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  • July 2019 (Revised November 2019)
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Salary Finance

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:14 
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Abstract

In April 2019, Asesh Sarkar, co-founder and chief executive of Salary Finance Limited, a London-based FinTech, faced tough choices. Sarkar had founded Salary Finance with Dan Cobley and Daniel Shakhani in 2015. The company’s value proposition was quite simple: partner with employers to offer employees affordable loans that were repaid through automatic payroll deductions. Taking repayments directly from salary, and collecting those repayments in one transaction from the employer, dramatically reduced costs, saving employees large amounts of interest when compared to market alternatives like credit cards or payday lenders. For improving access to affordable credit, Salary Finance garnered considerable praise in the media, being named one of the UK’s most socially responsible and innovative FinTech companies. Since the beginning of 2018, Salary Finance had introduced a savings product and an earned income advance product that were linked to employee salary. In September 2018, they expanded to the United States, in partnership with the United Way, opening an office in Boston, Massachusetts. Sarkar was excited by the progress but was still pondering how best to accelerate further growth and improve the business. First there was the question of geographic expansion. Did it make sense to pursue other markets like India? Or, should he focus on building Salary Finance’s position in the UK and U.S.? In these markets, should he prioritize attracting new employers to the platform or adding new products such as mortgages or investments? Should he register as a bank, tapping into low-cost deposits and reducing the dependence on commercial borrowing to fund loans? Finally, he was concerned about how to best maintain Salary Finance’s culture—“For People Not Numbers”—during rapid growth. These questions and more weighed heavily on Sarkar’s mind as he considered the company’s future.

Keywords

Credit; Financing And Loans; Wages; Innovation And Invention; Expansion; Growth And Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices And Conditions; Financial Services Industry

Citation

Wells, John R., and Benjamin Weinstock. "Salary Finance." Harvard Business School Case 720-355, July 2019. (Revised November 2019.)
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About The Author

John R. Wells

Strategy
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Related Work

    • July 2019 (Revised November 2019)
    • Faculty Research

    Salary Finance

    By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock
Related Work
  • Salary Finance By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock
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