Embedded finance revolutionising new business opportunities
Weavr’s recent whitepaper, titled “Flexible benefits cards: Employee choice, business control”, highlights the impact that fintech, and embedded finance in particular, is having on recent business applications, particularly those utilised by HR teams for employee benefits schemes. The report found that 50% of UK-based benefit managers were searching for new employee benefits solutions, and 60% of them would value a specific fintech solution, “spendable benefit cards”, as the financial feature of choice.
Spendable benefits cards are potentially on track to become an established feature of HR tech, according to the Weavr report. Spend cards provide a new way for payments to be handled within a digital business, specifically those targeting the HR and benefits sectors. Users of benefits platforms – HR and benefits managers – give employees a benefits budget and set up the guardrails in terms of where and how the funds can be spent. Employees tap their way to much more personalised and relevant benefits. The solution offers innovative features, such as:
- Employer-branded debit cards, both virtual and physical
- Contactless payments via mobile wallets
- Custom spend rules for managers to implement usage policies
- Real-time transaction control and visibility
Given the employer and employee value unlocked by integrating financial features into HR applications, the report anticipates that the spendable benefits cards solution is unlikely to stay entirely within the pure ‘benefits platform’ market. The report outlines several potential use cases for spendable benefits cards, such as use in employee-engagement platforms, reward and recognition platforms, traditional HR platforms and new employee-centric super apps.
Alex Mifsud, CEO and co-founder of Weavr, commented on the report: “Benefits have become an essential tool for employee engagement in the UK and employee expectations have rapidly evolved to match their experience as consumers. To meet these expectations, new approaches, powered by modern retail payments technology, are required. Our latest report found that half of benefit managers are looking for new solutions to tackle low employee benefits adoption, and fintech tools offer a solution that makes a difference. Embedded finance is already in the pipeline for 72% of UK SaaS businesses, and we’ve seen that HR and benefits tech are among the earliest adopters.”
The research within the report, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Weavr, surveyed 250 benefits managers in organisations with 50+ employees across the United Kingdom. It identified that the two major issues facing benefit managers came from rising business costs impacting the quality of perks (27%) and more employees working from home (27%), which includes working abroad. 80% of benefit managers reported having some staff who worked outside of the HQ country of the business.To read more about the report, it can be downloaded from Weavr’s website here.
