Income streaming: How it all works

Income streaming is transforming the way staff are paid. 

It uses technology developed by Wagestream that lets employees access a % of the wages they’ve already earned each month when they need them. 

What is income streaming?

Your dog is ill, the vet’s bill is £122, but it’s the last week of the month and you simply can’t afford to pay it. 

Faced with this dilemma you may be forced into using high interest credit: overdrafts, payday loans or credit cards.

The annoying thing is that by the end of the month you’ve already worked enough hours to pay the bill, you just can’t access that money until payday. 

Income streaming technology lets employees track how much they’ve earned and stream up to 50% of these earned wages into their bank account instantly. 

Within a few minutes you can be paying the vet’s bill and getting Domino back on her feet again. 

The best part for employers is that when they use  the Wagestream platform it doesn’t affect change anything with the payroll process and or impact company cashflow.at all. 

Wagestream handles all payments to employees and collects any money that has been streamed by staff automatically when payday finally arrives.

So how does it work?

The service runs on Wagestream’s income streaming platform. 

The platform connects to employers’ workforce management systems and tracks how much staff have earned in real time.

Staff can see this data in the Wagestream app and choose to stream some of their money into their bank account.

Wagestream processes the transaction instantly and employees receive the funds directly. The money arrives in their account in the name of their employer, just as it would with their normal wages.

How is the process automated?

When an employee enrols in Wagestream, a ‘smart ledger account’ is generated and replaces their normal current account and sort code in payroll file. The beneficiary account for their wages remains their normal current account and sort code. The smart ledger account acts as a ‘pass-through’ account and they are only used to process Wagestream transactions. 

The sort codes for the smart ledger accounts are generated by the Bank of England and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

When payday arrives, their employer runs payroll as normal. As money passes through the smart ledger account, Wagestream is able to deduct any money that was streamed by the employee during the month along with the £1.75 transaction charge per stream.

The balance left over is forwarded onto the employee’s bank account immediately and the whole process takes place in under 4 seconds. The employee receives a payroll statement with all the details, plus all payment information is also available in the app.

Everything happens automatically without human involvement required.

How easy is it to implement?

It’s actually very easy to implement. Because our technology doesn’t touch any of your payroll systems it’s incredibly quick and simple to set up and means no extra work for your internal teams. On average, the process takes 30 days from contract signing to launch, so your staff can be feeling the benefits of Wagestream in no time.

For more information on how your business can benefit from income streaming, get in touch.