“It was a strong quarter for us certainly across almost every metric,” says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. “What’s happened is the world has accelerated from physical to digital across almost every industry. If you look at health care it’s all about telemedicine right now. If you look at education it’s about remote learning. If you look at the retail industry it is now about online almost over offline or physical locations in store. If you look at the restaurant business you really can’t be in business.”
Schulman says that it is imperative for businesses to move toward a digital-first strategy. “If all you’re doing is trying to serve customers at your location given social distancing and the number of people coming out (you won’t survive),” he said. “You have to be about takeout and delivery. Across every industry, we’re seeing this surge towards a digital-first strategy. All of the tools and products and services that we offer are probably more relevant and important across multiple industries than they’ve ever been before.”
PayPal CEO: Across Every Industry, We’re Seeing a Surge Towards a Digital-First Strategy
Following the success of the Apple Card, Google is preparing its own debit card.
According to TechCrunch, Google is developing both a virtual and physical debit card. Unlike the Apple Card, which is a credit card backed exclusively by Goldman Sachs, Google’s debit card will work with an array of banks.
TechCrunch’s source said the card will be linked to a Google app, providing an easy way to monitor balances, purchases and more. It could also substantially beef up Google Pay, which is currently restricted to online and peer-to-peer payments. TechCrunch’s source provided photos, as well as proof they came from Google.
If true, the news is the latest example of a major tech company moving into the financial market. Tech companies are eager to offer financial services, and tie-ins to their core products, in an effort to keep customers firmly rooted in their ecosystems.
Given Google’s past privacy issues, however, the company may have its work cut out convincing individuals their data and privacy will be respected.
Google Cloud scored a major victory, signing a multi-year contract with PayPal, while also opening a new cloud region in Salt Lake City.
The new cloud region is the company’s 22nd worldwide, and will help Google better serve companies in the Western U.S. Especially as the company strives to gain ground against Amazon and Microsoft, having a cloud region that better serves that area will be a critical factor in convincing West Coast companies to move to Google.
“We’re committed to building the most secure, high-performance and scalable public cloud, and we continue to make critical infrastructure investments that deliver our cloud services closer to customers that need them the most,” said Jennifer Chason, Director, Google Cloud Enterprise – Western States & Southern California.
Due in large part to the new cloud region, PayPal has signed a multi-year contract to move key portions of its payment infrastructure to Google Cloud. The new region will provide low latency to PayPal’s own data center, and will help pave the way for PayPal to be able to migrate additional resources to Google Cloud.
“When it comes to processing a financial transaction, security and speed count. We are always looking for ways to better serve our customers, and we believe Google Cloud’s offering is the right fit when it comes to providing security, quality and velocity,” said PayPal Vice President, Employee Technology & Experiences and Data Centers, Dan Torunian. “Expanding our relationship with Google Cloud gives us access to new features and capabilities that help us manage seasonal surges in payment transactions and reduce regional expansion costs and complexities.”
Credit Karma, the popular credit and finance service, is on the verge of being bought by Intuit.
According to reports by The Wall Street Journal, Intuit is planning to purchase Credit Karma for roughly $7 billion in a cash and stock deal. Intuit is already the king of tax preparation and accounting software, and the addition of Credit Karma would help round out the company’s personal finance services.
The deal would allow Credit Karma to operate as a standalone business, with its current CEO continuing to run things. Combining forces would help the two companies better serve their customers, both in the data they have and the personalized recommendations that can be made based on that data, as well as the combination of services each company offers.
If the deal is successful, it would be the largest acquisition in Intuit’s 37-year history.
High fuel prices aren’t the only thing travelers need to worry about at the pump. Visa has issued a warning that anyone who has pumped gas may have had their credit card information stolen.
Visa has been tracking three different types of attacks “targeting merchant point-of-sale (POS) systems that were likely carried out by sophisticated cybercrime groups. Two of the attacks targeted the POS systems of North American fuel dispenser merchants.” At least two of the attacks also appear to have been carried out by a group known as FIN8.
The cyber criminals gained access to the target’s network and then installed malware that specifically harvested credit card information. In at least one of the attacks, the “threat actors compromised the merchant via a phishing email sent to an employee. The email contained a malicious link that, when clicked, installed a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) on the merchant network and granted the threat actors network access. The actors then conducted reconnaissance of the corporate network, and obtained and utilized credentials to move laterally into the POS environment.”
In the second type of attack, magnetic swipe cards were targeted, although chip-based cards were not.
