DailyPay’s COO Stacy Greiner — on bringing Earned Wage Access everywhere
In today’s episode, Kailee Costello sits down with Stacy Greiner, Chief Operating Officer at DailyPay. DailyPay offers an on-demand pay solution that helps employers to improve the financial well-being of their workforce. DailyPay has over 1000 enterprise clients, and over 4 million of these company’s employees use the DailyPay platform.
“Our clients point out that earned wage access is either the number one or number two most adopted benefit in their company … if it’s number two, it’s second only to healthcare.”
In the episode, Kailee and Stacy discuss:
- DailyPay’s mission to provide employees with on-demand access to their earnings
Stacy: For many people that are working across the country in the United States, simply waiting two weeks or more for their paycheck can cause quite a bit of financial strain, and it leads to things like overdraft fees or late fees or interest payments or even the need to access payday loans. And so we figured we’re all living in an on-demand world, so why don’t we have the right to have our pay on demand as well? We don’t believe that anyone should have to wait two weeks; you should immediately have access to the money that you’ve earned. So, at DailyPay, we’re reimagining the way that money moves from the moment that work starts. We partner with America’s leading employers across the country, from small employers to some of the largest, and really work with them to integrate into their payroll, time and attendance, and human capital management systems, so that their employees can log in and see real-time “how much have I worked” and “how much have I earned”.
We offer a first-of-its-kind technology platform that’s truly bringing earned wage access to employees across the country, so that they can see “how much have I earned this week?” and know that they have access to it if and when they need it.
- Why DailyPay’s target market spans across industries
Stacy: I think there’s probably very few people we’ve ever talked to that don’t believe that they should have access to the money they’ve earned when they’ve earned it. And so, truly, the target market is across every industry that employs people. And we’re really working with people across restaurants, QSRs, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, grocery, etc — essentially any industry that employs people.
- Why DailyPay didn’t start by focusing on a specific industry
Stacy: I think the kind of commonality across our clients is less about a specific industry and more about their mindset. So it truly is the forward-thinking employers who are putting their employees’ financial wellness first and are thinking about the role that they play in bringing that soundness to their employees because they know that as employees have less financial stress, they’re more engaged at work. There was a recent study that for Gen Z alone, three out of four people stated that financial stress has a negative impact on their health. So if you think as an employer, you know, you want people that feel great about their life, feel great about working for you, and in turn are really delivering that positivity to your customers.
- DailyPay’s revenue model
Stacy: So we’re working with employers like Target, Hilton, Kroger, Dollar Tree, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and as well as usual suspects you would think about like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Burger King. So how do we work? We’ve got a business to business model where we integrate into their timekeeping, their payroll, and their attendance systems, and through that integration, we’re able to see, how much have their employees worked so far this week.
When an employee logs into DailyPay, which they do about once per day on average, they’re really logging in to see, “how much have I worked”, “how far am I in the pay cycle?” And if they need to access that money, they can do so in the DailyPay app. So when they log in, they have three ways to access their money, two of which are free. They either can set up a next day ACH payment that would be a free transfer. They can also do a free transfer to DailyPay’s Friday Card, which is a prepaid debit card. Or they can do an instant transfer to an account of their choice, which is a $3.49 flat fee. Think of it as an ATM fee.
I mentioned that users log into DailyPay about once a day, and what we see is they’re checking their balance to see “how much have I earned”, and we also see a correlation then in the incentive it’s creating for those employees then to pick up more shifts.
In fact, the DailyPay users at our employer customers are working 10% more hours on average than their fellow colleagues that are not using DailyPay. So it really is an incredible tool for them to see where they are and also a very motivational tool in terms of helping them achieve some of the things that they’re saving for or bills that they know that are coming.
Then, in addition, beyond just earned wage access, we also have a few features around free financial coaching. So users that want to better optimize their cash flows in and their cash flows out can take advantage of that coaching. We also have an auto-save feature that users can set up — so coming right out of their earned wages is a set amount of savings that they want to go into their savings account within the platform as well. So employers that want to reward employees for maybe working less desirable shifts or picking up extra hours during holidays have that opportunity to really reward their employees through the DailyPay platform. A few different features like that are beneficial both for the employee and the employer and kind of align both the employer and the employee on what’s best for their customers.
- Stacy’s perspective on competitive position, and the importance of truly “earned wage” access
Stacy: So EWA, while it is a shared acronym for both early and earned wage access, we feel very strongly about the importance of truly earned wage access, because it is integrated into the employer’s systems. The employee that’s logging in knows that this is money that they’ve earned, so they see it as another account, similar to how you log into your bank and you see a checking account or a savings account. You log in and you see your earned wage access account.
So it truly is the safest and most secure model for the employee, because they know that they’re truly tapping into money that is an accurate representation of what they have earned to date.
We do also partner with banks and financial institutions as well as HR tech platforms as well, to be able to bring earned wage access through to their customers.They’re an important part of the ecosystem in our mission of bringing earned wage access everywhere.
