Citizens announced Tuesday an earned wage access (EWA) solution for corporate clients, offering prompt access to accrued earnings for participating employees.

The solution reflects Citizens’ efforts to expand into “bank-agnostic and treasury-adjacent solutions,” and accommodate changing employee needs, Kavita Kurella, senior vice president at the Providence, R.I.-based bank, told Bank Automation News.

“This solution is timely to address today’s challenging labor market in acquiring and retaining strong talent, and it is more important than ever to provide this benefit,” Kurella said.

The solution, which operates as a mobile app, connects to enterprise payroll and human resources providers and can be operational in as few as 30 days. The Citizens’ solution was built with what Kurella called a “fintech partnership,” though she declined to name the company.

Citizens is not the only major financial institution to go live with earned wage technology; in February 2021, $573 billion U.S. Bank selected payments fintech Payactiv to mobilize EWA through cards or real-time payments (RTP) to linked bank accounts. Later that month, $560 billion PNC expanded its relationship with DailyPay to provide a similar service to PNC Treasury Management clients.

Citizens also announced plans to release Citizens Paid Early — a service that will give customers advanced access to direct deposits — in the second quarter of 2022.

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