Kickfin, Visa Team on Real-Time Tip Payouts for Service Industry

Tip disbursement enabler Kickfin announced Thursday (May 12) that it is partnering with Visa to allow service industry employers to send cashless tip payouts to employees’ bank accounts.

The partnership will put together the combined tech of Kickfin and the Visa Direct2 real-time money movement network. Kickfin is available for use by brands in full-service, quick-service or fast-casual dining, and it said its services can help with recruiting, retention and cutting down on cash management issues.

Tip programs are used to increase take-home earnings for quick-service employees, but the rise of credit cards and digital transactions has made it tougher to pay out tips in cash at the end of every shift. Employers can help with that through digitizing tip payouts and distributing them in real time to employees’ bank accounts, per the company press release.

“The hospitality workforce consists of frontline, essential employees,” Justin Roberts, co-CEO of Kickfin, said in the release. “They need, deserve and quite frankly expect immediate access to their earnings.

“When employers offer real-time, cashless tip payouts, the message is clear: they care about the financial well-being of their employees. Kickfin provides a long-term, sustainable solution for the operational, recruiting and compliance needs of the modern hospitality employer, and we’re excited to see how our collaboration with Visa will continue to transform the industry for the better.”

PYMNTS recently wrote that Google is bringing virtual cards to autofill on Android and Chrome, and Visa will replace the 16-digit card numbers in autofill when users buy things from their desktop or mobile devices.

Read more: Visa, Google Bring Virtual Cards to Autofill on Chrome, Android Using Tokenization

The companies said this will help bolster cybersecurity, and Googled cited an increasing need to protect digital transactions.

“Tokenization is the magic behind it,” Visa said in a news release. “To put it simply, Visa is adding a kind of ‘personal security guard’ to safeguard the consumer’s card number.”