Digi Telecommunications, via its innovation arm Digi-X, has signed a partnership agreement with financial wellness platform HariGaji to launch the Earned Wage Access (EWA) feature for Malaysian businesses. As part of Digi’s HR app dubbed ‘altHR’, this new feature will give users the access to short-term liquidity, with employees able to withdraw up to 50 percent of their earned salaries directly from the platform at any point in the month.

Through EWA, employees on altHR can now access emergency funds, with an hour for updates on withdrawal requests. The service is available for a fee of MYR 15 for the first transaction or withdrawal in the month, and HariGaji will process all subsequent transactions within the same month with no additional free.

With EWA integrated into the app, employers on altHR will have access to the Earned Wage Access feature at no additional cost. This allows employers to offer salary advances to their employees without impacting their working capital. The Earned Wage Access is estimated to generate a reduction of employee turnover of at least 16 percent, thereby eliminating the potential cost of rehiring new staff which can cost up to 33 percent of an employee’s salary per annum.