The article headline is clickbait. They're immediately doing payouts through JP Morgan Chase now; the only delay is because some payouts were in flight when they got stuck in SVB, so if a payout was started via SVB a few days ago and was going to arrive today (because bank transactions aren't instantaneous), the new payouts will take a few days to arrive via JP Morgan Chase.
So people are not receiving their promised money on time? Sounds like the title is accurate. Not everyone has the float to handle an unexpected delay in money. People can also suffer liquidity events.
"Clickbait" doesn't necessarily mean something that's inaccurate - it can (and usually does) mean something that's phrased in a way - often by omission - so as to imply the most sensational possible interpretation of the words' literal meaning.
There’s a huge difference between “oops we had a payroll issue it will be there tomorrow” and “oops lol our money is gone we can’t make payroll, maybe we can get a loan next week”.
If you were an employee at a typical startup, would you be able to tell the difference? Because leadership is never _that_ transparent with the rank-and-file around these kinds of things. I've seen it happen (thankfully never to me) - over and over again they would say "whoops, it will be there next week". Two months later people - one by one - just stop showing up...
"I've seen it happen (thankfully never to me) - over and over again they would say "whoops, it will be there next week". Two months later people - one by one - just stop showing up..."
That's the kind of delay one expects from reading the headline and why it is clickbait. In actually the payouts are already on their way via JP Morgan Chase and will have arrived by Monday for everyone.
I dunno. I've seen management be sketchy on transparency before. But when it comes to people's money getting into their hands, I've actually never had management do the "whoops, it will be there next week" thing. It's always been straight forward with what happened and with expectations. Which makes sense, as you said, people won't show up if they don't get there money.
It's all circumstantial anyway. I don't think it's fair to call this a case of a "typical startup". Although it's definitely a stereotype of startups.
I don't know how I would reword it, but the current headline gave me the impression that Rippling had money deposits stuck in the bank and hence couldn't pay people on time.
Is it typical for US companies issue pay on the last possible contractual day? I don't think this is usual practice in the UK - for example my contact specifies that I will be paid by the last day of the month, but typically we get the payment several days earlier, sometimes add much as a week.
Yes, in my experience (US and Canada), if paydays are the 1st and 15th, or every second Thursday, or whatever, then the money appears on precisely that day (adjusting for holidays, weekends, etc. by paying sooner).
Pretty much always the 1st and 15th. If either of those fall on a weekend or bank holiday then paid the nearest business day before. That sounds very annoying to not know what day you're getting paid.
I think getting paid every two weeks (eg every other Friday) is more common. This makes it easier for everyone to plan. Also how you get the payroll situation where every few years, people get an additional pay period [0].
Oh they let us know in advance. Anyway, being paid early isn't really a problem. If you're planning when outgoings should happen then you just need to plan on the contractual day, not assume that it will get there earlier. I think most larger companies usually pay on that same day but modulo weekends, so the last Thursday of the month or similar.
Gp was adding nuance to the discussion that I found informative. Parent's post offers only a trite reminder with the goal, I suppose, of suppressing said nuance?
> Clickbait … is designed to attract attention and to entice users to [engage with] content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. - Wikipedia
This is literally clickbait. Y’all need to chill. It’s sensationalized and misleading relative to the severity of todays events.
The title is “technically correct” but it sensationalizes it for sure. Reading that title you expect Rippling to be going under or severely impacted. Which it sounds like so far they’re not (again relatively).
I mean, a headline is supposed to entice one to read the article...
I'm also curious what about the headline sensationalizes the story. SVB caused a "ripple" in Rippling's operations, payments were delayed. Where's the sensation?
Even in Britain, which has had a similar instant transfer system for 15 years, it's not unusual for payroll to use the slower system.
Though in searching for statistics, I found several payroll processing companies advertising that they would use the Faster Payments (instant) system. The business can keep the money for an additional couple of days, which is presumably an advantage if money is tight.
We're talking about a 1-2 working day delay, depending on recipient bank. You wouldn't bat an eyelid if it weren't already in the news, I've certainly had pay delayed or incorrect longer, for non-big-news reasons.
The title is perhaps yes strictly speaking accurate, but it's still clickbait, it deliberately implies trouble pouring on an already flaming fire, when actually this sounds like an extremely minor symptom - some ash in the hair of the stoker.
