DailyPay is a leading fintech provider of earned income software, working with Fortune 500 companies to provide payroll and time management systems to help employees meet their financial goals. Jason Lee, CEO and Co-Founder of DailyPay, shares more details with us in this interview.
Please tell us a little more about yourself?
Before founding DailyPay, I was working on Wall St. for almost 20 years. In 2015, I saw a profound need for working Americans to have access to their earned pay to give them the financial flexibility they need and the empowerment they deserve over their money.
Hard-working people needed money to support themselves and their families. Under the antiquated pay system, they had to wait two weeks (or more) to get it, often putting them in dire financial situations. The two-week pay cycle failed them. People were going into debt and needed to get second jobs just to get immediate funds to make ends meet. I knew there was a better way.
What is DailyPay and what unique services do you provide?
DailyPay is the recognized leader in the on-demand pay industry, providing gold standard service for hundreds of clients and millions of users nationwide. DailyPay partners with more than 80% of the Fortune 100 companies that offer an on-demand pay benefit. DailyPay has evolved beyond just a platform — we are an ecosystem.
For companies, it’s the zero-cost benefit that employees love.
With DailyPay’s revolutionary pay experience platform, PayExTM, employees have an opportunity to save money each day and continue on a path toward fiscal responsibility.
The PayEx platform provides a number of experiences that can literally mean the difference between putting food on the table or going hungry, paying bills on time or racking up late fees, getting necessary medical attention and supplies for a loved one or watching them suffer.
PayEx comprises four innovative products designed to provide frictionless, digital and rewarding experiences at every stage of the employee lifecycle (recruitment through offboarding). PayEx provides the starting point for employers to regain employee trust that was lost through COVID-19 layoffs and furloughs, and it helps employers by delivering a competitive recruitment advantage, reduced turnover and increased productivity.
The four components of the PayEx platform are:
- PAY: Employees can control how and when they get paid with instant access to earned income, transparent fees and 24/7/365 access to 100% of their earned income
- SAVE: Employees can save their pay in three different ways — scheduled automatically, based on pay period earnings and/or at the time of an instant pay transfer
- REWARD: Employers can reward their employees in an on-the-spot, compliant way (i.e., for taking on an extra shift when a coworker calls out)
- CYCLE: Employers can easily and immediately process off-cycle payments (ex. missed shifts/termination pay)
Before DailyPay, what was wrong with the way Americans receive their pay?
Payroll hasn’t changed in centuries. Since the beginning of time, payroll has always revolved around the employer. Employers have always been the ones to decide when to pay their employees.
About six years ago I had a revelation — why should hard-working Americans wait until a designated payday to access the money they had already earned? Let’s face it — life happens between paydays. Everything from an unexpected medical bill to rent to vacation money might be needed in that timeframe. Arbitrary decisions as to when to pay don’t work for most employees. Those employees then seek highly inferior alternatives, like overdraft fees, to address the gaps caused by that system’s failure.
So I took an in-depth look at this entire landscape of how people were paid in this country. I saw an opportunity for change — and DailyPay was born.
What is the market size and future of the on-demand pay industry?
There are 131 million working adults in America, all of whom could use some features in our product set.
It’s still in the early days, with tremendous growth opportunities in a new industry. While COVID was difficult for many reasons, it enabled on-demand pay to move from important to essential. Americans finally saw the widespread need for flexible pay as hourly and essential workers were catapulted into headlines in a long-term, unprecedented emergency around the country.
In five years, we expect that at least 75% of U.S. businesses will offer a daily pay benefit — and of course, we hope that they work with us, the gold standard in the industry.
Could you give us a walkthrough of how DailyPay is revolutionizing this antiquated system of how the American worker gets paid?
