The problem I saw, and that most people underestimated, was how hard it was for many workers to manage both their jobs and their finances with the tools available to them. Early on, I kept seeing the same thing: workers juggling multiple apps just to track shifts, budget, or get access to their earnings. None of it was built for their reality, and employers were feeling the strain too. Inefficient processes around pay and scheduling were creating headaches on both sides.

That’s what sparked Branch. We wanted to create technology that put workers first—something intuitive and comfortable for them to use, but powerful enough to streamline the operational burden for workplaces. As we rebuilt the experience from the ground up, it became clear that connecting work and finances holistically didn’t just improve workers’ lives; it also made businesses run more smoothly. Faster payments and better financial tools can reduce admin time, cut down support issues, and ultimately create a healthier, more efficient workforce.

People often mis-perceive Branch as only an earned wage access provider. EWA is something we offer, but it’s just one element of what we do. Branch is a workforce payments platform serving both W-2 and 1099 workforces, helping organizations reduce friction, improve efficiency, and deliver modern, integrated financial experiences within their own systems.

We see ourselves as an infrastructure company powering how money moves inside the platforms where people work. We operate in a B2B2C model by building a range of payouts technology that enterprises rely on, while also delivering a seamless financial experience directly to their workers.

One of the toughest decisions we made was choosing to narrow our focus, even when big opportunities were in front of us. In the early days, several large, well-known companies approached us with requests that could have driven strong short-term momentum. But many of those opportunities would have pulled us into building bespoke products or one-off solutions that didn’t align with our long-term vision of becoming the infrastructure powering workforce payments.

It wasn’t easy to walk away from the potential revenue or visibility, and it certainly slowed our short-term growth. But staying focused allowed us to put our energy into building a scalable platform that serves enterprises and their workers in a consistent, repeatable way.

We had a thesis that the more upstream you are to a recurring deposit, the higher the rate of engagement. That really led us to expand the aperture to cover more worker payout use cases, from cashless tips to 1099 disbursements.

Fintech conversations often focus on premium consumer experiences or emerging categories like crypto. But the most defining shift ahead is happening in a space the industry still undervalues: the everyday financial lives of lower- to moderate-income consumers.

Even with meaningful innovation over the past decade, the foundational financial needs of millions of Americans remain underserved. The scale of this overlooked segment is enormous, and the gap between what people need and what current solutions deliver is even wider. Companies that build utility-driven, accessible financial solutions that meet people where they are will shape the next era of fintech.

Workforce payments are often considered a single category, but each industry has highly nuanced payment needs. From hospitality to healthcare to construction, each industry operates with its own workflows, schedules, worker types, and compliance pressures.

Because each vertical has distinct requirements, there’s enormous room to build tailored solutions. That's why we’ve seen the rise of vertical SaaS platforms and embedded finance offerings across industries. The more deeply you understand a workforce’s operational reality, the more value you can unlock.

The real opportunity isn’t in forcing a one-size-fits-all model, but in recognizing just how many industries are still underserved and how many specialized problems are waiting to be solved. Our workforce payments infrastructure is purpose-built for this: flexible enough to meet the unique needs of each industry, yet robust enough to scale across them.