,

Sorry for being a day behind this week.

Between travel and taking care of a few very exciting behind-the-scenes projects, the schedule slipped slightly. I cannot wait to share more. This is the biggest thing I have worked on since really kickstarting this newsletter, and it is finally starting to come together.

I was at CES recently, and one of the most striking presences was not a consumer electronics giant like LG, but AARP. Healthcare and longevity were top of mind, which felt particularly prescient given last week’s write-up.

Quick announcement: I’ve had a noticeable increase in founders and brands reaching out for guidance on narrative, positioning, and how to tell a clearer story to the right investors.

As a small thank you for helping grow this community: if you refer this newsletter to five people, I will offer you a free 30-minute narrative alignment session, including feedback on positioning and a targeted investor lens for your company or idea.

Last week, I wrote about how healthcare costs are intersecting with earned wage access, and I just want to say thank you for the overwhelming and thoughtful response:

The notes, forwards, and follow-up conversations reminded me why I started writing this newsletter in the first place.

While catching up with my friend Andy, the writer behind Payments in Full, he mentioned how much of a fan he is of earned wage access as a category. Despite regulatory headlines and a handful of bad actors, both Andy and I broadly agree on one core point: any product that helps people access their own money with less friction is a net positive.

That perspective has been resonating well beyond fintech. Many of the conversations coming out of JPMorgan’s premier healthcare conference in San Francisco this week echoed the same theme. Across panels and investor commentary, there was a clear emphasis on affordability, operational efficiency, and solutions that reduce financial stress upstream rather than reacting to it downstream. In that context, earned wage access is increasingly being discussed not as a perk, but as part of the broader infrastructure supporting workforce stability, retention, and health outcomes.

That does not mean the category is without nuance. It does mean the direction of travel matters.

To that end, here are a few earned wage access players worth paying attention to, both in the United States and internationally.

1️⃣ EarnIn

Earnin helped define consumer expectations around instant access to wages. It is often the first name people associate with earned wage access, for better or worse. When I covered Earnin in Forbes, what interested me most was how quickly users normalized the idea that waiting two weeks to access earned income was optional, not inevitable.

That shift in expectation is permanent. While the model has faced regulatory and reputational pressure, Earnin’s role in shaping the category cannot be understated. Many of today’s platforms exist because Earnin proved demand at scale.