Jakarta, Oct 17: wagely, Indonesia’s leading financial wellness platform has announced its entry into Bangladesh, launching with over 50,000 workers across the largest apparel manufacturers including SQ Group, Youth Group, and Classic Composite.
The strategic expansion comes in just two months after wagely raised $5.6 million in funding, making it Indonesia’s first and largest financial wellness platform to expand its services to other Asian markets.
Asian workers are struggling
Managing financial worries is the number one issue in everyday life for lower- and middle-income workers in Asia as they are struggling to cover basic needs with little to no option to build sustainable savings.
With limited access to conventional financial services, many are forced to turn to illegal lenders and loan sharks when in need of emergency cash to cover unexpected expenses.
With predatory interest fees and little support in increasing financial literacy, many borrowers cannot repay their loan within the necessary time period.
Incurring additional late fees that can quickly reach a multiple of the initial loan amount forcing them into a cycle of debt.
The effects on workers are long-lasting and have only been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, causing substantial financial stress that leads to a loss in productivity, higher absenteeism, irregular behaviour and increased turnover that severely impacts business performance.
How wagely helps workers become financially healthy
Founded in Indonesia in 2020, wagely’s financial wellness platform is centred around Earned Wage Access (EWA), the direct and affordable access to salary that has already been worked for.
Replacing the costly month-long wait for salary with an application that allows workers to get paid at any day of the month eliminates the need to borrow, creating a significant impact on a worker’s wellbeing.
Letting workers see their earned salary in real-time moreover provides visibility into their financial situation, motivating and helping them make responsible financial decisions.
For employers, the benefits are equally impactful.
Employers benefit from increased productivity, reduced turnover costs, and increased business savings by offering wagely’s financial wellness platform to workers.
wagely’s plug and play platform ensures that companies do not have to change their existing processes and can be customised to the specific needs of any employer.
Financial wellness for millions of Bangladesh’ workers
With the expansion into Asia’s fifth largest country, wagely is accelerating its mission to reduce financial stress for millions of workers in Asia.
“While Indonesia continues to be our priority in light of the country’s large blue-collar workforce that is in urgent need of fair financial services, Bangladesh represents a sizeable opportunity with over 4.5 million workers in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry alone,” wagely CEO Tobias Fischer said.
“Bangladesh’s workers have been severely impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic resulting in increased financial stress with major impact to manufacturers.
We’re encouraged by the very strong demand by some of the largest Readymade Garment manufacturers to partner with us during this initial launch phase and look forward to more employers adopting the future of salary payments.”
Strong demand and unprecedented growth
Launched in Indonesia in 2020, wagely has grown to become Asia’s leading financial wellness platform, partnering with over 70 companies in two markets servicing more than 100,000 workers.
Having partnered with Indonesia’s largest enterprises in recent months including Adaro Energy, Medco Energi, British American Tobacco, Ranch Market, Century Pharma, among several others, wagely has seen an unprecedented growth of its worker base by 517 per cent in Q3 2021 and is well on track to reach over 250,000 workers by mid next year.
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