Financial Wellness Platforms FinFit, Salary Finance Announce Merger

FinFit and Salary Finance U.S., two major financial wellness platforms, announced Wednesday that they will join forces to “better support the financial needs of working Americans.” 

The merged organization, which will operate under the FinFit brand, will service more than 500,000 U.S. employers and more than 10 million U.S. employees, with employers ranging in size from four employees to 400,000 employees, according to a press release. 

The wellness platform serves employers, such as Tesla, Allied Universal and United Way and has an exclusive partnership with payroll provider Paychex. 

David Kilby, FinFit’s CEO and founder, will continue to lead the combined organization, and Asesh Sarkar, Salary Finance’s global CEO, will serve as president.   

Sarkar says the merger will help provide employers with a “full suite” of financial wellness benefits from which they can pick and choose. The combined platform will offer three streams of wellness benefits, according to Sarkar: 

1. A financial health check, personalized coaching and dashboard;
2. Budgeting, savings and spending accounts ; and
3. Early-wage access, advances and loans

The savings and spending accounts that FinFit offers include a free Visa debt card and virtual card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted. According to FinFit’s website, participants will pay no monthly maintenance fees, and the accounts have no minimum balance requirements.   

Employees can also take advantage of FinFit’s Early direct deposit, which allows them to access their full paycheck up to two days before payday when they set up direct deposit into their FinFit account. There are no fees, interest or penalties associated with this feature, according to FinFit.  

Through completing a financial assessment, participants can gain access to a personalized financial wellness score; an “easy-to-understand” visual budget; benchmarks to see where they stack up in comparison to their peers; an actionable financial plan with personalized tools and resources; and access to an interactive program offering relevant feedback in real-time.  

FinFit also currently offers student loan repayment, along with debt refinancing and consolidation services to help employees manage student loan debt. 

Sarkar says clients can choose specific FinFit products that make sense for their individual company’s needs.  

Before the merger, Sakar says Salary Finance focused on debt consolidation loans. For employees that have existing debts and are paying a high interest rate, Salary Finance offers loans with a lower interest rate to help get people out of debt sooner.  

FinFit primarily focuses on solving “short-term financial challenges,” according to Kilby, and unexpected events that come up for the “65% of the workforce that are living paycheck to paycheck.” 

“By combining [FinFit’s platform] with a more robust debt consolidation product, we can now begin to fulfill our core values to provide financial wellness for all,” Kilby says.  

As FinFit’s products are heavily used by small to medium-sized companies, and Salary Finance is popular with larger enterprises, Sakar says the combined platform will be able to cover a wide variety of companies across the U.S.  

The merger comes at a time with significant demand for employers to create financial wellness programs for participants, particularly programs that focus on the financial stress that many workers experience today. 

According to the most recent research data from FinFit and Salary Finance U.S., 49% of U.S. workers are feeling financial stress, and 70%, are worried about a recession impacting them. The financial wellness platforms also found that 61% of workers say they have less cash on hand now than they did a year ago. 

Sakar says before an employee starts using one of FinFit’s products, the platform conducts a baseline examination of the employee’s financial health. This score is then used to monitor the employee’s progress as they use the various programs on FinFit. In addition, Sakar says when an employee takes out a loan from the platform, FinFin gains access to their credit file to see whether their credit score improves. 

“We often see people pay off their debt six to 12 months sooner and a 5%, on average, increase in their credit score,” Sakar says.  

Clients of Salary Finance U.S. and FinFit will continue to be served as they are today, with details about options to upgrade to the new FinFit platform to be shared soon, the press release stated.