Instant payouts for gig workers have been
Canadian full-service restaurants' takeout and delivery business soared to 96% of orders in 2020, compared with 24% in 2019 prior to the pandemic, according to data from Restaurants Canada and eMarketer.
The surge prompted SkipTheDishes, Canada’s leading food-delivery service, to develop Canada's first instant payouts service with Visa to reach drivers in most Canadian cities.
SkipTheDishes Fast Cash enables its drivers to get instant payments sent to their bank accounts through Visa Direct via an integration with Stripe, Visa Canada recently announced. Drivers pay a fee of $1.99 each time they request an instant payout, which occurs in real time.
Visa piloted the Fast Cash service with SkipTheDishes for a few months before rolling out the service nationally, said Brian Weiner, vice president and head of product, Visa Canada, in an interview.
“It took several years for Visa to build out the rails to support real-time wage payments in Canada, but now we’re seeing a real clear need for it, magnified by COVID,” Weiner said.
A survey Visa conducted among gig workers said 89% were interested in receiving instant wage payouts, and more than half would prefer working for a company that provided real-time access to wages.
Winnipeg-based SkipTheDishes works with 30,000 restaurants under parent company Just Eat Takeaway.com, which Grubhub is acquiring, with the food-delivery boom expected to continue in Canada for the foreseeable future, Weiner said.
Uber Eats and DoorDash also are major players in food delivery in Canada, but neither company yet offers instant payouts to drivers.
