Toku and Pact Labs To Bring Stablecoin-Powered Earned Wage Access to Workers Worldwide

Partnership gives employees faster access to earned wages and makes stablecoin payroll an even more practical use case for employers

NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Toku, the leading platform for compliant stablecoin payroll, and Pact Labs, an infrastructure platform enabling the origination, securitization, and servicing of on-chain loans across borders, announced a partnership today to offer stablecoin-based earned wage access that will free billions of dollars held up in payroll cycles, giving workers control over when they get paid. The initiative will help deliver wages instantly in trusted stablecoins or fiat, turning payday into an on‑demand experience for employees while making stablecoin payroll even more viable for companies.

Roughly $340B is frozen in U.S. payroll cycles at any given time. Workers have already earned these wages but cannot access them at their convenience due to the traditional payday structure. For the 67% of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck and millions of others worldwide, these compensation delays can trigger late fees, overdrafts, or reliance on short‑term credit. Pre-existing earned wage access products are also costly or disconnected from existing payroll systems, making them inconvenient for employers and risky for employees. The result is a system that withholds liquidity from workers and limits how quickly employers can respond to workforce needs. Toku and Pact Labs’ partnership aims to close this gap by providing instant, on‑chain access to wages.

By embedding earned wage access and leveraging Toku’s integrations with major payroll providers, Toku and Pact build on the rising adoption of stablecoin payroll, making it even easier for employers and their teams to implement. The partnership allows companies to offer a sought-after benefit without disrupting existing payroll systems and helps employees bridge cash flow gaps without turning to costly short-term credit.

Ken O’Friel, Co-Founder and CEO of Toku:

“Earned wage access shows how stablecoins can change and streamline payroll. You can pay people in minutes instead of weeks, even across borders, without extra friction for employers. Through our partnership with Pact Labs, workers can receive money the moment they earn it and in the currency that will provide them the most stability. As a result, payroll stops being a waiting game and starts giving people financial freedom and upside.”

Eric Cuellar, Co-Founder and CPO of Pact Labs:

“Pact’s mission is to make credit more affordable and accessible in every corner of the world, and EWA is one of the most exciting financial products to achieve that goal. Compared to traditional payday lending, where the credit risk stems from the employee, EWA shifts that risk to the business, creating a higher-quality asset at no cost to the end consumer. With Toku, we’re upgrading EWA to stablecoin rails, enabling workers to get paid early in USD stablecoins regardless of where they live, and easily plug into the permissionless yield and remittances.”

With this partnership, earned wage access becomes a native part of stablecoin payroll, pairing the choice of how workers are paid with the freedom to decide when.

About Toku

Toku is the leading platform for compliant token compensation and global employment, trusted by pioneering teams to manage token or stablecoin payroll, taxes, and benefits in 100+ jurisdictions. Learn more at www.toku.com.

About Pact Labs

Pact is the first fully end-to-end credit infrastructure built on-chain, enabling capital to flow seamlessly from the origination of a $50 microloan through loan books, debt facilities, credit funds, and back to LPs. Unlike other RWA projects that primarily use blockchain for syndication, while keeping lending off-chain, Pact embeds directly at every layer, allowing ownership, covenants, and repayments to be enforced natively in real-time. By integrating SDKs into fintech back offices and mobile apps, Pact brings borrowers, lenders, and investors onto the same rails, with stablecoins serving as the settlement layer with embedded on/off-ramps delivering funds locally. This orchestration collapses intermediaries and counterparty risk, making credit markets faster, cheaper, and truly programmable. Learn more at pactlabs.xyz