Salary Finance, the leading global provider of financial education and salary-linked benefits for employees, announced today that it has partnered with Equifax, a data, analytics, and technology leader, to provide employers with anonymized and aggregated data on the financial health of their employees. This unique data can help organizations identify the segments of workers experiencing financial stress and design more effective financial wellness benefits programs.Hrtech News

“Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn, more than 40 percent of Americans were experiencing financial stress and nearly one-third were living paycheck to paycheck. Add it all up and financial stress is costing companies 13 to 18 percent of annual salary cost,” Dan Macklin, US CEO, Salary Finance said. “Using Equifax datasets, Salary Finance will be able to deliver valuable insights to the employers we are working with to help those organizations decide how best to add to or enhance their financial well-being initiatives and determine where to prioritize their resources.”

Salary Finance works alongside employers to support financial well-being via salary-linked loans and savings products. Through Salary Finance, employers can offer employees alternatives to high-risk borrowing with programs that offer lower interest rates than traditional lenders and guidance to help protect employees from borrowing more than they can afford to pay back.

“During these unprecedented times, we believe this partnership can help deliver the data and programs employers need to help ease the financial stress of their employees, now and in the future” said Assad Lazarus, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Equifax Employee Benefits Services.

In its recent survey of nearly 3,000 US workers, Salary Finance found that salary-linked savings and access to affordable credit are two of the most desired benefits not typically offered by companies. The survey data found that 52 percent of employees under the age of 44 would find it valuable if their employer provided access to affordable credit like salary-linked, low-cost employee loans.