Steve Percy
President, Diolkos Commerce Solutions
June 2022
Many GIG Workers work more than one GIG, mostly at the same time. They have to earn a living wage and the amount of work from any one GIG Business is not enough to sustain themselves or their families. While government reports indicate that upwards of 35% of workers participate in the GIG economy, this is not a new concept. People in rural small towns have been working multiple jobs and surviving under this model for more than a century.
…but in the new world, how do these people work multiple GIG’s with the challenges of accepting individual real-time GIG Income payments and all the associated tax management reporting that will go along with it ?
…and with the current pressures on Labour relations and the social safety net, how do both companies and these GIG workers manage the need to support benefits and Income protection offerings ? What about the complexities of remittance and reporting ?
The GIG 2.0 Worker doesn’t need these types of complex challenges. They are workers, not accountants. They need this simple and need someone to take care of this for them for little cost.
So what is needed to move towards GIG 2.0 payments ?
One major issue is that payments cannot be run on a whole bunch of independent platforms, operated by each individual GIG business. It has to be delivered through the core payments infrastructure. If you want seamless integration of payment management and reporting from the GIG 2.0 Workers perspective, this is an absolute requirement.
GIG 2.0 Workers as independent contractors need to manage their finances out of either their personal bank account or their small business account operated through their Financial Institution. And for new GIG Businesses to open and compete, the payment infrastructure hurdle needs to be overcome. So a core payments infrastructure that can support their needs and give them access to workers is an absolute requirement.
So let’s review the most important requirements to move to GIG 2.0 Payments ?
1. Touchless.
2. Immediate funds availability (“Real-Time” transactions, direct Account-to-Account and fully liquid).
3. Multiple Payors (Customers sharing a payment) and Multiple GIG Payees (GIG Worker(s), GIG Business) that each bank at Any FI.
4. Pre-Authorization of Payments (Confirming funds are available prior to service initiation).
5. Global 7/24 Cross-border including Multi-Currency.
6. Automatic Benefit Deductions and Tax Remittances.
7. Integrated Receipts - “Collaborative Remittance Information” for fast and effective Reconciliation as well as tracking payment completion.
8. Income reporting from multiple sources (individual GIG payment deposits from multiple Side Hustles need to be easily aggregated and reported).
All of these create an opportunity for the GIG economy to thrive. They create a new environment that will change businesses.
And to be deliverable in the current world where trust and security is paramount, there are three more items that must be included:
9. Secure, Transparent and Reliable transactions
10. Privacy – Complete PII Security
11. All Regulatory Requirements for AML/ATF and Sanctions Screening (cross-border transactions), with real-time execution.
And what about non-currency payments ? Why can’t GIG 2.0 Workers and GIG 2.0 Businesses compete with these payment types as options ?
If you are smart, all of these have to be designed in from the outset. First Generation vs. Next Generation design. The former is dynamic and evolutionary. The latter takes all the learning’s and vaults them up the exponential curve. Fortunately, this work has been completed. Now it’s time to move forward.
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