We started by creating a micro-thin layer of technology that sits as a corridor between the employer’s HR technology systems and the employee. This layer unlocks a radically new experience for both the employee and the employer. From the employee’s standpoint, she is now at the center. She has complete control over her pay. She can see what she earns each minute, access her earned wages to pay bills on time and she can save her earned wages in her own savings account, all before what used to be called payday.
From the employer’s standpoint, they have a radically engaged workforce. You see, when you put employees at the center of the pay experience, they actually start behaving differently. For starters, employees stay longer. Our employer partners report an increase in retention of 45%. Employees are more engaged and more likely to pick up extra shifts. Importantly, this is all accomplished without changing a single thing about the employer’s payroll process.
We are well on our way to widespread adoption. The global pandemic has accelerated this adoption as companies realize that DailyPay is truly a zero-cost benefit that employees love.
With a DailyPay benefit, employees are more productive and stay at their jobs longer. This saves companies millions of dollars each year on recruitment, onboarding, and training costs and gives them a competitive advantage when trying to attract top talent.
During this COVID-19 global health crisis, how will Dailypay make things better for millions of Americans? Also, is DailyPay open to other countries?
The pandemic has changed the way companies view on-demand pay, which has evolved from a nice-to-have benefit to an essential one. During the first month or so of the outbreak, we witnessed a 400% spike in DailyPay usage as people were stocking up on necessary provisions. If they had waited for their traditional payday, they might have found that stores were dangerously crowded or shelves were barren of the supplies they needed.
As the pandemic rages on, employers are searching for a viable recovery solution that offsets the loss in revenue and workers. We are seeing more companies implementing DailyPay over time as well. Our research shows that 56% of employees who use DailyPay were motivated to pick up more shifts and 90% of employees noted that having access to DailyPay during the pandemic reduced their financial stress.
The growing necessity of on-demand pay during the pandemic is also affecting the ways companies recruit top talent. Our research shows that 1 in 6 people are looking for a job that offers DailyPay. Over the next few months, as some businesses open up again, offering a daily pay benefit will be essential in recruiting quality new employees.
DailyPay is currently only available in the U.S.
DailyPay has become the preferred or sole technology provider to many Human Capital management companies, what is the secret behind your success?
The secret behind our success is the finely thought out methodology in terms of both our product and the entire customer journey, from start to finish. Our relentless pursuit of providing the “gold standard” of service to our partners is the reason we are the top choice for Fortune 500 companies, why we have the best NPS score in the industry, and why we have never lost a partner. We have a deep commitment to excellence in everything we do — from product innovation to guaranteeing perfection in our customer service. We constantly are looking to level up and move the line. To achieve success, it’s imperative that you’re always progressing, innovating, and most importantly, leaving things better than the way you found them.
With DailyPay, employees can now pay their bills on time, make rent, and meet their financial goals, but how safe is the platform?
At DailyPay, security is at the heart of everything we do. In July, we released our first-ever Security newsletter, and we continuously audit and improve our security posture to ensure that our systems are secure. We insist on independent and impartial assessments as a means to prove our security credentials. DailyPay has earned certifications such as SOC 2 Type 2 and PCI DSS Level 1, and ISO 27001 is in progress. DailyPay has recently introduced Multi-Factor authentication (MFA), which provides an extra layer of protection for partners and employees.
Could you tell us more about your team and customer support?
Our customer support is actually a point of tremendous pride for us. It’s a big part of that gold standard service we talk about. Every one of our millions of users is treated to the white glove customer service they deserve. We don’t farm out customer service — so it really does feel like an extension of our partners’ teams. The DailyPay customer support team in our Minneapolis office sits among other divisions and they are relentless in their pursuit of perfection. We know that pay is personal. Pay is emotional. We respect and value that connection people have to their pay and make sure that their experience with us is flawless every time.
Do you have any available opportunities for investors and partners or more information for our readers from DailyPay?
We are always looking for the right partners who believe in our mission.
Go to dailypay.com for more information.
To learn more about me:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonleem2/
http://twitter.com/jasondailypay