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Tech Topics In This Article: Chattanooga startups, FinTechs
End your shift. Get your money.
The earned-wage access model has grown in recent years as hourly employees look for faster access to their hard-earned paycheck…and as employers look for ways to improve employee retention and satisfaction.
The reality is that the hourly workforce often needs faster access to their paycheck than the biweekly or monthly intervals provide. They often use that money to make car payments, pay for Ubers to work, cover unexpected bills, or write checks for their kid’s school.
While there are several big players in the earned-wage access space, the startup Clockout is taking a unique approach to serving employees and employers alike. Specifically, Clockout provides earned-wage access options directly to financial institutions, banks, and credit unions.
“We’re essentially building what Zelle (digital payment service that allows users to send and receive money between U.S. bank accounts) did for B2B, but for earned wage access,” says co-founder and COO Anthony Tardugno (in featured photo). “It’s highly monetizable for financial institutions.”
Clockout’s model allows financial institutions to integrate EWA directly into their platforms, giving employees access to their paychecks early directly from their bank app. This allows larger national banks to keep up with fintech and neobank disruptors that are continuing to gain traction in the space.
That has caught the attention of big players in the FinTech world. Clockout recently went through the Q2 Innovation Studio program and Jack Henry’s Vendor Integration Program, programs that helped Clockout validate their model and ultimately opened doors to wider distribution.
Meet The Clockout Team
Anthony Tardugno and CEO Juan Jurado-Blanco, who were childhood friends in Venezuela who reconnected in the United States, began working on Clockout in 2022 when they initially operated a traditional EWA service for restaurant groups in South Florida. However, a crucial pivot in April 2024 shifted their focus to bank integration. Through early pilot programs, they discovered a broader need for EWA than initially anticipated.
“We learned that Earned Wage Access is a product that most Americans need, not only low income earners in certain industries,” Tardugno explains. “The data shows that the biggest users are over 30 and fall into two demographics: those making under $75,000 and those making between $75,000 and $150,000.”
“We realized we were onto something when these core banking providers started putting us in special programs,” Tardugno added. “It solidified our understanding that our product was needed in the banking industry.”
Starting this last December, the Clockout team has been building out of Chattanooga, where they moved to join the “insulator” program Brickyard. On top of Brickyard’s investment, Clockout is backed by Market Square Ventures, a Knoxville-based VC.
The team, with six employees, operates across Chattanooga, Florida, San Francisco, and Venezuela.
As Clockout looks to scale, Tardugno said the team is looking to connect with “Innovation, Product, Retail and Deposit executives at Banks and Credit Unions.”
