The Issuers Report 2023: FinTechs’ Instant Payments Mismatch

“Wage to Wallet™ Index: The Divided Recovery: Labor Economy Workers Face an Uncertain 2026” is a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence, WorkWhile and Ingo Payments. This month’s report examines the financial outlook of the Labor Economy—roughly 60 million U.S. employees who earn about $25 an hour or less and form the on-the-ground workforce that keeps production, distribution and service delivery running. The report’s central finding is that the recovery feels divided: Wage gains and GDP headlines may be improving, but many Labor Economy workers are entering 2026 focused on maintaining their footing. Their confidence has been persistently lower than that of non-Labor Economy workers—roughly 50 versus 57 on the Wage to Wallet Index—and the pressure points are clear: weaker savings expectations, limited room to reduce debt and a view that expenses are rising faster than pay. The stakes extend beyond household budgets. Labor Economy workers represent 36.5% of U.S. employees and drive 15.1% of total U.S. spending, equivalent to more than $1.7 trillion a year, meaning their stability can influence everything from consumer demand to economic reliability. The report also flags an overlay of job and skills anxiety as technology reshapes work. Roughly two-thirds of Labor Economy workers say they feel confident their skills will remain valuable as technology evolves, and many express concern about automation and job cuts. The report closes with practical implications for payments providers, banks and employers, including faster access to wages, easier automated saving and tools that connect financial stability with skill-building pathways. In this report, learn how: Labor Economy sentiment is staying stuck even when the economy looks better on paper. The report shows a persistent confidence gap relative to non-Labor Economy workers, driven by weaker views on saving, debt, and job mobility. Flat pay expectations and rising expenses are shaping spending behavior in 2026. Roughly half of Labor Economy workers expect income to stay the same, while nearly half expect monthly expenses to rise, forcing tradeoffs that can shift consumption and payment patterns. Technology anxiety is becoming a financial stability issue. The report details an “automation overhang,” with Labor Economy workers less confident that their skills will remain valuable and more likely to worry about layoffs and employer survival.

At 60 million and growing, the U.S. Labor Economy represents a sizeable segment of the country’s manpower. Yet, even as these individuals serve food, staff warehouses, drive trucks, staff events, care for patients and otherwise keep local commerce moving, it rarely receives attention in mainstream economic narratives. This disconnect framed a recent podcast between PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards and WorkWhile COO Simon Khalaf. The discussion centered on findings from the latest Wage to Wallet Index, which examines how timing with regard to pay, not just job availability, increasingly determines financial stability for hourly workers. A Consumption Engine That Rarely Gets Counted Webster emphasized that the Labor Economy is not peripheral to GDP — it is foundational. “This is a workforce where what they earn, they spend,” Webster said. “That spending shows up in local economies,” which makes wage volatility an economic issue, not just a personal one. The Wage to Wallet data reveals what Webster described as a “mirror image economy.” Salaried workers report growing optimism, while hourly workers are more pessimistic even as they report strong job security. Employment alone, the data shows, does not translate into trust when pay is unpredictable. When a 4,700-Year-Old System Meets Modern Bills Much of that instability stems from payroll itself. Khalaf described paychecks as a “4,700-year-old construct,” tracing modern payroll back to ancient Mesopotamia. “We are still waiting two weeks to get paid,” Khalaf said, contrasting that delay with capital markets where settlement happens in seconds. The result is a timing mismatch that forces workers into what Webster called “Bill Pay Roulette.” Bills tied to employment — transportation, phones, childcare — get paid first, while other bills are put on hold. Late fees accumulate. Credit bridges the gap. Timing, Not Behavior, Is the Breaking Point Edwards pushed back on the assumption that financial instability reflects poor decision-making. “They have the least visibility and the least control,” he said. Hourly workers often don’t know how many hours they’ll work in a week, yet face fixed costs. A simple meal costs the same regardless of income, turning timing gaps into structural stress. These gaps are increasingly bridged with high-cost loans. Khalaf noted that many workers borrow at annualized rates north of 60%, making progress on eliminating debt mathematically impossible. “That’s why the [debt] stack keeps growing,” he said. What Platforms Actually Change Both executives argued that platforms are beginning to address the root causes through redesigning how work, pay and data connect. Ingo Payments focuses on eliminating friction at the moment of pay. Edwards said his company specializes in accelerating disbursements so workers can choose when and how they receive earnings, removing fraud risk and reversals embedded in paper checks and slow rails. Real-time ledgering, he added, shifts risk away from those workers least able to absorb it. WorkWhile approaches the problem earlier in the cycle. Khalaf said the platform connects workers and employers in verticals like hospitality and logistics, offering next-day or real-time pay alongside flexible scheduling. Increasingly, WorkWhile is using AI to forecast labor demand, predict income and map upcoming obligations. “We’re building a map of everything you owe and what work opportunities are available to cover it,” Khalaf said, describing how workers could see upcoming bills alongside suggested shifts before financial stress hits. Webster underscored the significance of that shift. “For the first time, technology makes it possible to align when work is done with when money is needed,” she said. “That alignment changes decision-making.” From Worker Stability to Supply Stability The conversation also reframed labor stability as an operational advantage. Khalaf argued that predictable income creates predictable staffing, which, in turn, creates predictable service delivery. “Worker stability is supply stability,” he said, linking individual financial health to employer reliability and customer experience. Edwards emphasized that these models come with a cost, but are well worth it. “Give people choices,” he said, in a nod to the benefits that accrue to providers. “When value is clear, people will pay for speed, certainty and control.” A More Durable System As the conversation closed, Webster returned to the broader opportunity. Fixing Bill Pay Roulette, she said, is not about overhauling labor markets overnight, but about modernizing the connection between work performed and pay received. If income arrives when it is needed, financial decision-making becomes less reactive and more intentional — with benefits that extend beyond individual households to employers and local economies. Khalaf summed up the path forward more simply: “Math is the truth.”