And honestly, we see kind of our biggest competition as employers choosing to do nothing around earned wage access, which is a risk for them. They’re really missing out on the benefits of being able to hire faster and keep their employees longer. A company that is able to have earned wage access, and deliver it through an integrated solution with DailyPay, is truly able to offer to their employees 100% access to their earned wages at any point in the pay cycle, which is very different from an early wage access product, which will allow access to a portion of your money just two days early. So we see that really as some of the key differentiators, both the strengths of partnerships that we have across the ecosystem of technology partners and financial services partners; truly the confidence that employees have when they log into DailyPay to know that they have access to 100% of their earned wages at any point in the pay cycle.
- The future for earned wage access
Stacy: I think all employers will offer earned wage access. You know, we really are on a mission to bring that to every working American in the country and beyond the United States as well. And in fact, you know, it’s interesting when I talk to our clients, they point out that earned wage access, when they roll it out to their employees, is either the number one or number two most adopted benefit in their company. And if it’s number two, it’s second only to healthcare. So you think about the importance that having access to earned wages has on your employee base. And it’s no surprise, the impact that employers are feeling and the impact that employees are feeling. So, we’re meaningfully continuing to expand our enterprise clients. We have over a thousand enterprise clients, just to give you an idea of scale, with over four million of their employees that are part of the platform. I mentioned that we white label our product as well to banks and financial institutions, so they’re serving our earned wage access from DailyPay through to their clients as well. And Friday, the prepaid Visa card that I mentioned is another access that we have for customers to be able to really bring that earned wage access to the point of sale. Finally, I hinted at the international expansion that we’re exploring. So, you know, we are moving beyond just bringing this benefit to people who are working inside the United States, recognizing that the on-demand need and culture exists globally. And so we’re looking, what are the next countries that we bring our knowledge access to?
- The risk for employers that fall behind in the Earned Wage Access movement
Stacy: We think that the biggest risk, honestly, is for employers to fall behind in the Earned Wage Access Movement. You see employers, maybe you’ve seen it as you’re driving down the street, literally put out signs, “work today, get paid today”, because they know how important that is in attracting talent in today’s continued tight labor market. For employers, we say that DailyPay helps them hire faster, keep their employees longer, and their employees work harder while they’re there. And we truly see that increase in tenure of the DailyPay employees at those employers. We see the DailyPay employees working 10% more hours and so it’s a huge risk for employers to not be offering earned wage access when we know that there’s such a demand from the employee base. You see thatwithin the trends in the gig economy; many of our employers that we’re working with they are also trying to recruit people who are thinking “do I pick up a gig economy job today where I can do my hours that I set and I get paid at the end of the day? Or do I go work for one of my one of the employers who are part of the DailyPay ecosystem?” The competition for great employees is tough, and employers have really found DailyPay as a way to help differentiate. And on the flip side, we see employees as well, having tremendous benefits from the DailyPay offer.
In fact, we did a study that recognized that people spend greater than $1,000 a year on late fees, credit card payments, even payday loan interest. And we’re able to help employees really avoid all of those kinds of charges because they can tap into their earned wage access account. They see that as money that’s theirs that’s sitting in another account that they can access.
95% of the DailyPay users that had been using payday loans are no longer using payday loans. That is for us such an amazing stat and so motivating because this was something I heard recently and I just find it shocking. But the number of payday loan locations in this country is double the number of McDonald’s locations. So if you feel like, gosh, I see McDonald’s in every corner, think of really how rampant the payday loan industry is.
So what we see for employers is offering earned wage access to their employees is always 100% a better option than their employees turning to late fees or overdraft payments or interest payments.
- The impact of wage compression in healthcare
Stacy: Over the past few years with the inflation and really the increasing hourly wages that we see across industries, you see different industries kind of get compressed. And so some industries, where the hourly wage was much higher than say a quick serve restaurant or retail, the QSR and retail industries have really had to increase their hourly wages quite a bit in order to compete and still maintain talent. So at the same time, now you think about who is on the higher end of hourly wages it was the healthcare workers. And as the retail and QSR and restaurant wages have come up, they’re asking themselves, you know, gosh, working in healthcare is really honestly very stressful, right? It carries a lot of emotional toll as well. And, you know, when they start to see those hourly wages compressed, they say, you know, should I be switching industries and just work a much more relaxed and kind of quiet job? And so we did some research within our healthcare industry and really focused on what we call the “healthcare heroes”, with some research around how are they experiencing stress and the stress of financial situation. It’s not really surprising that they all reported having stress from their finances that were resulting in things like negative impact on their sleep or mental health or self-esteem or, physical health. We’re people, so when you’re feeling that stress in your day-to-day life, you’re bringing that to your work as well. And when you think about especially the healthcare industry, we need people that are on the front lines in healthcare to have the energy to serve the patients that they’re there to care for. And so we’ve partnered with a number of different clients across the healthcare industry who have some of the highest adoption across their employees of the DailyPay offering. And you know, the response that we’re hearing from their employees is super encouraging, they say “I’m more likely to remain at my job if my employer just offers DailyPay or an on-demand pay benefit”. And 64% of them say they’re actually looking for that in a new employer. So employers are seeing DailyPay truly as a differentiated way to attract and retain employees. And employees are getting used to what it feels like to have access to the pay that you earn each day, and just be in much more control of the finances and bills and costs.
