SAN FRANCISCO—Uber is partnering with GoBank in a pilot to test a new way to pay its drivers faster, and also prevent drivers from turning to payday lenders.
Uber will allow drivers to deposit their earnings from each ride into an account with GoBank, a subsidiary of the pre-paid debit card company Green Dot. Uber won’t charge any fees for the service, and GoBank will not charge a monthly fee as long as drivers access their accounts at least once every six months. If an account goes untouched for more than six months, drivers would face a monthly fee of $8.95.
Uber pays drivers once a week, which some experts have stated leads to drivers needing cash sooner and turning to payday lenders.
The pilot program, which Uber is launching in San Francisco and a few other cities, is a direct challenge to companies that offer drivers faster payment in exchange for high fees. Drivers have been increasingly vocal about the need for alternatives, Uber executives told the Seattle Times.
“Our drivers should not have to pay for this technology,” Wayne Ting, Uber’s general manager for the San Francisco Bay Area told the newspaper.
One recently launched service, known as Clearbanc, charges $2 a day any time an Uber or Lyft driver wants to have money deposited into a Clearbanc account. If a driver works five days a week and wants to be paid at the end of each shift, Clearbanc’s current fee structure would cost a driver $10 a week or roughly $40 a month.
Uber competitor Lyft recently launched an instant pay program, but it requires drivers to deposit at least $50 and charges a 50 cent fee for each deposit, the Times said.