Zellis is partnering with Experian to extend Work Report. It’s the service Experian launched in November 2021 to automate the digital sharing of payroll information on behalf of consumers. The initial payroll partner for the platform was Sage. Now Zellis is adding salary information for the benefit of consumers.
The Work Report service is a business solution that enables banks, mortgage companies and potential employers to verify previous payroll and employment information securely. The solution was brought to market with a technology partner, Salary Finance, which connects payroll providers.
This new partnership means that Experian can provide the data verification service for all the employees of Zellis’s customers. For the employee, it can save them hours of manual work collating information that a mortgage company requires.
The HR teams within their employer often spend those hours collating the different information required. Now, when they complete an applications form, they can either upload the information manually or use Work Report. This authorisation enables Experian to share the requested organisation’s employment and income information.
It is estimated that 74% of the UK employees will need to share employment and income information within the next two years. Work Report enables employees to do this easily in a secure way. Employers using Zellis potentially save their HR team hours of work every year.
George Dunnett, Chief Product Officer at Zellis, commented: “Work Report is a fantastic product that will help our customers’ HR teams save a huge amount of time. It’s equally great for their employees, supporting their financial wellbeing and offering a smoother, and more intuitive process. We are delighted to be working in partnership with Experian to bring this service to market.”
Is your data protected?
Experian says that the service is fully compliant with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidelines and best practices. The inference is that employee data is held by Zellis. It is only accessed by Experian once the authorised (by the employee) requestor, such as a mortgage company, makes the request.
However, Experian does retain a copy of some data. There is an assumption that this happens digitally through an API. However, there is no indication of what data points the requestor must use to access the data.
Enterprise Times asked some questions about the service and the implication around the data. How does the process work?
Dunnett replied: “The employees’ PII and a UID such as National Insurance (NI) number is captured in the verification process. This is used to authenticate the identity of the employee and to ensure the service accurately matches their payroll data to their identity. This PII is deleted and not stored or kept by Experian once payroll data has been provided to the Consumer Service Provider.
“Work Report simply facilitates the transmission of the employees’ own data between their employer and the Consumer Service Provider of their choosing. Only the necessary income and/or employment fields that are required to inform the specific Consumer Service Provider use case are shared. This is in accordance with GDPR’s data minimisation principle.”
When an employee leaves the firm, is the data redacted from Experian?
“If an employee leaves a firm, they are no longer active on the employer’s payroll and will no longer be able to share their payroll data from their old employer.”
However, Experian may hold the data for up to six years for audit purposes and to answer consumer inquiries.
Another benefit for employees
For the businesses requesting the data, this eliminates the risk that manual copies are edited. It ensures that they receive the correct and up to date information from employers. This is good news for employers using Zellis. It offers a useful service to their employees and removes hours of work without any further investment. For Employees, it should simplify legitimate mortgage, job and other applications that require an employment history.
Paul Speirs, Managing Director of Consumer Information at Experian said, “People are required to share their personal financial information to access services all the time – whether it’s for a mortgage, credit card or to rent a property. Work Report enables people to share that info more quickly, conveniently and securely.
“We are thrilled that the Zellis Group, which provides services for about one in every six workers in the UK, is extending the incredible value of Work Report across its entire portfolio.”
ET asked Dunnet what the cost for the service is:
“Work Report is free to employees and there is no additional cost to Zellis customers. “
Customers, customer’s employees, and the financing companies benefit from increased efficiency. It is the finance companies that need to sign up for Work Report
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
For employees and consumers, this digitises a process that historically brings delays into the process and uses swathes of time. The benefit for Experian is that they have added another major payroll provider to their Work Report portfolio. They will hope to add more in the future. Service providers can now ask their consumer clients for access to the data, and Experian and Salary Finance facilitates that.
This is an enhancement that changes little for Zellis users. However, it delivers significant indirect benefits to them. Who will it connect to Work Report next?
Corrections were made to this article as the previous statements on the request of Zellis. The changes were made to improve the accuracy of the piece