earned wage access

Join us for an exclusive conversation with Alex Kostecki, the brains behind Clair, a service that ties your bank account to your employment. As the co-founder and chief revenue officer, Alex reveals how his background in financial services consulting inspired the creation of Clair - a service that not only gives users free access to their wages but also enables them to earn interest on them. He enlightens us on Clair's business model which is built on interchange fees and its innovative way of generating revenue from voluntary products on their app. Alex also shares his love for marketing and backcountry skiing.

Despite the potential challenges of state-specific regulations, Clair is committed to navigating the complexities of the financial industry. The company is in the process of obtaining the required licensing and working with qualified lenders to comply with the evolving regulatory landscape. This proactive approach is attracting large companies, like networks of hospitals across the US and large hotel groups, who choose Clair for its ability to deploy services across the entire country.

Discover the power of on-demand pay solutions as we chat with Gino Palozzi, the CMO of DailyPay. Learn how this ground-breaking platform is reshaping the way we view payday, giving you the flexibility to save and invest your hard-earned money before it hits your bank account. Say goodbye to predatory lenders and embrace the freedom that real-time visibility of your salary affords you. For employers, this means increased retention and improved engagement - a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Unpack the future of on-demand pay with us, as we explore the vast potential of reloadable cash cards for the underbanked or unbanked population. Break the chains of misconception with Gino as he explains how this is not a credit product, but a tool for financial access. Hear about the additional perks of the DailyPay platform, like data-driven strategies, personal coaching, and an auto-save feature, all aimed at making on-demand pay the new norm. Tune in and step into the future of financial inclusion with us. Your salary, your rules, your financial freedom.

Tal Clark, CEO of Instant Financial

The cost-of-living crisis crosses borders; last year more than double the number of Americans said they were short of money before payday – 51% against 24% in 2018. In 2022, 79% of Americans said they would be more interested in applying for a job that offers payments to them the same day they work – 30% more than in 2018. Earned wage access could be the solution to the problem. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Tal Clark of Instant Financial about his belief that fee-free access to pay is a right, not a privilege.

 good day folks. Today is Wednesday, May 31st, 2023. I'm Brian Escobar and this is Payroll in the News. Our first story, x t m, Inc. A Miami and Toronto based FinTech creator of disruptive payment Solutions, specifically geared towards service industries, announces its intent to acquire Qras Inc.

A prepaid payments issuer processor, and one of the first vertically integrated provider of earned wage access. They have operations in the US and the uk. An earned wage. Earned wage access is basically on demand payments. And this is the term that we've we've created for that. On demand payment solution is earned wage access.

Very popular trending across the world, built on its own world class issuer processor platform, QRAS. Their flagship product is called Any Day. It's currently white labeled for some of the largest HR and payroll solution providers in the world, and is fully integrated to multiple payroll and time and attendance systems, providing workers with a real-time access to available wages.

Company reps at Xtm State that qras vertically integrated earned wage access solution, along with the state-of-the-art processing and issuing platform will be accelerated into the market with the strength of XT M'S. Team and successful track record look out for more updates as this, deal is still in negotiations.

Our second story is about Expensify. Expensify is a payment super app that helps individuals and businesses around the world simplify the way they manage money across expenses, corporate cards, bills, invoices, and of course, payroll announced its latest feature, Expensify Chat. This will improve communication efficiency for accountants and their clients.

The outdated model of using separate apps for tracking tasks, communication, and payments, has created a less than optimal experience that does not meet the needs of modern workflows. Says C E O. David Barrett, the founder of Expensify. This is the problem that affects all industries, but especially accountants.

And it's is something Expensify is excited to solve with Expensify Chats. Kudos. It's not chat. C b T by the way, folks, they're, what they're referring to is being able to stay in the app in a secured environment and dealing with whatever reporting or backup you might need for your accountant.

Always needs something very sensitive in nature. So they need a, platform to share this data in a secure environment. So kudos to Expensify for adding that chat feature. It goes beyond the chat I've read. You know, when you read deeper, it is to be able to ex share documents as well.

So that's a great feature to have for your clients within a secured accounting app. Now the last story is a bit of fun. You know, Montana is down with payroll tech, but not TikTok tech, . There's a county in  Montana that quickly implemented  Central Square solution to simplify finance and payroll processes.

With the Central Square Finance Enterprise Solution finance directors can replace burdensome paperwork with fully configurable and automated workflows to help drive efficiency within their teams while benefiting from a faster and easier installation. And a broader accessibility in the cloud, of course, right?

We need everything in the cloud. We need things to be automated. So kudos to Montana for the payroll tech, but watch out for that TikTok tech. And that's it  for today, folks, thanks for listening to Payroll in the News for May 31st, 2023. Brought to you by, it's about payroll.

My guest this week grew up on a small-town island in Canada but had to go all the way to Hong Kong before he finally realized that being a lawyer wasn’t his calling. When he returned, he had exchanged his passion for a “reputable career” for an obsession with technology. ZayZoon Co-founder and President Tate Hackert went from Meetups to mainstream via the tech startup path – and all on behalf of the employee/employer dynamic when it comes to payments.

