Retailability runs Edgars, Keedo, Legit, Beaver Canoe, Swagga and Style across roughly 450 stores in South Africa, employing 7,500 people. Like most working South Africans, many of Retailability's employees were regularly turning to payday loans to get through the month.
Retailability received around 120 loan requests a year, each taking roughly an hour to process, about 10 hours a month of payroll time. Employees who didn't qualify for a company loan, or didn't want to go through a manager to ask, turned to loan sharks in their community charging as much as 24% interest a month.
Retailability rolled out Earned Wage Access so employees could draw down money they'd already earned, in a controlled environment, without needing to divulge their financial situation to a manager. Today 64% of employees use it.
Loan requests to HR dropped by around 95%, from roughly 120 a year to about 5, freeing up the 10 hours a month payroll used to spend processing them. Employees who were paying up to R450 a month in credit costs before Jem now pay around R38 a month to access their own wages early, saving approximately R413 a month each. Collectively, that puts an estimated R24m back into Retailability employees' pockets every year.
64%
of employees use EWA
95%
reduction in loan requests
R413
saved per month per employee using EWA
“Jem gives our employees the opportunity and dignity to not have to divulge their financial situation to their managers. It provides them with access to funds in a controlled environment with small service costs. We would do a disservice to our employees if we were to stop using Jem.”
Malcolm Smith
CFO
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