Deals & People June 28, 2024

Chime Acquires Savings Benefits Startup Salt Labs

The Salt Lab team, led by benefits entrepreneur Jason Lee, and the firm’s offering will become a part of Chime.

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Chime, a financial technology firm focused on mobile banking, announced that it has acquired Salt Labs, an employee rewards and incentives platform for frontline employees.

The Salt Labs team, under the direction of benefits entrepreneur Jason Lee, and the company’s employee payment offering will be integrated into Chime as part of the acquisition. Chime will also gain access to Salt Labs’ current clients, opening additional avenues for revenue growth and primary account expansion.

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Salt Labs was established in 2022 with the goal of providing frontline employees with additional assets on top of their regular wages, or “Salt,” for every hour they work. Employees can exchange Salt for items personal value over time, such as vacations, investments like individual retirement accounts, or other areas they might not have been able to afford otherwise.

“This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for Chime to acquire an innovative employee rewards company that has key employer relationships, and a founding team that has created some of the most disruptive technology in the enterprise earned wage access space,” Chime COO Mark Troughton said in a statement.

Salt Labs was founded by Lee, who also launched DailyPay, a software firm that provides on-demand pay for workers as they earn it. Lee left DailyPay after investors in the firm rejected a sale to Chime, according to reports from The Information back in late 2022. 

In line with the acquisition, Chime will introduce Chime Enterprise, a new business division headed by Jason Lee which will expand Chime’s reach beyond Salt Labs’ flagship products through the employer channel.

“We’ve always believed that financial progress begins with employment and should be centered around the primary financial account,” Lee said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be part of this next stage of growth at Chime and to build Chime Enterprise alongside the incredible team at Chime.”

Since its founding, Salt Labs has collaborated with various enterprise clients in sectors like parking, call centers, transportation and hospitality.

“Through this acquisition, we will aim to partner directly with employers to reach millions of consumers and introduce them to the Chime platform,” said Troughton. “We look forward to leveraging Salt Labs’ existing relationships with employers and building upon the Chime MyPay earned wage access platform to further address the needs of everyday people.”

In April Salt Labs announced that Ted Benna, the “father of the 401(k),” joined the team as a strategic adviser, driving the firm’s market strategy on supporting hourly workers. He also supports the startup’s goal of helping employers achieve optimal outcomes with minimal expenditure.

Data & Research June 28, 2024

Fidelity Reveals Top 5 Optional Provisions Plan Sponsors Are Most Likely to Adopt

Survey shows plan sponsors are most likely to adopt increased catch-up contribution limits for participants aged 60 through 63.

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The increase in catch-up contribution cap for participants aged 60 to 63 and the expanded in-service distribution choices made possible by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 were among the top-ranked optional provisions that advisers might see plan sponsors wanting to adopt, according to respondents from a June survey by Fidelity Investments titled “SECURE 2.0 Optional Provisions Survey Insight.”

Among plan sponsors who considered raising the catch-up contribution limit for participants aged 60 through 63, 88% are likely to adopt this provision when it becomes available for plan years starting in 2025, expressing a strong interest in enabling additional savings features.

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Meanwhile, 88% of plan sponsors who have considered self-certification of hardships and unforeseeable emergency distributions as well as withdrawals for federally declared disasters said they were likely to adopt these provisions.

The full responses via Fidelity were:

Six months or more is how long respondents (60%) said they anticipate taking to adopt the optional provisions they have chosen. Four in five respondents thought about utilizing at least one of Fidelity’s own solutions—auto portability, self-certification, and/or student debt match—to facilitate the adoption of SECURE 2.0, according to the country’s largest recordkeeper.

Ninety percent of those surveyed expressed interest in implementing some optional elements, with the greatest interest in implementing provisions in the large and tax-exempt plan areas. Fidelity anticipates that plan sponsors that manage smaller plans will have the lowest adoption rates of provisions.

Employer contributions as a Roth also scored in the top five among plan sponsors of smaller plans, surpassing eligible distributions for victims of domestic violence. The top two categories were withdrawals for emergency needs.

Auto-portability was selected as the best choice by plan sponsors in the manufacturing and finance sectors, while professional, technical and scientific services plan sponsors were more interested in unenrolled member disclosures and withdrawals for emergency expenses.

Fidelity’s surveyed over 300 plan sponsors representing a range of employer sizes and industries.

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