Fifth Third Bank Launches Early Pay For Checking Customers

Fifth Third Bank has announced a feature giving customers of the bank’s Momentum Checking platform access to early paychecks, a press release says.

Called Early Pay, the feature rolled out in some markets earlier in 2021 and had the effect of helping customers fend off overdraft fees. Also, it did away with the need for some of those people to turn to payday lenders.

“Fifth Third Momentum Checking’s Early Pay gives our customers access to their paycheck closer to when they earn it, giving them more time to focus more on their financial well-being,” said Tim Spence, president of Fifth Third Bancorp. “With Early Pay and Momentum Checking’s other features, we’re giving customers the widest range of options to access their money faster and avoid fees.”

Spence said customers in the test markets “loved seeing their paychecks arrive early.”

“When our customers are financially stronger, so are we as a bank,” he said, according to the release.

Fifth Third Momentum Banking is the bank’s program to help customers work with new payment styles, avoiding money shortfalls, getting paid and paying others and hitting savings goals, the release says.

Real-time payments have seen an increase as of late, with Bridgit Chayt, Fifth Third Bank’s senior vice president and director of commercial payments and treasury management, telling PYMNTS last year that the real-time payments have gotten off the ground with the rise of a newfound need for speed, but that there would be other things needed.

Now that real-time is gaining traction, she said treasurers had begun speeding up in-house processes.

And she said many bank users are looking toward deploying real-time analytics to help out with using insights able to be monetized.

“The idea that they could use the experience on the front layer of payment as a differentiator – for example, in a real estate firm with an escrow or a down payment experience, or in the insurance industry, where they can actually advertise and build a brand off of how you pay and are reimbursed – is extremely powerful,” she said, according to PYMNTS.