Walmart Offers Employees Financial Support

Walmart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.) has partnered with fintech brand Even Responsible Finance Inc. (Oakland, Calif.) to offer its more than 1.5 million U.S. employees personal finance planning tools and access their wages early, reports Bloomberg.

The benefit to Walmart’s employees, the company says, is that its workers will be able to avoid bounced checks and payday lenders. The company subsidizes the app’s monthly subscription fee by 25 percent, though they would not disclose the actual dollar amount.

According to Careerbuilder, roughly three-quarters of full-time workers live paycheck-to-paycheck, meaning they lack emergency funds should they need them. Walmart SVP of services and digital acceleration said the new service is a “tremendous benefit” that sets the retailer apart as a sought-after employer.

The app will connect directly to employees’ bank accounts and will calculate upcoming expenses so they can budget with forthcoming expenditures taken into account. The typical Walmart worker reportedly checks their budget on the app four days a week.