Wouldn't it be way easier and better for the driver to just open a bank account? Why would they want to tie something as important as making car payments to their ephemeral gig work?
Many people don’t want or cannot get real bank accounts, e.g. because they can’t sustain the minimum balance, have been blacklisted for bouncing checks, or it just isn’t the norm in their community.
It's kind of a slippery slope to start letting employers hold pay in an account they control... reminds me of the union busting articles on the top right now, with Facebook building employee housing now, the idea you brought up is the next step towards the "Facebook Store" and scrips.
I understand some people have trouble banking, but the answer should then be for us to ensure they can have equal access to banking, no matter what.
Agreed. But this is not some gig economy thing... when an institution needs to pay you and you don't have direct deposit, often they will send you a prepaid debit card instead of a check. Even the federal government does this [0]. These cards tend to have predatory fees.
I'm aware of that practice, and that's why I would hope that we could build something like the often talked about USPS bank, or whatever, so everyone can have equal access to real banking with no predatory practices.
Not that any gig companies are doing this yet, or even thought to do it, but I just don't like the idea of this being done in a "company scrips"-like fashion, there are some things that should be totally nuclear to the touch, and tying even more of your life to your company (in the USA you have medical, housing, food, etc. tied to your work) should be nuclear.
> and that's why I would hope that we could build something like the often talked about USPS bank, or whatever, so everyone can have equal access to real banking with no predatory practices.
I signed up on the wait list and emailed patio11 specifically to build such a product. Regarding your point about company scrip, I think prevention against that is best served by reaching out to your Congressional representatives, as well as members of the
U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, to legislate safeguards. Without the force of law, protections are only polite suggestions.
Will be interesting to see this product allows you to support customers who are e.g. on the ChexSystems list or have inadequate ID. Since it is real banks under the hood, same problems may apply.
bank may not open an account for the driver, and why push the drivers to the bank if you can provide kind of substitute of those services thus expanding your business in such a great way.
>Stripe Treasury would let the rideshare platform give their drivers an embedded money management account. That would allow indefinitely holding money, and would allow them to use e.g. bill pay for car payments, similar to the way that many HNers probably pay their own car payments today.
It sounds like what Stripe is doing is providing a quasi-bank account, kind of retail frontend emulating limited banking services and backend-ed by GS and the likes as Stripe doesn't seems to have a license themselves ("commoditize your complement" comes to mind). Though it doesn't sound like a service for the driver, it only looks like it. It is the service for the platform. Interesting who really owns the "embedded" account/money - platform or the driver. If the driver then it looks more like bank, if the platform - interesting can of worms, like you employer providing an imitation of a real account for you and holding money in your name. I.e. it seems that the point here is to find a way to keep money in the system (the platform keeping drivers' money in Stripe - i.e. "That would allow indefinitely holding money" seems to be the key here) instead of just merely piping the money.