Author: jasonleenyc

Our Streets

Alicia and Jason Lee Foundation

We are proud to call New York City home. 

It’s where we are raising our two beautiful children. It’s where we go to work. It’s where we attend church. It’s where we enjoy many of the City’s amazing cultural institutions and patronize it’s wide variety of restaurants and shops. And of course, it’s where we root for the Yankees.

Like most New Yorkers, we love walking around the city. There’s no better way to experience all the city has to offer and immerse yourself in its diverse culture. It’s amazing how you can sometimes feel like you live in a small town in a city of 8 million. 

The streets bind us. They are the lifeblood of a community. Read more

Forbes Council: Three Ways To Close The Pay-Benefits Gap And Celebrate Your Workforce

Pay On Demand

It’s high time to celebrate the American workforce. While there are pockets of differentiation by industries, by and large, the average worker is making well-deserved gains. First, many have survived the existential threat of the pandemic, which unfortunately continues to affect where and how we work. But the American worker remains in the driver’s seat. In early August the government reported payrolls rose at the highest pace in a year. For hourly workers, companies like Kroger and Starbucks are offering signing bonuses and pay raises. Even in the hard-hit hospitality business, wages are up 6.6% over the past two years. 

But if you’re an employer, these incentives may not be enough to stay competitive. While workers have a lot to celebrate right now, they’re restless. In fact, while you’re reading this, a new study shows that 65% of employees are looking for a new job. 

Read the full story

Marketwatch: In the employer struggle to find workers, there may be a $12 billion fintech opportunity

DailyPay Press

A growing interest among younger workers to access their pay more quickly could create a $12 billion market for payroll providers and earned-wage upstarts that seek to disrupt the traditional idea of pay periods. 

Fintech companies see a big opportunity to speed up access to earned wages, especially for hourly employees with tighter cash-flow needs and a greater proclivity to use costly and predatory options like payday loans to make ends meet. The technology, which can allow workers to receive their wages at the end of a shift, may drive the biggest change to the payroll industry in decades following a long stretch of monthly and then biweekly pay cycles. 

Companies providing access to on-demand wages say they’re seeing a surge of corporate interest given the current labor market as businesses in sectors like retail and restaurants struggle to recruit workers. One Missouri Arby’s location lists “DAILY PAY” as the first bullet point in its job posting for a team-member position. DailyPay, a startup recently valued at upwards of $1 billion, says it works with some Arby’s franchises to provide this service.

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Yahoo Finance Startup Spotlight: DailyPay

interviews, Pay On Demand

Jason Lee, DailyPay Founder & CEO joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel with the latest on the on-demand pay platform.

In today’s startup spotlight, we’re taking a look at the intense battle that businesses are currently finding themselves in for talent. As a refresher, right now, we’re sitting on what is a record amount of job openings here in the US. When we look at that, in a very intense battle to fill those openings and entice workers. Employers are not just upping what their employees are paid, but how they are paid with flexible new services.

And one of those services, DailyPay, lets users tap paychecks in real time so they don’t have to wait for payday to roll around. The company just closed a $175 million series D funding round. And for more on that, happy to welcome into our starting spotlight segment here, DailyPay’s founder and CEO Jason Lee joins us right now. And Jason, congrats on the round. Good to be chatting with you here. You work with some big names– McDonald’s, Kroger, and some other ones out there. But what are you seeing in terms of those companies and others trying to use your services to attract new talent?

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How DailyPay Disrupts The Archaic Pay Cycle With A New Financial System | Jason Lee, DailyPay CEO with Kelly Evans on CNBC’s The Exchange

Flexible Pay, interviews, Pay On Demand

On April 23, 2021 we had a chance to tell CNBC’s The Exchange about how DailyPay disrupts the outdated pay cycle with a new financial system. DailyPay is a New York based technology company and we work with enterprises and Fortune 500 companies in really just about every industry you can name, from healthcare to restaurants to retail. The way it works is that employers leverage our technology to really offer their employees, I mean, truly a life-changing experience. It’s something that we call on-demand pay. Said simply, employees can now access any part of their pay instantly as they earn it without having to wait for a lump sum on a scheduled payday. Through our technology, any employee can now see exactly what her accrued earnings are, and at a tap of a button have access to any part of those earnings 24/7/365. It’s not a payback. There’s not a loan. There’s just your money and we’re delivering that to you on demand.

