-off account, the money lands in the client’s existing account, flagged and wrapped in rules that block prohibited uses.
“Morgan Stanley's customers get a seamless experience. They see all their money in one place,” Rooney said. “Morgan Stanley has total control and an audit trail, so they feel really good.”
Morgan Stanley's customers get a seamless experience. They see all their money in one place
Hyperlayer was unable to provide data on the launch and how many customers would be eligible for the program, or give any indication about volume or adoption figures.
Aleksey Shevchenko, head of deposits and core banking technology at Morgan Stanley, said in a press release announcing the program that “The technology is extendable, so we aim to apply the same approach to other banking capabilities in the future.”
For Rooney, working with Morgan Stanley is a homecoming of sorts since he previously worked at the firm, as did Paul Rolles, Hyperlayer’s other founder. Rooney said he saw firsthand the amount of fragmentation big banks deal with.
“I needed to transform the way in which we innovated, and I saw that the standard narrative was the way you do that is you have to rip out that bottom layer [of] your core infrastructure and you have to replace it,” Rooney said. “The rip and replace of core infrastructure has been the standard go-to model, and for large banks, it's proving to be either insanely difficult or kind of impossible.”
From ‘British mums’ to Big Banks
Hyperlayer was born out of HyperJar, a consumer family banking app. Rooney said that the company’s technology is proven “all the time in the wild with 600,000 British mums and kids,” at HyperJar, “and now we're in several big banks doing it at an enterprise level.”
One of the use cases on the rise for Hyperlayer is agentic commerce. The programmable layer, which sits on top of older systems, allows customers to pick how the products behave and can be used in multiple ways — including setting limits for AI agents looking to buy something for their humans.
“We need to make sure that when our spend is allocated or devolved to that agent, we are in a safe environment, and our account ecosystem has sufficiently fine-grained, powerful rules that work in real time to let the agent do exactly what we want the agent to do, and not let him do anything we don't want that agent to do,” Rooney said.
He compared it to HyperJar allowing young children to spend based on parent decisions.
“We've been, in a sense, doing this for a really long time, and perfecting it on 13-year-old boys,” Rooney said. “And there you go, we're ready for agents.”
Last month, Hyperlayer raised £19.5 million in a Series A2 round, bringing its valuation to £195 million, according to FinTech Futures.
