“Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a minimum pay standard for Uber (UBER.N) and Lyft (LYFT.O) drivers, making Washington the first U.S. state to implement earnings standards for ride-hail companies. Drivers across the Northwestern state will earn a minimum of $1.17 per mile and 34 cents per minute with a minimum pay of $3.00 per trip.”

“PNC Financial Services Group is working to help corporate clients retain their employees by supporting a number of payment technologies that can free up workers’ cash flow. PNC supports both early wage access (EWA) — a system for giving employees the portion of their paycheck they’ve already earned ahead of the traditional payday — and Request for Pay (RfP), an invoicing method tied to real-time payments.”

“U.S. Bank announced a new solution with Payactiv to bring Earned Wage Access (EWA) to U.S. Bank clients. Employees at organizations that use the prepaid U.S. Bank Focus Card for payroll disbursements can access a portion of their earned wages on-demand through an immediate direct deposit to their U.S. Bank Focus Card. The collaboration includes other payment options including an instant deposit into an employee’s checking account via Real-Time Payments (RTP).”

“DailyPay, featured in TIME’s “Best Inventions of 2021,” today announced their one-of-a-kind digital wallet solution. DailyPay’s digital wallet solution is designed for everyday working Americans, many of whom are facing unprecedented financial challenges with the resurgence of the pandemic. The DailyPay wallet solution is the only digital wallet that automatically fills itself every day a user works, reflecting their pay balance in real-time. As long as the user works for a company partnering with DailyPay, their usable DailyPay Balance™ is always growing — effectively eliminating the traditional payday.”

“Robinhood Markets Inc. is working on a new feature that lets users receive their paychecks via direct deposit up to two days early, stepping up competition with companies like PayPal Holdings Inc. and Wealthfront Corp.  Work on the new service was discovered inside of a beta version of an upcoming update to the company’s iPhone app. The option is dubbed Early Direct Deposit and will be available within Robinhood’s existing direct-deposit feature. The code also indicates that the service won’t have fees.”

“Revolut has announced the launched of a new ‘earned wage access’ product called Payday . Payday will allow employees at participating companies, for a “small, flat fee”, to access some of their wages as they earn them, rather than waiting for a fixed day to be paid on. People will only be able to withdraw from what they’ve already earned, so is “not a loan or credit” according to Revolut.”

“Getting gig economy workers to send their paychecks directly to a PayPal or Venmo wallet is one of the goals of a new partnership between PayPal and Fiserv announced Wednesday. As digital wallets become more popular, the deal between the two fintech companies is focused on giving consumers faster access to payouts and businesses new marketing opportunities on the Venmo platform.”

“Annette Steele isn’t destitute or unemployed. But for a year she’ll be receiving $500 per month in no-strings-attached payments as part of an experimental universal basic income program in upstate New York…During the pilot program, funded by private donations, 100 county residents making less than $46,900 annually will get $500 a month for a year. The income threshold was based on 80% of the county’s average median income, meaning it includes both the poor and a slice of the middle class — people who face financial stress but might not ordinarily qualify for government aid based on income.”

“ABN AMRO is introducing a new instant payment service that makes it easier for flexible workers to decide themselves when their invoice is paid once the work is done. This shortens the time between when the work is delivered and payment for their services from a number of weeks to one second. Freelancers have complete control over their earnings.”

“A small number of banks have begun offering early direct deposit — a move that will cost them revenue in the short run but could help them preserve market share and strengthen their public image over the long term. This service, which is sometimes called early pay, lets customers access their paycheck a day or two sooner than normal to avoid overdraft fees or the need to turn to a payday lender. Early direct deposit has been made popular in the past decade by challenger banks like Chime, Varo and One, though a few community banks have offered it for years. Many traditional banks have been unwilling to give up the overdraft fees they can reap in the days leading up to payday. But some — including Capital One Financial — have embraced early direct deposit to appeal to consumers, who are increasingly drawn to an expanding field of consumer-friendly neobanks.”

“Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology solutions, announced today that businesses leveraging Money Network ® electronic payroll delivery services from Fiserv can provide employees early access to their wages. This increasingly in-demand benefit, known as earned wage access (EWA), is being made available through Money Network prepaid payroll cards via integrated capabilities from Instant Financial.”

“Branch, an Employer Payments Platform, and global card issuing platform Marqeta have shared the findings from a study on the work and payments “preferences” of gig workers. Surveying more than 1,000 workers who began engaging in gig and 1099 work during the past six months, the Branch x Marqeta Gig Payments Report reveals that “driven by the pandemic, 85% of respondents said they had picked up additional work.””

“Comdata, a leading provider of innovative payment solutions, announced the launch of Fintwist OnDemand, a real-time payment process incorporated into the company’s innovative Fintwist digital platform. Fintwist customers can now offer their employees access to earned wages before payday without changes to existing payroll processes.”

“Earned wage access provider Even has surpassed $2.5 billion in lifetime payment volume for instant, on-demand wages to employees of hundreds of companies, including Walmart and PayPal . Oakland, Calif.-based Even first began offering on-demand wage payments to employees for earned, but not yet paid wages in 2017. While the company would not disclose how much in instant payments had been made in the past year, it did report that volume has been steadily building in the last five years with a major boost experienced during COVID-19. The company reported that about 64% of its users use the on-demand pay feature.”

“At Plaid, we believe payroll data is the next frontier in fintech and open finance. Access to payroll data has tremendous potential to expand financial opportunity and help people lead healthier financial lives.  As a first step toward providing that access, we previously introduced Deposit Switch , the first beta product in our Plaid for Payroll suite. Today, we’re announcing our second solution: Income.”

“PayActiv, the only EWA Program to receive an Approval Order from the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB), welcomes Hancock Whitney, the first bank to offer PayActiv’s financial wellness solution to its bank clients. Starting immediately, Hancock Whitney will include PayActiv as an additional banking solution for its business clients.”

“DailyPay , the recognized gold standard in the on-demand pay industry, today announced the launch of a game-changing new product, ExtendPX , for human capital management (HCM) and payroll service providers. ExtendPX moves DailyPay beyond their traditional On-Demand Pay (ODP) business offering. The announcement of ExtendPX will enable every Payroll, HCM and TMS (Time Management Software) company in the U.S. to offer highly demanded on-demand pay services through a customizable, modular on-demand pay solution that can be embedded into the product suite that they offer to their customers.”

“Clair , a social impact embedded fintech startup transforming how hourly employees get paid, today announced a partnership with Mastercard to provide financial wellness for America’s 82 million non-exempt workers , building on the two companies’ shared mission to foster a more inclusive digital economy. Starting immediately, users who sign up for Clair will receive the Clair Debit Mastercard, which hourly workers can use to access their free daily wage advances.”

“More financial platforms exist than ever before to help consumers take control of their financial health. However, it can still be difficult for consumers to direct where their payroll funds go when choosing services that best fit their financial needs. Changing where direct deposits go is usually a manual and time-consuming process for both financial institutions and consumers.”