For those of you who may not know, ZayZoon is a way for employees to get paid prior to their individually scheduled paycheck date. And for those of you wondering why this is so important, Tate will be the first to tell you that 80 million Americans live paycheck to paycheck. For this demographic, the capacity to access earned wages as needed significantly minimizes cash flow distress and the resulting predatory product scams and credit hits that can often come with it.

How does it work? In a nutshell, any employee at a participating location can go in and request their pay prior to their pay date and then once their paycheck clears, the funds are re-deposited back to ZayZoon. This includes the ability to send money directly to the employee bank account, as well as prepaid debit card options with automatic check deposit and the capacity to stream wages, and gift card options that offer a “coupon clipping on steroids” kind of benefit. With this product, employees benefit from the ability to save money, while employers can more than double their candidate pipeline and employee retention.

Tune in to hear Tate talk about his journey to the role of Co-founder and President, including where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years as it relates to real-time payments, interoperability, and the democratization of our payments ecosystem. We also talk about his “big hairy audacious goal” to save 10 million employees 10 billion dollars!

On this episode we recap the entire month of October that was dedicated to Financial Inclusion. We had a great lineup including: 

·        Elena Whisler from The Clearing House

·        David Rocha from Prosperas

·        Ken Weber from Ripple

·        Reed Luhtanen and Gail Hildebrand from the Faster Payments Council

·        Jeanniey Walden from DailyPay

In our recap we cover topics including faster payments, earned wage access, a streamlined process to get credit and other programs that are helping to solve the global challenge around financial inclusion. 

David Rocha from Prosperas summed up the entire series this way, “Someone gave us a chance and that's really what we're trying to do for this broader community is give them a chance. And we know that if we do, they'll take it. They'll maximize it and we'll all be better for it.”

We hope to bring awareness and visibility into at least some of the programs, companies and initiative that are helping to serve the global population of unbanked, underbanked and underserved. 

And a special thanks to The Clearing House for sponsoring Financial Inclusion month. 

For those of you who’ve ever been curious enough to question why one would ever have to wait two weeks to receive money they’ve already earned, this podcast is for you. DailyPay Chief Innovative Marketing Officer Jeanniey Walden talks with us this week about financial inclusion, breaking the invisible barriers around our financial system and what it looks like to have immediate access to your earned wages.

DailyPay is a company focused on changing pay for good. Their objective is to look at ways they can create new solutions that have a positive impact on the entire financial system. Jeanniey talks a lot in this episode about the invisible rules created around money that have been alive in our ecosystem for centuries and have ultimately become barriers that result in subsets of our communities such as the unbanked and underserved.

Their target audience is the employer, the employee and everyone in between, and their mission is to bring more transparency to the employee around the money they make, when they make it, and do it in a timely enough manner that they have the opportunity to generate more financial confidence as a result of it. So, we’re basically talking about real-time access and on-demand pay. Not to mention, DailyPay has enabled hourly workers to see their earned wages in real time for the first time – ever.

Tune in this week to hear Jeanniey talk about the invisible barriers preventing us from financial inclusion, what the average household looks like in the post-Covid, high inflation economy and what more our global financial system could commit to in an effort to strengthen financial inclusion.

A native Canadian with a degree in molecular biology and computer science… and also the only guy I’ve ever met that can create a successful analogy using payments and farming, Instant Financial Founder and CEO Steve Barha speaks to us about the necessity to support financial health in some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

The pioneers of no-fee-no-interest earn-wage access, Instant Financial is taking a proactive stance when it comes to ensuring financial inclusion. And Steve’s personal vision when it comes to the financial status of the every-day employee? To live in a world where living paycheck-to-paycheck is completely extinct.

So, how close are we? Sadly, not close enough. 

With 80% of working Americans still living paycheck-to-paycheck, we are actually worse off now than we were 10 years ago, when the number was 60%. But Steve and his team have a strategy…

It all comes down to proactively lifting the underserved communities from the status of “financially vulnerable” to at least be “financially coping.” Once that has been achieved, they can then graduate to “financially healthy.”

Tune in and hear us talk about all things financial inclusion and see if you share Steve’s vision for the future.

Steve Barha, the Founder and COO of Instant Financial is our special guest this week on episode 109 of the Leaders in Payments podcast. 

Steve is from British Columbia, Canada and got a double major in Molecular Biology and Computer Science. He’s a technology entrepreneur and has founded multiple companies.  

Instant Financial is a pioneer in the no fee, no interest, earned wages access space. Instant allows employees to access their wages on-demand. They are headquartered in Atlanta and serve about 350 corporate clients and move about a $1B in Instant pay funds annually. 

This is a fascinating and growing space and Instant has a unique value prop – where they don’t charge the employees for access to their wages, and they don’t charge the employer.  

Steve is passionate about financial wellness and literacy as well as helping fellow entrepreneurs with their journeys.