Offer Earned Wage Access 
on WhatsApp

Reduce employees’ financial stress and eliminate loan requests by allowing employees to withdraw a controlled percentage of their wages before payday.

Offer Earned Wage Access 
on WhatsApp

Earned Wage Access lets employees withdraw a controlled percentage of their wages before payday, reducing financial stress and reliance on high-interest loans.

Hi Abraham

A payment of R150 will be paid
into your bank account.

iPhone Mockup Animation EWA

Used and loved by +140 000 employees globally

Used and loved by leading employers in South Africa

Many instantly-recognisable brands are already leveraging EWA to positively impact their employees.

Increased employee take-home pay by R4m
in a year

98% reduction in employee queries

100% reduction in load requests

Frontline workers deserve access 
to fair financial products

The financial reality for South Africa’s frontline workforce is bleak. EWA can help your employees break the debt reliance cycle.

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*According to research from VISA and Arcadia Finance

Empower your workforce

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Not a loan

Employees can only access partial wages for days already worked in a pay cycle

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10x cheaper than payday lenders

Your employees can now avoid predatory lenders

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Zero cost to you

Employees incur the EWA withdrawal free (3.5%)

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Zero impact on your cash flow

Jem funds EWA withdrawals during the pay cycle

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The majority of employees withdraw very small amounts

The financial reality for South Africa’s frontline workforce is bleak. EWA can help your employees break the debt reliance cycle.

of all advances are between R200 and R400
is the average advance of net salary in a given month
of all advances were valued at R600 or less

*According to Jem’s Annual Social Impact Report

Used and loved by leading employers in South Africa

Many instantly-recognisable brands are already leveraging EWA to positively impact their employees.

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Salary-based limits

Limit the maximum rand value employees can withdraw as a percentage of earned wages.

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Volume-based limits

Limit the number of withdrawals employees can take within a single pay cycle.

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Block dates

Implement dates where EWA can’t be used, employee-specific or company-wide.

What employers say about EWA

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"Before Jem, we processed 80 staff loans a month. It was an admin nightmare. Now, we just send our employees to Jem when they are under financial stress. It has been such a pleasure and our employees love it."

Leana Pretorious,
Senior Payroll Partner, Mukuru
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"We’ve received really great feedback from our employees since we launched Earned Wage Access. It’s really helped them avoid loan sharks and get our of debt."

Allistair Gardner,
HR Manager, Lasec
Manufacturing

+400 Employees

Jem saves Lasec employees R45k per year on loan fees and interest.

case study lasec group logo
case study lasec group logo
Manufacturing

+400 Employees

Jem saves Lasec employees R45k per year on loan fees and interest.

The benefits for your employees

Implementing EWA helps employers support their employees’ financial wellness without taking on any risk, enhancing productivity and fostering loyalty. This creates a more stable and productive work environment.

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Earned Wage Access FAQs

No. The money will only be paid into the bank account your employer pays your salary into.
Standard payments take up to 1 business day to reflect in your account. Faster payments take a few hours to reflect in your account.
Jem does not offer loans. We offer you access to some of your earned-but-unpaid salary before payday.
You can request an advance via our USSD line *120*20030# The cost is 40c per 20 seconds. You can also contact our customer support line on 087 058 0944.
Once you’ve switched your number on WhatsApp, send “Hi” to our WhatsApp chatbot on 079 244 7062 and follow the prompts.”
Many Jem customers face high employee turnover, which presents a risk to recouping EWA transactions. We have several ways of managing this. Firstly, employees are only able to withdraw money already owed to them. The Jem system calculates this using the net salary and the pay cycle. So if an employee were to work for two weeks of a month, and withdraws money on their last day, the withdrawal amount can still be deducted from the two weeks’ pay owed, and will not exceed 25% of this owed amount. However, we know that sometimes abscondments take time to report. In that case, the remaining 75% of money owed to that employee acts as a buffer. Finally, Jem works with client payroll teams to identify abscondments as soon as possible. During kick-off meetings, the Jem team identifies how each client’s internal process works, and will adapt our procedure to meet this requirement. Some examples of how this works with our current clients: Jem prompts the payroll team to report abscondments & terminations weekly. Jem prompts branch managers to report abscondments weekly. Jem receives weekly data imports that flag terminations. Jem processes ad hoc email requests for terminations.
Once we have a signed quote from you, our client experience team will set up a 30 minute onboarding call to walk you through the Jem  dashboard. The last step is for you to send us your employee data, and we take care of the rest! All of this can be completed within 2 days with about 2 hours worth of input required from you.
Your data is safe with Jem. Jem’s data and security is monitored by Drata, a leading US security and compliance platform. This means you can be sure your data is secure with us. Our data is also hosted by Google Cloud Services using industry-standard encryption. Data is not shared with any 3rd parties and is only used to provide services to your employees via Whatsapp which uses end-to-end encryption. All the above is fully POPIA compliant. Employees are also required to self-authenticate using 2-factor authentication when interacting with Jem for the first time.
You can upload leave balances and employees can then view leave balances on the Jem WhatsApp chatbot.
By contacting Jem though WhatsApp, employees can see their available balance, request an advance, and contact our customer support representatives. If an employee chooses to take a salary advance, Jem will pay the requested amount directly into the employee’s bank account. At the end of the given pay cycle, Jem shall provide you with: An reconciliation of all the advances inclusive of a deduction sheet. An invoice for the amounts advanced and the fees for the services/advances provided. You pay Jem the total advanced amounts, plus the fees, on the same day as your normal pay run. The fees and advanced amounts shall be deducted from the employee’s payslip.
Accessing payslips, leave, and announcements through Jem is free for employees. For earned wage access, a same-day withdrawal costs R6 PLUS 3.5% of the amount withdrawn, per withdrawal. For an instant advance, the cost is R25 PLUS 3.5% of the amount withdrawn, per withdrawal.

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