Independent work is all the rage right now. Here’s a crazy stat – if the growth rate of Uber drivers were to remain steady, every person in America would be an Uber driver within five years. But despite the rapidly growing popularity of independent work, gig-economy workers from freelance artists to rideshare drivers still face many disadvantages that traditional workers do not.
However, their lives got a little bit easier on Wednesday, when one-stop income verification service Truework debuted Credentials, a technology that will extend the company’s verification services to 1099 and other hard-to-reach employees. Truework’s application programming interface works with a network of over 15,000 financial institutions, from huge banks to regional credit unions, to help workers verify their income and employment.
“It’s always been hard for 1099 employees to get the same access to loans and other financial products as W2 employees,” said Ryan Sandler, CEO of Truework. “A big reason is that accessing verified income data for 1099 employees hasn’t been possible for most banks. Truework Credentials will enable the thousands of banks on Truework to expand credit access to underserved 1099 borrowers.”
One small step for the gig economy
Because gig workers’ incomes are generally variable, current underwriting methods have struggled to verify their information. Now, in addition to the 35 million employees already covered by Truework’s Instant and Smart Outreach services, users can verify 1099 contractors for Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Grubhub, Instacart, Amazon Flex, Shipt and a host of other brands.
The new Credentials service works by allowing employees to log into their payroll provider, through which they can share verified income and employment information with lenders or other authorized third parties. In a few clicks, 1099 contractors and other gig workers can share payroll data with a network of more than 150 payroll providers and gig economy marketplaces.
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“There are a number of companies attacking this problem, but the power of Truework is that we are the only one-stop, API-enabled [provider] to verify income and employment for any U.S. employee,” a company spokesperson told Modern Shipper. “While Credentials is important, it is not a comprehensive technology that can be used to verify all borrowers. When plugged into the Truework platform, which includes 35 million instant records and a dedicated processing team for manual requests, users can now verify nearly 100% of applicants through Truework. Being a one-stop solution is why so many lenders and other verifiers choose to use Truework.”
With Credentials folded into Truework’s service, the company’s comprehensive API will be able to verify applicants from all walks of life in one place, from white collar executives to food delivery drivers, as it’s rolled out in the coming months.
“The Credentials product has been live with a handful of banks and lending institutions over the past few weeks, and we plan on rolling it out to all of our customers over the next few months,” said Sandler. “The product will be available to API customers and will be the first of its kind available for lenders using [loan origination software provider] Encompass as well as self-serve users.”
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