It’s overblown but pretty relevant news. SVB is the cause, and there could be more before it blows over. 1-2 business day delay for highly paid salaried workers usually isn’t a big deal but it can really turn the screws on lower paid hourly staff like their warehouse workers. They are getting mailed checks, and may then have check clearing delays. They could end up with missed payment fees, overage fees, credit card advance fees, or payday loan fees just trying to feed their family over the weekend. Payroll is always serious. SVB’s mismanagement has real consequences for real people, and reporting those is worthwhile.
All that said, Rippling is doing everything they reasonably can and I’m sure they’ll make their workers whole.
No, there is a substantial difference between the two.
GP says that Rippling did not delay payouts. In fact, the payouts went out in time - they were delayed in transit, outside of Rippling's control, and Rippling immediately made another payout through a different bank.
The headline suggests that there were issues at Rippling, which meant that the payouts did not go out in time. That is a completely different scenario, so the headline would indeed be inaccurate.
I mean, there are issues at Rippling. They had to switch banks and it caused a delay in getting payments to their clients' employees. That's a fact.
Yes, the issue was caused by their bank and not Rippling themselves, but the purpose of the article is to highlight how a separate company is impacted by the SVB fallout. At the end of the day, it's still an issue Rippling has to deal with.
I mean, that's why the headline goes on to say, "after SVB collapse". It makes clear that Rippling is suffering because of SVB.
How it is not Rippling responsibility which bank they use? We are not even arguing responsibilities anyway. There are delays if you are using Rippling which is the title.
No. Amazon ships you a product with UPS. UPS notifies Amazon that their driver has eaten the package and they're very sorry. Amazon ships out a new package.
The new package, provided the driver doesn't eat it, will arrive delayed. But Amazon didn't delay it, nor do they "have to" delay sending packages.
"SF payroll firm Rippling finds some payouts delayed" would be accurate. "Has to delay" implies that they "had to" make a choice to delay payments, e.g. because they don't have the funds available.
Yes, it's a subtle change in wording, but it's a very different issue.
> "SF payroll firm Rippling finds some payouts delayed" would be accurate. "Has to delay" implies that they "had to" make a choice to delay payments, e.g. because they don't have the funds available.
The article makes it pretty clear that Rippling felt they "had to" switch banks upon SVB's failure Friday morning. Whether we agree on whether or not they truly had to doesn't change the fact that this was apparently a move they felt they needed to do immediately.
It's like everyone in this thread saying, "They didn't have to," was somehow magically privy to internal Rippling convos.
No, you're misunderstanding the point. If the headline would be "Rippling had to switch banks after...", it would be accurate and not clickbait.
The headline is "Rippling has to delay payouts after..." though, which is completely different. They haven't delayed payouts. Some payouts are delayed, because they were in flight when the plane crashed. That's not "delaying payouts", that's "payouts are delayed". They'd would be "delaying payouts" if they said "we're only resuming payouts starting on Friday", but that's not what's happening.
It's like Amazon shipping a product. The product gets eaten by the courier. Amazon sends out a new product. Your shipment is delayed, but Amazon isn't delaying it. The eating delayed it, not Amazon.
Just because they "had to" do one thing doesn't mean a headline can claim they "had to" do other things. Like, a similar headline would be "Rippling had to defraud the government after...". Totally inaccurate, they didn't do that. It's not about the "had to", it's about the "did they actually delay payments", which is an active process and requires intent. They didn't, and that makes the headline inaccurate.
>... it's about the "did they actually delay payments", which is an active process and requires intent.
You mean like making the big decision to switch banks during a crisis like this knowing that payments would likely be delayed as a part of the process? Huh, would ya look at that.
If you're aware of the fallout that will occur when you make a decision, and you still make that decision, it's your fault. They knew what would, or could, happen and they said, "Do it".
If we really want to compare this to Amazon, the correct analogy would be, "This item ships to you every two weeks. It would normally arrive today, but Amazon chose to switch carriers at the last minute which requires package re-routing, so it will arrive in two days". There wouldn't have been a delay if Amazon (or Rippling) hadn't switched carriers (or banks).
Payments are delayed that already were underway because the failed bank didn't actually send the money. So they switched banks and send everything else via JP Morgan so that it doesn't get delayed. They're not switching banks and delaying payments because of that.
> If you're aware of the fallout that will occur when you make a decision, and you still make that decision, it's your fault. They knew what would happen and they said, "Do it".
