INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Lunchr has rebranded to Swile in order to expand its product offering beyond meal vouchers
The company wants to focus on everything that happens at work but that isn''t technically work — money pots for a birthday, paying back
your co-workers, creating team-building events and more.
At heart, Swile provides a payment card for your lunch
French companies of a certain size have to support employees in one way or another when it comes to their lunch break
Big companies usually build out a cafeteria, while small companies hand out meal vouchers.
Companies can sign up to Swile so their employees
all get a payment card for their meal vouchers
The company tops up everyone card every month
Just like challenger banks, Swile wants to provide a better user experience
For instance, you can associate a debit card with your account so that your debit card is used if you pay for an expensive lunch above your
daily limit.
Currently 200,000 employees across 7,500 companies use a Swile card to pay for lunch.
Lunchr grabs $34 million for its
corporate lunch card
But paying for lunch is just one of the financial transaction types that you do at work
And Swile wants to capture a bigger chunk of that market.
It starts with two simple features
First, you can pay back your co-workers when they lend you some money
It isn''t limited to lunch money; you can basically associate a debit card with your account, send money and hold money.
Old habits die
hard, so it going to be hard to convince people to switch from Lydia to Swile
People already use Lydia to send money to their friends, and the company has managed to attract millions of users in France.
Second, many
companies need to collect money from the team
It could be for a gift when somebody is leaving the company, it could be in order to buy beers or grab a drink after work on a Friday
evening.
Employees can create money pots and invite the team
Given that everybody in your company has already created a Swile account, you don''t need to manually add your co-workers to the app — you
just have to find their name in the directory
Swile doesn''t charge any fee on those money pots when you transfer the money to a Swile account or a bank account.
In addition to payment,
Swile wants to help you connect more easily with your team
You can create and join events in the app
It could be useful for a birthday party at work, a soccer match, etc.
In the future, Swile also wants to add the ability to message your
friends directly in the app — at some point, all apps become messaging apps
Also coming soon, Swile will help you bookmark places and share with your co-workers a map of your favorite places around the
office.
Starting in June, even if your company doesn''t use Swile meal vouchers, you&ll be able to create an account for your team in order
to use events, money pots, etc
Basic features will be free and Swile will introduce a premium tier later this year.
