Business Case studies

How RemotePass Offers Payroll for Remote Teams Using Wise Business - A Case Study

Paola Faben Oliveira
Paola Faben Oliveira
15.09.23 (updated more than 1 year ago)
Read time 3 minutes

RemotePass® is an HR platform for onboarding and paying remote teams, which was launched to meet changing company needs during Covid. With RemotePass, companies can access all the tools they need to onboard and manage remote workers, from locally compliant contract templates and document collection, to convenient and cost-efficient payroll for remote teams.

Story of RemotePass

The story of RemotePass starts back in 2019 in UAE, although at the time, the intention of co-founder Kamal Reggad was to create something quite different - a SaaS platform for business travel and expenses called SafarPass.

The launch of SafarPass was proceeding well, but then Covid hit, and both personal and business travel came to a grinding halt.

That prompted the decision to pivot into something that was more relevant to the context of the pandemic - supporting the large number of teams and companies that were now learning all about helping their employees and contractors make the transition to remote work.

In many ways, this was a natural decision. Kamal explains:

remote-teams

Because organisations working with employees and contractors in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe need to run payroll in such a large number of different currencies, payroll operations for remote workers quickly become complicated and expensive. That’s a distraction for businesses and can mean that great employees aren’t taken on, simply to avoid more operational complexity and cost. Kamal explains:

“When it comes to contracts, compliance, and payments, banks are super expensive when you make transfers. You suddenly become the level one support when somebody does not receive their payments, and then you have to chase the bank to get the SWIFT trace, and all of those terms that you have to learn.”

RemotePass quickly found its niche, allowing companies to onboard remote workers based solely on their job fit, without worrying about local payments and compliance.

This works better for the business, and better for employees and contractors, as a result, RemotePass now works with clients from around the world, from the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

For Kamal, RemotePass does more than just make processes easier for a business, it allows individuals to get employed without needing to choose between their home and their career.

“And of course, one of the most exciting aspects is enabling talent in emerging markets to get employed by global companies. In this model, location is not a barrier; talent doesn't need to relocate to the UAE, the US, or Canada for work. They can remain close to their families and loved ones while still securing a job, getting paid and accessing benefits.”

RemotePass challenge - enable payroll for remote teams in a transparent and scalable way

RemotePass supports payroll for remote workers, across dozens of currencies.

Here’s what Kamal says about the challenges of managing payroll for remote employees through a bank:

“In our case, working with traditional banks did not make sense, as you don't get visibility over when the money will arrive or any intermediary fees, and most of the process is manual. When starting a payroll company and anticipating having to make payments to tens of thousands of people on a monthly basis, traditional banks do not offer the scalability we need.”

Scalability and transparency are important considerations for RemotePass. RemotePass was able to use an API integration to get international payroll options up and running quickly, making it easier for clients to see and understand the costs and delivery times for specific payments.

“So basically, the APIs just work. This allows us to offer complete transparency to our users, as we don't add any markup to the transactions. We provide a detailed breakdown, showing how much the user will receive, the fees involved, and when it will arrive. This level of detail and transparency is invaluable, especially for the most important payment of the month.”

Impact on RemotePass' challenges

As we’ve highlighted, an API solution allows RemotePass to help businesses automate international payroll. The API enabled RemotePass to offer solutions to their clients quickly. Here’s what Kamal says:

“When we launched the product, we were up and running in a matter of days—thanks to a seamless API integration. And that was really remarkable."

Kamal explains that clients value payment methods which give employees and contractors better visibility on what they’ll be paid and when money will arrive.

RemotePass can give clarity in advance about how much a contractor can expect to receive. In turn, RemotePass can pass on these savings to customers, boosting their popularity and engaging new customers more easily:

pay-remote-teams

With more and more individuals working remotely now, businesses can miss out on the best talent if they don’t have convenient, quick and cost-efficient ways to run international payroll.

*Please see terms of use and product availability for your region or visit Wise fees and pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information.

This publication is provided for general information purposes and does not constitute legal, tax or other professional advice from Wise Payments Limited or its subsidiaries and its affiliates, and it is not intended as a substitute for obtaining advice from a financial advisor or any other professional.

We make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content in the publication is accurate, complete or up to date.

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