Case Study: Benepass

Benepass is a benefits platform designed for modern companies to make it easier for employees to navigate and access their tax-advantaged accounts and benefits. Tax-advantaged benefits can add up to thousands of dollars in tax savings for employees and employers each year. However, historical usage is low and the average employee only deducts about 3% of the total they are eligible for due to difficult to navigate systems and antiquated software.

The Y Combinator company was founded by CEO Jaclyn Chen, CTO Kabir Soorya, and COO Mark Fischer to reimagine the pre- and post-tax employee benefit experience. The company’s mission is to make it easier for small to medium-sized companies to offer and administer competitive benefits. Benepass unifies all tax-advantaged benefits such as flexible spending accounts (FSA), health savings accounts (HSA), and commuter benefits, as well as company perks and stipends into a single intuitive experience delivered via a mobile app and linked to physical and virtual payment cards.

Benepass partnered with Unit because of its flexible platform and strong partner bank relationship. Benepass launched in 2020 as COVID accelerated remote work, decentralized employee experiences, and an industry shift towards providing employees greater flexibility and choice in benefits. Benepass needed a banking-as-a-service platform and bank partner that could accommodate their specific needs around building a better HSA spending experience.

“When evaluating other banking-as-a-service providers, the majority of the other platforms were too rigid and not able to provide us the flexibility we needed to truly reimagine the benefits experience,” said Benepass CEO and co-founder Jaclyn Chen. “Partnering with Unit was the right long-term solution. We had a tight timeline to launch HSA accounts before open enrollment started and Unit allowed us to deliver a truly seamless product experience that will improve health access for employees.”

What Benepass has built on Unit:

• Employer and Employee Accounts: Employer and employee deposit accounts designated for HSA spending
• HSA Funding and Transfers: ACH, wire and check payments to fund employer accounts, follow by book transfers to employee HSA accounts
• HSA Reimbursements: ACH payments to reimburse employees for qualified health spending
• Automated Benefits Tracking: Automatic tagging on every transaction to their appropriate benefit using payment tags
• Physical and Virtual Cards: Physical and virtual cards for HSA spending

“Unit was also able to streamline compliance and allow us to focus on building a great benefits experience for our end users,” said Chen.” Unit has been a true partner from day one and continues to innovate with us as we expand our product suite.”

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Benepass is a financial technology company, and is not a bank. Banking services provided by Blue Ridge Bank, N.A., and Pacific West Bank, Members FDIC. The Benepass Health Savings Account Visa® Debit card and Benepass Flexible Spending Account Visa Debit® card are issued by Blue Ridge Bank, N.A., and Pacific West Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used everywhere Visa is accepted.

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