Real-Time Payments Create a Competitive Advantage With Gig Workers

Independent driver-contractors need fast access to capital to grow their business and meet the everyday challenges presented to them: car repairs, rising gas prices, tollway fees, new technology and more.

Gig workers—assigned microtasks via a digital platform—such as independent driver-contractors are part of what industry experts are calling the “Now Economy.”

More than 57 million workers are considered part of the gig economy today, according to research commissioned by Visa. Payments, and faster payments in particular, are among the many challenges these workers face. Visa’s research found more than 85% of gig workers would sign up for payments on demand, and 62% would work for a new platform that offered real-time payments.

For independent driver-contractors, Ualett®, a mobile app from Cabicash Solutions Inc., is that platform. With Dwolla as its connection to the RTP® network, Ualett offers real-time payments to end users on its platform for daily payouts.

“More than 85% of our workers have RTP-enabled bank accounts,” says Cabicash CEO Ricky Michel. “RTP with Dwolla has given us such a competitive advantage. Before, drivers would wait up to 24 hours to have money in their bank account. For some, that means their business stops. With RTP, funds are in their account in minutes. RTP is the preferred payment method we keep hearing from our clients and Dwolla has simplified that for us.”

After adding RTP, Cabicash saw a 75% year-over-year increase in transaction volume, an 80% YOY increase in end users created and a 24% YOY increase in active end users.

Contact Dwolla

Finding Their Wallet

The Cabicash team had no intention of building a proprietary payment API integration because they needed the Ualett® app to go live quickly. In 2018, with a launch date less than a month out, Michel said their initial idea for a payments partner fell through.

They needed an API with clear documentation that they could integrate quickly and support their various funds flows.

“When we found Dwolla, we were panicking,” Michel says. “The integration with Dwolla was only crazy because of our internal timelines. We integrated in less than 20 days. The speed, the professionalism; Dwolla was what we needed to launch this app and grow it.”

Providing a seamless payment process for the initial users helped give these first adopters confidence in Ualett®. Over the last year, Ualett® has seen more than 30% growth in the number of monthly transactions, averaging more than 38,000 transactions each month.

“Faster payments are fundamental to the success of our clients,” Michel says. “They give our industry the velocity to better serve our clients and have the drivers better serve their end users.”
Back to Top

Becoming a Real-Time Payments Company

Send Funds Flow

Receive Funds Flow

As the platform attracted more drivers, faster payments became a common request and an expectation, according to operations manager Mayrian Sanz.

“Independent contractors need to fix tires, get oil changes, pay for tools, fees—those types of expenses can prevent them from continuing their business if they don’t have the funds,” Sanz says. “By offering real-time payments, clients are repeating more business with us because they know they can get funds right away and because of that speed, we become their first choice.”

Sanz said she and her team worked directly with their Customer Excellence Manager at Dwolla when rolling out RTP and gained additional insights on when to expect new faster payment enhancements.

“The direct line of connection to technical support was priceless,” Sanz says. “We were able to get all of the necessary details to know when to expect the product to be available, so we were able to create processes to protect the security of our platform and the client.”

To offer real-time payments to drivers, Ualett® requires the drivers to have successfully completed one ride or be repeat users. Ualett® also requests updated bank statements from the drivers to confirm that the account actually belongs to the driver.

From an operational standpoint, Sanz says real-time payments help with reconciling transactions.

“Payment reconciliation has never been easier,” Sanz says. “Before RTP, each day we would go one by one with every transaction to verify which were processed, which needed to be canceled and which were still waiting to be settled on the ACH Network. Now, we can answer client questions about their payments without having to wait days for them to settle.”

Back to Top

Accelerating Into The Future

Since going live with Dwolla, Cabicash has averaged more than 200,000 transactions a month, sending and receiving over $300 million since 2018.

“Dwolla is like family,” Michel says. “Dwolla believes in new ideas and gives the space and support for businesses to succeed.”