SHRM Debuts New Faster Pay Solution For Unbanked Americans

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has announced its new SHRM Payment Solution, a press release says, which will focus on faster delivery of payment to employees via electronic means.

Powered by Money Network, the SHRM Payment Solution will especially aim to help millions of underbanked or unbanked Americans who need a digital method of accessing pay and a quicker way to access payroll.

The release says the mobile app will also come with a prepaid debit card that can be used anywhere. The need comes from the unique challenges of the pandemic era, in which millions of people worldwide are utilizing more digital payments and working remotely.

“The modern workplace truly is a blended reality of work and home,” said SHRM Chief Growth Officer Adam Sohn. “Nearly 60 percent of the workforce—some 88 million working Americans—spend time at work on personal finances and even more than that, 70 percent, believe their employers have little concern for their financial wellbeing. This is an opportunity — a win-win-win opportunity — for employers to stand with employees by going beyond traditional employee benefits.”

The new solution is compliant with wage laws across the U.S. and comes with other benefits like off-cycle payments, patented checks and optional prepaid debit cards, allowing workers full access to their pay through those solutions.

There’s expected to be a wide swathe of unbanked U.S. residents in the near future, PYMNTS writes, according to a report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC). The report finds that the current number of unbanked residents was somewhere around 5.4 percent in 2019, but it could skyrocket due to the pandemic’s recession and surging unemployment numbers.

The Great Recession from a decade ago also saw an increase in unbanked Americans, which the FDIC report uses as a basis for what may happen going forward. In 2011, the number of unbanked Americans rose to 8.6 percent in 2011, from 7.6 percent in 2009. But in the ensuing years as the economy improved, the number fell 2.8 percent.