Colorado sues EarnIn, calling earned wage advances illegal payday loans. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser yesterday announced the state had filed a lawsuit against Activehours Inc., which does business as EarnIn, alleging the earned wage access provider made millions of unlicensed high-cost loans to state residents and used manipulative app design to collect finance charges. EarnIn markets advances it calls "Cash Outs" as access to already-earned pay with no interest and no hidden fees, and states that consumers have no obligation to repay. Plaintiffs allege the product functions as a loan under the Colorado Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Oasis Legal Finance Group v. Coffman, which looked to the substance of a transaction rather than its label. The complaint states that EarnIn conditions advances on a preauthorized ACH debit, reserves the right to reinitiate failed debits for up to 150 days, and blocks consumers from further advances until outstanding balances are paid. Between January 2023 and July 2025, according to the complaint, EarnIn made 3,163,906 loans to 56,778 Colorado consumers, advancing roughly $300 million and collecting $16,144,232.54 in tips and expedite fees marketed as "Lightning Speed." Consumers paid a tip or an expedite fee on 92.10% of transactions, producing an average APR of 387.69% on an average advance of $94.87 with a term of about 9.74 days. Consumers repaid on 99.18% of transactions. The complaint cites individual borrowers, including one who took 1,151 advances and paid $4,038.50 in expedite fees at an average 1,421.06% APR, and another who took 1,033 advances and paid $8,561.22 at an average 1,539.55% APR. EarnIn is also accused of deploying interface tactics it internally called "roadblocks" to suppress $0 tips, including a default $11 tip on a $100 advance that required 13 taps to zero out, a de-emphasized custom tip button, and messaging such as "pay it forward." The complaint states tips went to EarnIn rather than to other users. EarnIn stopped charging tips in July 2025. The six claims include excess charges, disclosure failures and unlicensed supervised lending under the UCCC, violation of the Deferred Deposit Loan Act enacted through 2018's Proposition 111, and two Colorado Consumer Protection Act counts covering dark patterns and false statements concerning price.

EarnIn, a leading earnings management company, has partnered with Workday to integrate its services into Workday's Enhanced Direct Deposit Switching programme. The collaboration will provide employees across Workday's ecosystem — which serves over 11,500 organisations globally, including more than 65% of Fortune 500 companies — with access to EarnIn's financial tools. The integration uses new API technology to streamline the enrollment process, eliminating manual entry of banking details. Employees who sign up through Workday's system can access various EarnIn services, including early pay and credit monitoring features. The service will become available to employees of Workday payroll customers from 1 October 2026. EarnIn founder and CEO Ram Palaniappan described the partnership as bringing earnings management tools directly into systems employees use daily.

EarnIn launches jobs platform. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - EarnIn, the leading earnings management company, today announced the launch of Earn Better, a jobs platform designed to help the American workforce get back to work faster and improve their earnings over time with better-paying roles. By expanding from helping people access the pay they've already earned to helping them get back to earning faster after job loss, EarnIn is extending its mission to support workers through every stage of their financial journey. Job loss and employment disruptions affect millions of people every year. Today, more than 7 million Americans are unemployed, and over 20 million experience involuntary job separations annually due to layoffs, terminations, or other disruptions. EarnIn has direct visibility into this challenge, with approximately one million customers experiencing income interruptions each year due to job loss. Earn Better is uniquely positioned to solve this disruption, bringing job discovery directly into the EarnIn app with access to job recommendations and free tools to help workers get back to work faster. "Career and financial momentum are tightly connected," said Tuck Hauptfuhrer, VP of Product at EarnIn and former CEO and co-founder of EarnBetter, which supported nearly one million job seekers prior to joining EarnIn. "Many tools that can help in the job search are paywalled, and most job sites are saturated with employer ads and engineered to drive the next click or application. Earn Better was developed to democratize access to support and provide job recommendations not influenced by ads in order to help people get to their next paycheck as quickly as possible." Earn Better is now built directly into the EarnIn app and will launch with access to more than 5 million job openings, along with free, AI-powered tools to help people get hired faster. These include an AI resume and cover letter builder, personalized interview preparation and coaching, and a job tracker to manage applications, all without subscriptions or paywalls. Over time, the platform plans to incorporate EarnIn's proprietary earnings data to identify opportunities that offer stronger pay and more consistent income. "We started EarnIn to help people control their earnings," said Ram Palaniappan, founder and CEO of EarnIn. "The next phase is helping people get back to earning faster and improving their earnings over time. Through EarnIn's network of millions of connected workers, we have real-time visibility into earnings across employers, jobs and locations. We want to harness this data to help working Americans identify pathways to grow their earnings."