No, the delay is because of the failing of the bank they used. Certainly, if they had known that this bank would be taken over and not actually execute the orders and just cease to exist, and they still would have said "do it", then they'd be to blame. But they weren't aware that the bank would stop operating suddenly, just like everyone else (including the bank itself, apparently).
> There wouldn't have been a delay if Amazon (or Rippling) hadn't switched carriers (or banks).
Of course there would be. If they hadn't switched, the payments that were in flight when the bank shut down would still not be completed, and additional payments would also not go through until the situation at the bank is resolved in some way or another.
Like, if one plane crashes, and you want some cargo to arrive somewhere, of course you send a different plane, even though it can't arrive at the same time as the original plane. Not doing so would actually delay the whole thing, and that would've been a choice. But that's simply not what happened.
No, generally we only consider active choices to be something someone chose to do. If UPS had a history of drivers eating every other package, you might argue that it's a risk that's baked in, but they don't.
And neither did this bank have a history of breaking down.
If your car is on fire and then explodes, nobody would say "jen20 had to detonate their car", because it implies that you pushed a button to make it explode. "Well, they could have known that that brand of cars has a 1 in 1000000000 chance of blowing up, so they did it by choice of car" isn't something you'll hear.
If I order a package from Amazon, and it doesn’t show up on time and in the condition, I blame Amazon, not their subcontractor with whom I have no relationship. A longer supply chain does not mean the divestiture of responsibility.
Note I am NOT suggesting that every package must arrive on time, just that when they do not, it is Amazon who must perform the service recovery rather than a delivery company.
> I blame Amazon, not their subcontractor with whom I have no relationship
Totally. But you wouldn't say that "Amazon chose to delay my package", you'd say "my package got delayed, UPS should really make sure not to use that package-eating driver or Amazon should stop using UPS".
"Amazon delayed my package" = "Amazon intentionally delayed my package so that it doesn't arrive on time". "My Amazon package got delayed" = "The package got delayed, but no intention is implied or expected". In both cases it's on Amazon to get you your package, but in one case Amazon is after you and is intentionally holding back packages instead of shipping them to you.
>But you wouldn't say that "Amazon chose to delay my package", you'd say "my package got delayed, UPS should really make sure not to use that package-eating driver or Amazon should stop using UPS".
No, in if Amazon is standing in for Rippling here, you would say that Amazon normally ships with UPS but made a last-minute decision to switch carriers. This requires some last minute logistical adjustments resulting in your delayed package.
Funny, I usually blame the courier first. Some have an established track record of delaying deliveries, or claiming that they tried to deliver but nobody was at home. (I call the latter the "Finnish post office" strategy.) Repeat offenders get punished by not having business in the future. Eventually.
However, you are right from a customer's perspective. A third party cock-up is not an excuse - it may not be your fault, but it still is your problem.
It’s misleading at least. At best this means _some_ payouts are delayed, but definitely still coming. Given the rest of the news today that’s practically a non-issue.
Nuance and degrees exist. A title of "humans are dying" could _literally_ mean 2+ people died in a local car accident, or all of humanity is dead, or an article about actuarial life expectancy, or an ongoing war/crisis, or an opinion piece about how AI _might_ kill us all. That's a valid "summation" of any of those. Pretty much can't be wrong because it conveys nothing, except clickability.
The point is that was not the best way to phrase it given the actual details of the situation and the surrounding context.
Technically correct is not always the best kind.
Even "SF payroll firm Rippling has to delay payouts by 1 day after Silicon Valley Bank collapse" is infinitely more clear and communicative.
Again, the simplicity of "payouts are delayed" is quite succinct. I do not understand why you further wish to split hairs, and I no longer have an interest in continuing this conversation.
The employees of the companies which outsourced their payroll operations to Rippling did not receive the ACH credits to their account on the specified date and time. This is not clickbait. Payment did not occur as scheduled. Payments have been delayed.
This is a pretty big issue in the state of CA. Not paying on time results in a $100 fine per paycheck failure and subsequent infractions are $200 and 25% of what the employee is owed.
It's CA Labor Code 210 if anyone is interested in looking it up.
I scrolled to the comments, as I often do, to see if this link was worth clicking. After reading GP's comment I decided not to click. Sounds like clickbait.
Rippling’s EPO service is technically an employer however and D&O doesn’t cover missed payroll. If they miss a payroll due to this, it’ll be on their EPO board to cover the cost no?
JP Morgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States. If JP Morgan Chase was taken over by the FDIC, it wouldn't be payroll delays that were making the headlines.
