Winner Best Payroll Card Program
Ecount & Stein Mart Win Payroll Choices Program.
Fast-growing, successful companies often find themselves taking a deep metaphorical breath-and reevaluating processes and policies that worked well at an earlier stage of their growth. Jacksonville, Fla.-based retailer Stein Mart, Inc., found itself in this position not long ago.
With 280 stores, more than 17,000 employees in 30-plus states and annual revenue of $1.5 billion, Stein Mart realized it needed to revamp its pay distribution network. The store chain, which describes itself as a hybrid between a better department/specialty store and a traditional off-price retailer, sought to eliminate payday hassles, provide an employee benefit and, most importantly, guarantee pay delivery. Its stores stretch across a good part of the country, and new stores open each year-14 in 2007 alone.
Plus, Stein Mart, like many large companies, has experienced disruption in normal business operations, including paycheck distribution, due to circumstances not amenable to normal business controls, including bad weather and national crises. "In our case, the concept of getting pay to associates on time, every time was the main priority," explains Greg Lohman, Stein Mart's director of compensation and benefits.
Stein Mart turned to Pennsylvania-based Ecount, a Citi company that develops and provides customized MasterCard and Visa prepaid card programs, for a solution to the paper paycheck problem. Ecount took on the challenge. With its extensive experience providing prepaid solutions to more than 1,300 companies, Ecount developed the 100 percent Payroll Solution for Stein Mart, based on the Visa prepaid card and Citi's extensive payment platform.
The program specifically targeted Stein Mart employees who were unbanked, who had not already chosen direct pay deposit or who wanted to add an additional account for savings or spending.
Stein Mart offered employees a choice of a prepaid payroll card or direct deposit, with stunning results: Within three weeks, Stein Mart totally eliminated paper paychecks. In addition, the Visa prepaid card payroll program reduced the cost of payroll administration significantly, cutting more than $100,000 annually from payroll costs.
Perhaps the biggest benefits, however, occurred just a few weeks after implementation, when Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma ravaged the Gulf Coast. Among the devastation were more than 20 Stein Mart stores, and many employees were displaced. These employees might have faced additional hardships had they not been able to receive their pay. However, with their Ecount payroll cards, all employees received their pay on time, with a card that could be used at any Visa debit card acceptance location.
"We took a real shot, a leap of faith, that we could do payroll in one seamless process, and it's worked," Lohman adds. "This has really revolutionized what we do."
About Citi Prepaid Services
Citi Prepaid Services (formerly Ecount) is a leading provider of innovative prepaid solutions. Through a consultative approach, Citi Prepaid provides clients with comprehensive electronic payment programs that reduce costs, enhance operational efficiencies and provide an unmatched user experience. Leveraging an extensive payment platform and proprietary prepaid technology, clients around the world depend on Citi Prepaid's custom programs for all types of payments including compensation, promotions and disbursements.