We see an entirely new financial system where pay is in fact realtime. The catch, however, Kelly, is it’s really hard to do. For my colleagues who work in the payroll industry, it’s very, very difficult to kind of get all the pieces to work together, whether it be the funding or the technology or the risk and compliance. So that’s what we do. We essentially offer the employee the ability to access daily pay without the employer having to run payroll daily. That’s really the concept behind DailyPay.

Earned Wage Access for Walmart Employees – What Went Wrong

Pay On Demand

In a recent Bloomberg article “Walmart’s Early Pay Perk Is Popular, But Sometimes Has a Cost“, the author raised questions why a perk that was supposed to help employees feel less stressed while boosting retention, among other benefits, did not achieve either a company’s or its employees’ goals. 

Research has shown that by changing their employees’ pay experience, companies can maximize efficiency by reducing turnover and decreasing employee absenteeism, while simultaneously increasing productivity and employee satisfaction. If implemented correctly, on-demand pay can save employers and employees millions of dollars every year. 

But all on-demand pay platforms are not created equal, as Walmart experienced, and this article reveals the consequences of rolling out a program that lacks features that are critical to its success. 

According to research conducted in 2021 by Mercator Advisory Group, the data from millions of employees across every vertical is showing us a very different picture.

Read the full analysis here

DailyPay ExtendPX Enables Payroll and HCM Companies to Easily Embed Full End-to-End On-Demand Pay Solution Into Their Own Applications and Offers First-Ever On-Demand Pay White Label

Pay On Demand

DailyPay added capabilities that will allow HCM technology, time management and payroll service providers to offer its on-demand pay services through their product suites. The launch of the product, called ExtendPX, moves DailyPay beyond its traditional offering by opening its services to a range of vendors.

The demand for on-demand pay (an employer-based benefit and payroll process also called earned wage access) has grown exponentially due to its proven ability to reduce turnover, promote worker productivity and boost hiring. Given the triple-digit growth in client demand for on-demand pay, HCM, payroll and TMS companies are quickly realizing the need to embrace this new market.

“Over the past five years, DailyPay has partnered with key HCM and TMS companies in powerful ways,” said Jason Lee, CEO and co-founder of DailyPay. “We have proven that by integrating our gold-standard offering into their platforms, more Americans can enjoy control and flexibility over their pay. After all, it’s their money, and they’ve earned it. This product expansion is just one of the critical steps we are making to move the entire PayExperience industry forward.”

10 Best FinTech Companies to Watch 2021

Awards, interviews

In the digital world we live in, society is moving towards the idea of “giving people what they want”. Many activities like financial services, rides, bill payment, and movies, among others, can be done with mobile apps, and most of them are immediately available. So it is not surprising that employers are following suit by offering their employees on-demand pay to free them from the harms of a rigid pay schedule. On-demand pay stays true to its name and does exactly what it sounds like – a new way for employees to access their pay on demand to meet their financial needs. On-demand payments are generally made through third-party providers, often coordinated by the payroll provider. There are various companies in the payroll industry providing on-demand pay services, but one that stands out from the rest is DailyPay. The company was founded in 2015, and it is based in New York.

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FinTech: How CFPB EWA Compliance Regulations Affect The Industry

CFPB Earned Wage Access
CFPB earned wage access compliance
rules and regulations marked on rubber stamp

In 2020, the ability to access your income as you earn it has shifted from a nice benefit to have to an essential one. Amid the global health crisis, the antiquated way employees have been paid for decades is changing thanks to advancements in technology. With a surge in on-demand pay providers, government agencies are weighing in on which models are optimal for consumers.

On November 30, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalised its advisory opinion process and simultaneously issued its first advisory opinions, including one which concerned Earned Wage Access (EWA).  The advisory opinion process, similar to a private letter ruling from the IRS or a no-action letter from the SEC, is specific to a certain set of facts and circumstances, and each opinion has narrow applicability.

In the EWA opinion, the CFPB explains how a new technology called Earned Wage Access, by enabling workers to get paid as they earn money, rather than wait weeks at a time for their employer-scheduled payday, has provided a critical and more consumer-friendly alternative to payday loans and other predatory alternatives.

Read the full article here