Digital payments firm Stripe has launched Instant Payouts, a service designed for the gig economy, enabling marketplaces to pay contractors in minutes via their debit cards.
Stripe argues that bank transfers are slow, often taking several days, and require people to dig up hard to find and error-tempting bank details.
In contrast, "everyone has a debit card in their pocket" so Instant Payouts just goes directly to them and the funds are automatically deposited to the linked bank account.
The service has been trialled in beta for several months by firms including Instacart, Postmates and Lyft, which has already used it to send over $500 million to drivers.
It is now available to all marketplaces in the US using Stripe's Managed Accounts, which simply need to add a few lines of code to their site. Stripe charges 1.5% of the payout amount, with a minimum fee of 50 cents.
Meanwhile, the fast-growing Silicon Valley outfit is also expanding into Asia through its launch in Singapore. Japan and Hong Kong are likely to follow, with beta programmes already up and running.