Treasury and Trade Solutions
May 2013
Yum! Brands
Citi®’s Payroll Card Program drives treasury efficiency, operational
efficiency and cost savings
Case Study
The Client
The Challenge
Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world’s largest restaurant
company in terms of system restaurants with over 38,000 restaurants in more than 120
countries and territories.
For Yum! Brands, managing its payroll across thousands of restaurants and numerous
employees proved to be a substantial challenge for corporate treasury. With nearly
70 percent of employees receiving paper checks, the weekly distribution of payments
was an inefficient and labor intensive process. Managing check issuance, performing
reconciliation and conducting fraud management proved to be time consuming and
costly. In addition, paper checks presented risks and potential additional costs to
employees, particularly those who were unbanked and had to pay onerous checking
cashing fees.
Treasury recognized the need to go paperless by converting to electronic pay.
The Solution
Yum! Brands elected to introduce the Citi® Prepaid Services Payroll Program at its 1,300
Taco Bell restaurants. The Citi Payroll solution offers employees a choice to switch from
paper checks to reloadable prepaid payroll cards or direct bank deposit, converting
payments to an electronic environment, thus reducing treasury’s weekly payroll hassles.
Citi Prepaid’s Payroll Program offers a comprehensive payroll solution that eliminates
the cumbersome, time consuming task of producing and distributing paper checks
by shifting payments to pay cards. Now Yum! can deposit funds to its employee base
electronically each week. Non-personalized, instant issue cards are distributed to
managers at each Taco Bell location. When an employee enrolls in the pay card program,
the restaurant manager uses the company system to assign a card to the employee. The
card is distributed on the spot, is automatically funded on the employee’s next pay day,
and is then reloaded each pay day for as long as they are employed by the company.
Citi Prepaid Services monitors card issuance through its inventory management system
and automatically issues additional cards to Taco Bell locations as soon as they are
needed. This system eliminates the need for Yum! to track available inventory.
Treasury and Trade Solutions
Citi payroll cards can be used to make purchases anywhere Visa® debit cards are
accepted. Should a Taco Bell employee lose a card, they simply contact Citi’s customer
service team and a new card is issued immediately without the need for a new account
or for Yum!’s payroll team to take any action.
The Result
Since implementing Citi’s Payroll Program, Yum! has managed to convert 82%
percent of the 39,000 Taco Bell employees to an electronic payroll solution. The
Citi Prepaid payment solution has dramatically reduced the need for paper check
issuance, thereby driving greater efficiency and productivity with the treasury
function.
“Citi’s Payroll Program has given Yum the tools to not only drive our electronic pay
initiative but it has provided banking services to some employees that may not be
able to secure a bank account,” said Eddie Baker, Director, Human Resources and
Payroll, Yum! Brands, Inc. “The program has also simplified the pay process for our
Restaurant General Managers by eliminating the waiting lines at the restaurant on
pay day, and eliminating the lost or stolen checks thereby reducing the stopped and
voided checks.”
For employees, payroll cards simplify the payment process ensuring pay is available
the morning of each pay day without having to wait for a check to be issued. Time
consuming trips to the bank are eliminated, and employees without bank accounts no
longer have to pay check-cashing fees that can be as much as 5%. Backed by Visa’s
“Zero Liability” protection, lost or stolen cards are immediately replaced.
“This Program is another opportunity to continue our focus on environmental
responsibility,” Baker commented “It has not only reduced our printing of paper
checks but also reduced the carbon output for shipping and the automobile exhaust
the employees used driving to the restaurant to get their check and then to a location
to cash the check.”
Citi’s Payroll Program has been tremendously beneficial to Taco Bell, as well as its
employees, and plans are already underway to roll out payroll cards to the company’s
KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in the near future.
transactionservices.citi.com
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