The first half of the 2020s didn’t just accelerate payments and commerce. It stress-tested every assumption the industry carried into the decade — and forced leaders to decide, in real time, what to keep, what to kill and what to rebuild. That is the premise of this eBook: an “Over/Under” look back at the developments executives saw coming and prepared for, and the unexpected turns that demanded course-corrects, pivots or entirely new opportunity maps. If the “Over” had a headline, it might be this: the wallet won. Not as a feature, but as the default. Cyril Villemin at Thales frames how Apple Pay and the pandemic-era surge reset what “good” looks like — frictionless, tokenized and authenticated at the device layer, turning tokenization from a security upgrade into foundational infrastructure. And with that foundation in place, the conversation is already shifting from tap-to-pay to the next interface: agentic commerce, where software agents initiate payments on trusted rails. The responses also showed that speed stopped being a differentiator and became a promise you must operationalize. Real-time expectations didn’t arrive politely; they kicked the door in. Chuck Fagan at Velera details how credit unions leaned into real-time capabilities and account validation to cut friction from “first transaction” moments — while discovering that speed quickly exposes weak links in onboarding, identity and risk. Prashant Shah at Galileo Financial Technologies puts it even more bluntly: Once you promise faster money movement, exception handling and recovery can’t be afterthoughts, because that’s where trust is won or lost. Payments didn’t just digitize; they became informational. David Keenan at FIS points to basket-level intelligence and real-time analytics as the “Over” bet — using granular data to power personalization, loyalty and better outcomes across the ecosystem. And on the B2B front, Boost underscores the same reality from the CFO’s seat: interoperability and usable data aren’t nice-to-haves, they’re what make modernization feasible at scale. Handicapping the Under The “Under” was trust: governance, compliance and resilience moved to the top of the agenda. If there’s a surprise theme threading through these pages, it’s that trust became a product requirement, not a legal checkbox. Drew Edwards at Ingo Payments calls the BaaS shakeout a predictable outcome of fragmented vendor stacks and a reminder that accountability doesn’t outsource. Galileo adds the operational corollary: Buyers stopped asking what a platform does and started asking what happens when it fails. Technology headlines can obscure the oldest truth in finance: Liquidity is personal. Paymentus writes from the bill-pay front lines, where cost-to-serve pressure and customer experience collide — and where “every bill is worth more than the balance due.” Ingo goes further, arguing the real story is still the worker; the tens of millions living on timing, not theory and the urgency of access to earned wages. These chapters — spanning leaders from Velera, Paysafe, One Inc, FIS, Boost, Ingo Payments, Paymentus, Thales and Galileo — don’t just recap the last five years. They offer a field guide to the signals that mattered, the assumptions that broke and the rewired priorities that will shape 2026 and beyond.