PayQuicker Contributes to Ultimate Gig Book

How Technology is Shaping Gigs

Excerpt from “Gigs Pay Quicker”

“The traditional one-month or two-week time frame to receive the monetary rewards associated with work accomplished has been revolutionized by the gig economy. How about being paid within hours after performing the work? It is now possible thanks to technology and its impact on banking and money transfer.

The gig economy provides work on demand. This has created a workforce that expects to be paid immediately for their sales and services. Many join the gig economy as their primary or supplementary source of income. In addition, almost 3 out of 4 workers live paycheck to paycheck and want the financial security of knowing they can immediately access their hard-earned money for their daily living expenses and emergencies.

Paul Beldham, founder and CEO of PayQuicker, recognized drawbacks with both traditional payment methods and newer wallet payout solutions. Beldham knew workers prefer being paid more frequently and drew from studies that indicated paying often aligns work with reward, and directly correlates to reported happiness and work satisfaction. He began to rethink the way workers could be paid using new technology. Traditional methods were too slow, inconvenient, and expensive to administer. New payout wallets also had drawbacks. Wallets were not providing payees access and ownership of their funds at the time of payment notification, nor providing payees instant use of their funds. Wallets were holding the payments in commingled accounts. Beldham realized that payees get frustrated when they receive a payment notice, try to spend using the wallet’s prepaid card, and the transaction is declined due to insufficient funds, in addition to getting charged decline fees. Payees often did not realize they needed to login and request the funds be transferred to the card. On top of this frustration, if they lost the card – the money was gone. Beldham knew clients and payees were not happy with these solutions.

Beldham and the PayQuicker team set out to develop a secure instant payout platform that delivers payouts to a payee-owned bank account and associated debit card, like a checking account. As soon as a payment notification is received, the funds are immediately available in the account and can be spent in a variety of ways, including online with a virtual card, at retail with a plastic debit card, or by loading the card to a mobile wallet like Apple, Google or Samsung Pay. Instant payment means instant spending, and it is now possible. The solution makes payees happy.

Gig-providing companies are taking notice. Being able to pay workers quicker makes the work more appealing and, perhaps, increases productivity, performance, and work satisfaction. If workers are motivated to do more because they know they will be paid promptly, the business will also benefit.

The following thoughts and insights are attributed to Beldham and Dworaczyk. They provided us with descriptions of the PayQuicker platform, which can be used as a checklist for gig-providing companies and those who are learning more about what to expect from the gig-providing company they choose.

1. Gone are the days of waiting to be paid. Our clients can pay as frequently as they desire with no cost per transaction. We have clients paying their reps within three hours of the sale.
2. A significant benefit we offer is the PayQuicker payee commission account, which qualifies as a bank account for any gig worker who gets paid as an independent contractor.
3. The client-owned funding account and payee-owned bank accounts are on the same banking platform meaning transfers between funding and payee accounts process instantly. Our payment process is streamlined and seamless.
4. Onboarding must be easy. Our payees receive their payment notification by email with a link to register online for their account. They provide minimal information: their name, address, and date of birth, to register. They instantly obtain their virtual card for immediate online spending and can order their plastic card, which is delivered within a week or two.
5. PayQuicker offers a low-cost, fully customizable, client-branded experience that becomes our client’s competitive advantage. We also provide an advanced global payment gateway that integrates directly with our client’s portal, powering it with the PayQuicker solution features and benefits.
6. Return on investment in a payment system is essential. The apparent return on investment comes from the reduction in costs associated with the traditional processing of checks and Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions, handling sensitive banking information, KYC (know your customer) banking requirements, escheatment, call center support to handle payment issues, and the collection and distribution of tax-related documentation.
7. Spend back is another feature we offer. It allows gig workers to use their commission account to spend back with their gig-providing company when appropriate. The gig-providing company avoids merchant processing costs on order fulfillment. This is a significant cost savings for our clients, shipping tangible goods to their gig workers.
8. We eliminate the need for shadow accounting. A shocking 70% of businesses still manage commissions through internal processes. Frequent payouts, immediately after the sale or services are rendered, help eliminate expensive, productivity-sapping, shadow accounting reconciliation.
9. The instant payment, instant spend trend, while still early in its lifecycle, is increasing rapidly. For evidence of its mainstream appeal, look at the number of applications now available for daily pay in the traditional employment arena for salaried and hourly employees. The interest incurred by workers using pay-day loan services costs consumers more than $9 billion annually. Getting paid quicker, which is a benefit in the gig economy, is becoming a revolutionary new benefit for all business models.
10. The psychological boost of paying bills on time, or being able to cover emergency costs, pays dividends on and off the job. Surveys show that workers who have instant access to their pay feel more positive about their company, more supported by their management, and are more likely to stay with the company longer.
11. Smartphone enabled fintech solutions are now mainstream, and the latest studies from global leaders like FIS Worldpay show significant changes in behavior using these systems to increase our convenience to spend. Virtual cards and mobile pay solutions incorporated into smartphones (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) will surpass traditional spend methods in 2023 in the U.S. and are already the majority of transactions in Asia. PayQuicker supports these trends and offers these preferred transaction methods today.
12. PayQuicker clients can start making payouts in 2 to 4 weeks by deploying a PayQuicker card. Branded card programs take 4 to 8 weeks, accounting for network approval of card artwork. Overall, client onboarding includes bank due diligence, card artwork approval, client training, and launch. Payments can be made by batch file uploads or through easy API integration.
13. Multilingual support is essential. We have multilingual support for our clients and their payees at every step. Client Relationship Managers train and assist our clients. Payee Support is available to account holders via phone, email, live chat. Our Development Team supports clients through API integration.
14. When you have two generations — millennials and Gen Z — growing up with instant everything and everything on-demand, the transformation to instant pay is guaranteed to continue.
15. Over the next five to ten years, competitive companies will implement an instant or daily pay cycle. Companies will continue to convert their legacy systems to take advantage of the efficiencies and growth resulting from the instant pay, instant spend model.
16. Companies with strategic plans to expand globally will need scalable payout solutions that enable their global expansion. PayQuicker partners with global banks, processors, and global card networks and fulfillment, to provide a seamless, scalable global payment platform that allows businesses to make instant secure mass payouts in local currencies around the globe as they grow.
17. The gig economy and its payout systems are expanding across all industry verticals.”