The Earned Wage Access (EWA) Code of Practice 

In their review of the UK Earned Wage Access market, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) encourages employers to “only contract with providers adhering to this code.” This code is the Earned Wage Access (EWA) Code of Practice.

Currently, these providers include:

1. Access Group

2. AnyDay

3. Ceridian 

4. FlexEarn

5. Hatee

6. Income Group

7. Level

8. Salary Finance

9. Wagestream

Access Group & Ceridian

These integrated solutions are the best choice for existing, happy customer of their payroll and workforce management services. For everyone else, these can be discounted. 

Automated Earned Wage Access

That leaves seven providers, however Level and Wagestream are the only ones that have the technology to fully automate Earned Wage Access. This is highly recommended as it avoids extra work for your payroll team; specifically, removing the need for them to make manual deductions each time an employee accesses some of their earned income before payday. Read more about the automatic reconciliation process here.

Level and Wagestream 

Both companies offer fully automated, trustworthy earned wage access products. If you already use workforce management software to organise shifts, often, the best choice will come down to which of the two is pre-integrated with this. 

The other major consideration is debt. While both companies' Earned Wage Access products are consumer debt-free, Level does not offer any debt products on their platforms.