American workers’ personal finances are largely a mess. Just 30% of workers reported being in very good or excellent shape financially, according to a report from Guardian Heath’s annual Mind, Body and Wallet report released last month.
Many employers recognize what’s happening outside the workplace and that external financial factors impact performance, productivity, and retention. Earlier this year, DoorDash launched a savings program pilot in Pennsylvania to help its “dashers” save. JPMorgan Chase announced in April that it would invest in financial wellness grants to help businesses address this need.
Chime, the consumer financial tech company known for its mobile-first no-fee banking services, moved to the employer benefits space this year with its Chime Workplace solution in March, offering a new financial wellness product aimed squarely at frontline and hourly workers.
The move follows Chime’s acquisition in June 2024 of rewards platform Salt Labs, which facilitates employee rewards saving programs so hourly workers can earn “salt” for every hour they work. Chime’s move into the financial wellness landscape offering comes as the market share for these solutions grows.
HR Brew previously reported that employee financial wellness appeared dire heading into the new year, with Gen Z employees, single parents, and caregivers in especially precarious positions. Workers are not happy with their financial situations, with 51% of US adults naming “money/finances” as a stressor, according to a report by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. President Trump’s policy approach to international trade, economic growth and lingering unwelcome employment indicators haven’t helped.
“Four out of five conversations I’m having about Chime Workplace involve addressing issues related to economic uncertainty,” Chime Enterprise executive Jason Lee told HR Brew.
Chime Workplace combines budgeting tools, earned wage access, high-yield savings, and credit building into a single, no-cost platform for employers. Chime is betting its consumer reputation—boasting more than 7 million users and popularity in the App store—will deliver better employee participation than other financial wellness offerings in the market.
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“What if we started to now take all the great things that we’ve done, working with consumers, bottle that up to be more of a financial wellness [and] health offering?” Lee said.
Many Americans—especially hourly workers—are facing heightened financial stress as inflation persists and wages lag. This employee financial stress costs US employers approximately $183 billion annually, according to BrightPlan’s 2024 Wellness Barometer Survey.
“These wellness programs are really ineffective,” Lee said. “The reason I know that is because the savings rate hasn’t changed in America for decades.”
Lee said Chime looks to change this by aligning its set of tools with the traditional banking goals that many front line and lower-wage employees are thinking about: budgeting, saving, building credit. The platform is organized around three core pillars: capital management, capital growth, and capital expansion.
“These are terms that you would expect your financial advisor and Fidelity or JP Morgan to be talking about, not something that works with frontline workers,” Lee said. “My answer is exactly.”
Capital management features include products like Chime’s Get Paid Early offering and MyPay, an earned wage access tool that allows users to tap into their paychecks before payday. Capital growth features help with savings, offering employees a high-yield savings account and tools to build their savings. Capital expansion helps workers build credit through everyday spending and track their credit health.
Chime also has a premium employee rewards solution that employers can offer their employees. Lee describes the offering “almost like a frequent flyer program.” The platform offers loyalty incentives that function as an alternative form of savings, boasting that 85% of users save those rewards.
“It’s very, very clear that Fortune 500 HR departments [and] total rewards [teams] don’t have the capacity to be offering seven different benefits through seven different vendors,” Lee said. “They are looking to…bundle all this.”