How Modulr helps transform payday payments
“Now, from requesting the money, we guarantee that it arrives within two minutes,” says Ronnie Maynard, Head of Finance & Operations at Level.
“We’ve had feedback that users can’t believe how quickly the money hits their account when they request a portion of their earned income from Level,” he adds. “It's pretty much instantaneous.”
Making every day payday
“Our value proposition, which is to get you the money you've already worked hard to earn, when you need it, totally relies on that payment’s immediacy and speed,” says Ronnie.
“We needed a partner who could provide really high levels of reliability and up-time, as well as incredible support and the ability to process large volumes of payments, at scale. Modulr was the best company we could find in the market that could provide those things, and more.”
Modulr’s flexible payments architecture underpins Level’s earned wage access proposition. The agile, API-enabled platform allows Level to securely manage and automate the flow of money for its employer customers, by creating and administering accounts and making payments, all via a single integration.
Modulr creates accounts for Level's employer clients, so that their employees see the familiar payer on their statements, rather than Level itself.
When an employee requests a wage withdrawal in the Level App, the Modulr platform moves the funds for that withdrawal from Level’s Modulr account to a unique account for that employee, and then immediately out to the employee’s personal bank account.
This automated process takes a matter of seconds, thanks to Modulr’s direct participation into the UK Faster Payments scheme.
When the time comes to reconcile that withdrawal with the month's typical payroll, the employee's Modulr account is used again, as it receives the employer's full salary payment and the amount withdrawn earlier is taken back off the total. What's left goes onwards to the employee's personal bank account as normal.
“Users can’t believe how quickly the money hits their account when they request an advance from Level, it's pretty much instantaneous, and that's all down to Modulr.”
Extending the benefits of wage advance
Flexibility on payments for staff can be win-win for employees and employers alike.
To help saving and budgeting, Level offers its clients’ employees salary-linked savings, Open Banking-powered budgeting tools, financial education and AI guidance, but the fundamental benefit employees receive is shrinking the gap between earning their money and receiving it – from weeks to minutes.
“Say you needed money quickly on Saturday morning and payroll aren't back in the office until Monday – you can’t request a traditional salary advance,” says Ronnie.
“If you can't get cash, you could end up using a payday loan. Our aim is to offer instant access to the income staff have already worked hard to earn, which has a powerful benefit to the employee, obviously, as well as for employers able to help their staff in that way.”
“We work with some of the biggest employers in the UK,” adds Ronnie, “everyone from Capita plc, who employee nearly 40,000 staff in the UK, to Home Instead and Carpetright.”
“Our clients trust us to process payroll payments on behalf of their staff and we take that trust incredibly seriously.”
The future for on-demand payroll
In addition to providing the payments architecture on which the Level solution is built, Modulr has also been instrumental in how Level’s proposition has evolved, and how it will continue to scale.
“Modulr has been integral to our service from the get-go,” says Ronnie. “Modulr’s payments experts were very influential when it came to how we designed our business and that’s down to their deep-rooted payments expertise and the fact that they weren’t just selling a piece of technology, but a complete solution,” he explains.
“Modulr has been integral to our service from the get-go; Modulr’s payments experts were very influential when it came to how we designed our business and that’s down to their deep-rooted payments expertise and the fact that they weren’t just selling a piece of technology, but a complete solution.”
“This allowed us to scale very quickly. And it has allowed us to onboard large enterprise clients who come to us with large volumes of payments. We were involved in what we believe was the largest rollout of an on-demand paid solution at that time in Europe and that type of large, enterprise-scale solution wouldn’t have been possible without the reliable, scalable payments architecture that Modulr provides.”
Level believes it is the most technically advanced service of its kind currently in the UK. While Modulr’s access to payment rails such as Faster Payments are integral to its UK business, Modulr’s European payments capability is also allowing Level to explore potential European expansion plans, leveraging Modulr’s access to the European payment networks and its recent launch of SEPA Instant.
“This is just one example of how Modulr’s product roadmap is benefitting our own and deepening our partnership, making it much more strategic,” says Ronnie.
If you would like to explore how Modulr could support your organisation in accelerating, processing or automating payments, contact a member of the team.
If you would like to discuss Earned Wage Access with Level, please visit www.levelft.com/contact.
