Wagestream Press Centre

Every Halfords employee now has access to financial wellbeing app Wagestream, having rolled it out to thousands of staff around the UK. It allows them to track their shifts and pay, manage their budgeting, save, get free financial education and better deals on financial products – all built around a flexible pay cycle.

Wagestream founders Peter Briffett (CEO) and Portman Wills (CTO) share their thoughts on the origins of Wagestream, their approach to financial inclusion and wellbeing, and the challenges of balancing commercial viability with impact accountability.

A hard-to-shift stigma is stopping UK employees from seeking more support with money in the workplace, despite employers ramping their financial wellbeing efforts. The cost-of-living crisis is a rallying call across society to dismantle this stigma – and employers have a crucial role to play.

While overall focus on employee welfare increased during the pandemic, survey reveals financial wellbeing is still falling down businesses’ agendas.

Workers in the UK are stressed about finances, but wellbeing programmes can help.

With International Stress Awareness Day coming earlier this week, employers are being urged to accelerate their financial wellbeing offering with money stress called an ‘invisible workforce crisis’.

London Evening Standard delves into the origins of financial wellbeing startup Wagestream, and how it hopes to build a ‘financial super-app’ for frontline workers.

“Pay your bills and stay out of debt” is the single best piece of money guidance Brits will ever receive, according to research. The study of 2,000 adults revealed “save for a rainy day”, “stick to a budget” and “be open with your partner about your spending habits” as other popular financial pearls of wisdom.

Discretionary spending is definitely down and commuting costs have also plummeted but the sheer uncertainty about job prospects means financial stress is rising all the time.

Wagestream, the financial wellbeing fintech startup, has revealed that Christmas debt cripples 50 percent of the British population. This coincided with research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) which identified that the number of working Brits in poverty is outpacing employment.

Bupa has teamed up with income streaming and financial wellness app Wagestream, one of several fintech firms providing real-time access to wages as they are earned, to ease cash flow problems created by the monthly pay cycle.

“Wagestream helped me afford to get into work when I was stuck instead of taking out a payday loan or something, which is what I would have done.”

The financial benefit, provided by Wagestream in partnership with Fourth, was implemented for 7,000 CDG employees in May 2019 as part of the organisation’s recruitment and retention strategy, as well as to combat financial stress.

Getting your work wages on a monthly (not weekly nor biweekly) basis has become a more widespread trend as the price of running payrolls has gone up, and organizations’ cashflow has gone down. That 30-day shift may be a boost to employers, but not employees, who may need access to those wages more immediately and find it a challenge to stretch out their income month to month.