LTB 198/26 - Royal Mail: Financial Wellbeing; Salary Advance
- Angela Wright CWU Branch Communications Officer
- Jul 15
- 2 min read
No. 198/26
Dear Colleague,
ROYAL MAIL: FINANCIAL WELLBEING; SALARY ADVANCE
Royal Mail is today launching a new facility for monthly paid employees that allows for salary advances, which may be welcomed by some members when facing temporary financial difficulties. All monies advanced will be paid back via payroll at the next salary; therefore essentially this is simply an advance of salary and is not linked to a Salary Sacrifice product, which would be paid back via instalments, and it doesn’t have an impact on the minimum wage.
Disappointingly, we have been informed the new product is not available for RMPFSL employees.
Branches and Reps are advised that there has been no meaningful engagement on this matter, and Royal Mail simply appraised us of their planned actions and as such did not seek our formal agreement. However, it would be fair to say that this employee benefit may enable our members to avoid the high cost of payday loans, unapproved overdrafts with excessive bank charges and of course unscrupulous loan sharks. As many members live hand to mouth and won’t have any savings to fall back on, this facility is welcomed.
There is a small transaction fee of £1.69 for accessing this product, and practically, the employee checks their eligibility via the new “Salary Finance” App and can access up to 50% of what they’ve earned in the last month. The monies are usually available within minutes. The attached slides and “Your Wellbeing” publicity materials that can also be accessed via the Robin App or through My Bundle+ provide further details.
The example given by management as to a potential need for an urgent salary advance was an employee’s boiler packing up and with it the cost of calling out a service engineer and of course the cost of replacement parts, which can’t wait until the next pay date in the depths of winter.
Going forward, it will be necessary for us to understand the ongoing take-up of salary advances, and I will engage with Royal Mail for them to provide us with statistics and to undertake a trend analysis to see which grades avail themselves of this facility.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary
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