PayCaptain, one of the UK’s leading payroll software providers, has introduced a new feature in its app aimed at enhancing financial resilience for employees.
The feature, known as SmartPay, is the result of extensive research into employee savings behavior. PayCaptain collaborated with Nest Insight and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) over 15 months to produce a study on using payroll systems to build financial resilience. The findings revealed that nearly half of UK workers face financial challenges, with those on variable or unpredictable incomes being particularly vulnerable. The majority of employees expressed a need for personalized guidance and support to better manage their money.
Developed based on these insights, SmartPay is designed to help users overcome behavioral barriers to saving. Working closely with BIT, PayCaptain has ensured that SmartPay’s functionality supports effective savings habits, empowering employees to take control of their financial wellbeing.
The technology also offers a variety of personalised financial services, all delivered via PayCaptain’s mobile app. These services – which sit alongside PayCaptain’s existing payroll tools – are powered by bespoke recommendations for employees that they can make to build their financial resilience at key points.
During SmartPay’s onboarding journey, for instance, a user has to answer a series of questions designed by the Money and Pensions Service to measure their existing ‘financial resilience’, before giving them a unique ‘well being score’. This score is then used to tailor the financial recommendations they receive. An example of this being if an employee received a pay rise or bonus, SmartPay would acknowledge this in real time and automatically offer appropriate suggestions where this employee could save their money and how much they could put away.
Simon Bocca, the Founder of PayCaptain, offered these thoughts on SmartPay and how it can be used:
“Our research quickly showed us that millions of people would benefit from guidance with their money, so it simply made sense for us to create SmartPay as a way for employees to benefit far more from the process of getting paid. We also wanted to make sure that SmartPay was intuitive and easy to use, which is why we worked so closely with the BIT on its functionality.
“Ultimately, being able to get automatic prompts and recommendations at key points and to move appropriate amounts of money in just a few taps really takes friction out of what some people find to be difficult decisions and subsequently helps overcome barriers to saving. The results so far from those using SmartPay have been very positive too; we’ve seen a 205% increase in the numbers of users now making savings, while so far 7 out 10 employees who were shown SmartPay have told us they want to use it.”
An early adopter of SmartPay is existing PayCaptain client, Dishoom, who have already championed the positive impact the feature has had with the employees who use it. Kate Moscardini, Head of People at Dishoom, offered these comments:
“SmartPay has brought about a whole new level of positive financial engagement and education for Dishoom employees. More people are saving money regularly with the option of FSCS protected, interest bearing savings accounts. More people are putting extra into their retirement funds and over £45,000’s worth of state benefits have been identified that the team could be missing out on claiming. The launch saw high numbers of engagement and it’s been fantastic to watch the numbers of savers grow, knowing they have extra peace of mind with access to a financial buffer that they did not have before”.
PayCaptain also hopes that businesses whose employees use SmartPay will begin to realise a variety of additional benefits. This is because PayCaptain believes that a financially resilient and secure workforce will lead to lower stress levels and increased productivity, engagement and efficiency.