- DailyPay’s strategic priorities over the coming years
Stacy: Our primary mission is bringing earned wage access everywhere. We’re doing that through a tremendous focus of working directly with employers that want to offer this to their employees. We are working with banks and financial institutions who see earned wage access as another type of account that they could be offering to their, to their customers. You know, imagine if you log into your retail banking app on your phone and you see, okay, I’ve got my checking account, my savings account, and my DailyPay account or your earned wage access account — you’re really seeing the full spectrum of all of the money that you have that makes up kind of your financial foundation. And we see there’s a lot of ways to send money out of your accounts. DailyPay is really one way to bring money into your accounts.
So we’re doing a tremendous amount of innovation with banks and financial partners, empowering through our white label offering a number of their earned wage access offerings. We’re also continuing to innovate with HR tech partners. So we’ve got very strong partnerships with ADP, with Workday, UKG, SAP, Oracle, and partnering with them on bringing earned wage access to their clients and sometimes as a white label module within their offerings as well.
Then, we’re continuing to look at what are adjacencies that we should be further helping employees with. So providing access to their money, do we also provide them access to ways to earn more money? Do we provide them with smarter, more intelligent ways to save or invest? So those are all things that we’re looking at. And, in addition, how do we better support our employer clients as well? Some of the needs that they have is they’re really empowering their frontline workers to best serve their customers. And what are the adjacent kind of offerings around just earned wage access, for instance, things like digital tipping and other ways of really managing their frontline workers, as it can be complicated when you’re managing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees across thousands of locations.
- Stacy’s journey from her marketing roles at Dun & Bradstreet and Cisco to COO at DailyPay
Stacy: My journey to COO at DailyPay probably began even before my stints in marketing. I started my career as an engineer doing software development in Silicon Valley. I was in product management, I was in technology consulting, and then kind of moved through marketing and ran a business at Dun & Bradstreet as a general manager and now COO at DailyPay. I think what’s important about the role of a Chief Operating Officer is it really is about ensuring that your company is balancing both growth and scale. At DailyPay, we’ve been tremendously fortunate to have an incredible growth rate over the eight years of our existence. We’re at a stage where scale, not only to serve our employers across the country, but as we start to serve employers globally as well, is incredibly important. And so I think it’s really the kind of the cross-functional nature of the journey that I’ve been on that brings all of those capabilities together to be able to see what are the opportunities truly for growth from a commercial perspective. But foundationally, how do we make sure that we’re building not only the technology, but also on our processes to support the scale that we’re accelerating into for the future.
- What Stacy’s role as a COO looks like day-to-day
Stacy: It’s kind of balancing growth and scale — so really working across our departments on ensuring that we’re taking advantage of transformation and automation and efficiencies. So really building, taking out kind of manual processes and leveraging technology and AI to be able to do things a lot smarter. But then I’m also partnering with our sales and our commercial organization around “how do we optimize for routes to market?” If our mission is to bring earned wage access everywhere, have we really set up the proper coverage across direct selling into employers themselves, channel selling through our banking and technology partners, and really kind of looking across the spectrum for opportunities to better support the way that we are driving our growth, the way that we’re bringing the right kinds of products to our customers, and then making sure we’re doing that in a very intelligent and efficient fashion
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About DailyPay
DailyPay is on a mission to build a new financial system for everyone. DailyPay delivers an on-demand pay solution with modern, insight-driven pay strategies that help America’s leading employers to activate their workforce and build stronger relationships with their employees, so they feel more engaged, work harder, and stay longer. DailyPay works to ensure that money is always in the right place at the right time for employers, merchants, and financial institutions. DailyPay is headquartered in New York City, with operations based in Minneapolis and Belfast.
About Stacy Greiner
Stacy Greiner serves as Chief Operating Officer, DailyPay. She most recently served as the General Manager of the Sales and Marketing Solutions division of Dun & Bradstreet, where she was responsible for all Profit & Loss. Her experience spans Senior Executive roles at Cisco, IBM, and Accenture where she led globally-diverse Product, Marketing, Engineering, and Data & Analytics organizations. Trained as an Aerospace Engineer at Iowa State University, Greiner also holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management. She sits on the board and serves as a member of the Audit Committee of Proto Labs, Inc.
About the Author
Kailee Costello is an MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, where she is part of the Wharton FinTech Podcast team. She’s most passionate about how FinTech is breaking down barriers to make financial products and services more accessible — particularly in the personal finance space. Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, feedback, and opportunities at kaileec@wharton.upenn.edu.
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