The Challenge

As Highway built the final versions of the product, they encountered third-party student loan debt repayment to be an archaic process that posed a couple major challenges.

First, Highway would need to acquire a standard banking partner agreement that would require significant investments of both time and money. As a new startup, finding a bank to partner with proved to be a challenge for the team.

Second, to automate student loan payments, Highway would need to form relationships and build integrations across all loan servicers. These integrations were crucial to the success of the product and could have taken months in a period when time was of the essence.

Method’s digital first payment service allows Highway Benefits to scale to employers of all sizes.

– Cory Micheel, Co-founder and COO

The Solution

Highway Benefits spoke with a range of vendors in the market but felt that Method offered the best solution for their payment needs. 

The value proposition for Highway Benefits was simple: Method provides a turn-key solution by managing the entire money movement process, banking compliance, and bank partnerships. Keeping Highway Benefits out of the flow of funds enabled Highway to focus on other areas of product development, rather than spending months on costly bank set up. Additionally, Method provided the entire flow of funds via a single API that authenticated, verified and initiated payments instantly with a settlement period of two days.

Highway Benefits went from initial call to Go-Live in 7 days, with instant transfers and settlement time of 2 days

The open line of communication during onboarding is best in class and the Method team moved extremely quickly to help us get live. Post-launch, Method has been with us every step of the way, iterating with us on our roadmap.

– Mick MacLaverty, Co-founder and CEO

About Highway Benefits

Highway Benefits allows employers to retain and attract top talent while addressing one of their employees’ largest concerns: financial wellness. They enable employers to create and administer tax compliant educational assistance plans with minimal effort. Their platform automatically verifies employee eligibility, loan eligibility, and executes tax-free contributions on a regular basis on behalf of employers. To learn more, visit highwaybenefits.com.

About Method Financial

Method’s APIs are redefining financial connectivity with real-time, read-write, and frictionless access to all consumer liability data with integrated payment rails. Method helps lenders increase revenue by streamlining customer acquisition, improving underwriting accuracy, and increasing line utilization through balance transfers, all without the need for a consumer’s username and password. Today, Method powers solutions for over 60 fintechs, lenders, and FIs including Aven, Bilt, Upgrade, and Figure. Method is backed by a16z, Abstract Ventures, YC, Truist Ventures, and more. To learn more, visit methodfi.com.