A recent PwC survey shows that 47% of U.S workers report feeling financially stressed, negatively impacting their productivity and, as another study shows, can cost employers up to $198 annually in absenteeism and payroll taxes. Now, the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) with founding FinLab partner JPMorgan Chase & Co, launches its Fifth Annual Challenge that focuses on identifying employee financial health solutions.
FinLab is a five-year initiative overseen by CFSI that identifies innovations to help Americans increase savings, improve credit, and build assets. The Lab incentivizes businesses and entrepreneurs to find solutions through a series of competitions that offer money and networking awards. The Fifth Annual Challenge winner receives $125,000 in capital, professional services assistance, and strategic guidance from industry leaders.
FinLab plans to use the program, which focuses on lower-to-middle income workers, to study the role that financial health services play in the workplace, raise awareness of the issue, and develop strategies to use technology to improve employee health. Traditionally, workplace benefits have primarily been for retirement, but now employers are looking to address diverse financial needs, such as short-term savings, student loan repayment assistance, and small dollar loans.
Additionally, though employers can identify the problem of financial stress, there is currently ambiguity surrounding the impact and effectiveness of the proposed services, preventing more widespread action. The Lab addresses this issue by focusing “its efforts on creating replicable best practices for rolling out and measuring the success of these programs while helping refine individual offerings from Challenge winners,” said Garry Reeder, VP of innovation and policy at CFSI.
Financial health and wellness startups can apply for the Challenge until November 9, 2018, and the winner will be announced mid-January of 2019.