Ultimately, Visa concludes by expressing concern that cyber criminals are increasingly targeting brick-and-mortar businesses, and fuel stations in particular, with relatively sophisticated attacks. These attacks are much more involved than simply skimming credit card information via pay-at-the-pump terminals. Visa recommends fuel stations moved to chip readers as soon as possible to increase security.
Zak Doffman at Forbes is reporting on a newly discovered vulnerability in the Truecaller app that puts 150 million iOS and Android users at risk.
Truecaller is one of the premier caller ID apps, identifying unknown calls from mobile, landline and prepaid phones. It also provides the ability to block numbers and auto-block robocalls and telemarketers. The app also offers VoIP calling, call recording, SMS and group chat, as well banking and payments.
Truecaller just recently passed the 500 million download mark, with 150 million daily users. Of those, 100 million are in India, where the app has surpassed Facebook in popularity. According to the company’s blog, “every tenth active user in India has linked their bank account to Truecaller Pay.” The app’s popularity, not to mention the breadth of services offered, makes the vulnerability even more concerning since it is a flaw in the Truecaller API.
According to Mr. Doffman, “India-based researcher Ehraz Ahmed discovered the flaw, disclosing it to local media and the company and waiting for a fix before going public. He explained to me that ‘the flaw allows an attacker to inject his malicious link as the profile URL. The user viewing the attacker’s profile by search or through a popup gets exploited.’ Ahmed has said the flaw could be used to mount serious attacks on target machines, although this was not the scope of the proof of concept and has been played down by the company.
“What Ahmed did manage through his POC was ‘to fetch a user’s information like IP address, User-Agent, and time. The user visiting the profile would not notice this as it all happens in the background, and for the user, it would look like any other profile.’ With the now-patched flaw impacting Truecaller’s API, it is a potential threat to all apps and platforms.”
Mr. Ahmed worked with Truecaller to identify the bug and a patch was immediately released. Because the issue was with the app’s API, the company was able to patch the flaw on their end, although all users should update to the latest version to be on the safe side.
As more and more apps offer services that cross a range of industries, such as communication and banking, flaws like this will represent a much greater threat to users.
PayPal has announced its acquisition of Honey Science Corporation, a price comparison platform that helps shoppers save money.
Honey was founded in 2012 and provides promo codes, discounts and online coupons to customers. Customers can even add items to their list and be notified if the price drops. The company’s addition will help PayPal further simplify the online shopping experience and be a valuable tool for PayPal’s network of merchants.
“The acquisition supports PayPal and Honey’s shared mission to simplify and personalize shopping experiences for consumers while driving conversion and increasing consumer engagement and sales for merchants. The combination will help accelerate growth across both companies. Honey will accelerate its growth by driving adoption among PayPal and Venmo’s more than 275 million active consumer accounts and sourcing exclusive offers from PayPal’s extensive network of 24 million merchant accounts. Honey will enable PayPal to reach consumers at the beginning of their shopping journeys and will enhance PayPal’s ability to help merchants acquire and convert consumers by delivering offers that are personalized, timely, and optimized across channels.”
Amid increasing competition from Apple Pay, Google Pay and other digital wallet systems, PayPal also hopes the acquisition will help it drive user engagement.
“Honey is amongst the most transformative acquisitions in PayPal’s history. It provides a broad portfolio of services to simplify the consumer shopping experience, while at the same time making it more affordable and rewarding,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal. “The combination of Honey’s complementary consumer products with our platform will significantly enhance our ability to drive engagement and play a more meaningful role in the daily lives of our consumers. As a partner of choice for our merchants, this is another way that we can help them build and strengthen their customer relationships, provide personalized offers, and drive incremental sales. The combination of Honey and PayPal adds another significant and meaningful dimension to our two-sided platform.”
“Bitcoin as its implemented and implementation of blockchain and distributed ledger I assert is bad,” says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. “Its purpose is almost all illicit and it’s an environmental crisis. This is a terrible implementation of blockchain. I’m not saying that blockchain is bad. I think it is revolutionizing. This is breakthrough innovative technology and how you do distributed secured trust. That’s powerful. We are huge believers strongly committed to blockchain and distributed leverage technology.”
Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, says that Bitcoin is bad, but blockchain, when done right, is revolutionizing in an interview with theCUBE at VMworld 2019 in San Francisco.
Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing
The idea of distributed ledger technology, immutable distributed trust, I’ve said I think of that, and blockchain is the underlying technology, as almost like public-private key encryption. If we go back 40 years before RSA it’s that important. This is breakthrough innovative technology and how you do distributed secured trust. That’s powerful. We are huge believers strongly committed to blockchain and distributed leverage technology. Why do I make my comments like I do on Bitcoin? Bitcoin as its implemented and implementation of blockchain and distributed ledger I assert is bad. It’s bad for two reasons.
One is it’s an environmental crisis. A single ledger if you and I transacted a penny I would consume enough energy to power your house for half a day. It’s incredible. This is a terrible implementation of blockchain. Secondly, the way it’s also done as well in this totally unregulated environment, almost all of its uses are for illicit and criminal purposes. That’s who’s trading in Bitcoin. So its purpose is almost all illicit and it’s an environmental crisis. I say bad. I’m not saying that blockchain is bad. I think it is revolutionizing. Studies have shown that over 95 percent of the uses of Bitcoin is criminal. Let’s go make it good. Do good engineering and engineer for good.
Partnership With Australian Stock Exchange and Digital Asset
We just announced on Sunday a partnership with the Australian Stock Exchange and Digital Asset. They’re leveraging the VMWare distributed ledger technology as part of their go-forward strategy for the stock exchange in Australia. That’s good. We’re making it suitable for enterprises meeting the regulatory requirements and we’re order plus magnitude better in terms of performance and energy consumption and we’re just getting started.
Bitcoin is Bad, Blockchain Is Revolutionizing, Says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger
“The Glint debit card launches today,” says Glint CEO Jason Cozens. “I hope everyone downloads the app. What we believe is gold is the ultimate form of money. Central banks hold it. It has been being used as money for thousands of years. It just couldn’t be used in electronic payment until now. We’ve just solved the biggest problem with gold. You can now use gold as money. We’ve created your own personal gold standard.”
Jason Cozens, CEO of Glint Pay Inc., discusses the US launch today of their gold-backed Glint debit card in an interview on CNBC:
Glint Democratizing Gold With New Gold-Backed Debit Card
To load the gold-backed debit card you just download the app from the store, you register and we go through your registration, we approve the account, and then you load it with an ACH bank transfer or debit card payment. Then you can buy gold for as little as one cents worth or millions of dollars worth. We’re democratizing gold. We are kind of making monies new standard. The gold is in the vault in Switzerland. At the point of transaction, when you swipe it, whether I’m in Mumbai, Tokyo, New York, or California, we just debit a little bit of gold to create the invoice.
We sell just enough gold to cover the transaction. We sell it for dollars and those dollars go through to the merchant by MasterCard who is our partner. The dollar as have many currencies around the world is depreciated. It has depreciated 80 percent in my lifetime. If you go back to 1971, a hamburger cost 55 cents and today it cost $3.55. That’s what inflation has done to the US dollar. Whereas gold, one gram of gold in 1971 would have bought you two burgers and today it buys you 12. Money depreciates in ways that are outside of our control but gold doesn’t.
You Can Now Use Gold As Money
Money should be something that is both something you save and spend. We’re bringing a more superior form of money to everybody in the United States. Every time the customer buys or sells their gold we make 0.5 percent. So it’s the cheapest way you can buy physical gold. We’re a transactional-based business and the merchants pay us a little bit as well.
We’re really excited about launching today. I hope everyone downloads the app. What we believe is gold is the ultimate form of money. Central banks hold it. It has been being used as money for thousands of years. It just couldn’t be used in electronic payment. We’ve just solved the biggest problem with gold. You can now use gold as money. We’ve created your own personal gold standard. The Glint debit card launches today.
Glint Democratizing Gold With New Gold-Backed Debit Card, says Glint CEO Jason Cozens
Glint App Explained In New Commercial:
Protecting your slice of the American dream isn’t always easy. Sometimes it takes a little more than just elbow grease and saving pennies. It takes innovation and that’s where the new app from Glint can change everything. How? By using gold. For the first time since the frontier days, American’s can now easily save and spend with gold with no hidden fees, minimums, or expensive financial advisors. Simply download the app, link your new card, and start enjoying the timeless stability and freedom of gold.
Unlike currencies that lose value to inflation and investments that can evaporate in a recession, gold has consistently increased in value. It’s a safe harbor from troubled economic times. In fact, gold tends to appreciate with the kind of recession many experts are predicting in the next two years. You’ve worked hard to create a good life for your family and you don’t want Wall Street or the Federal Reserve making decisions for you. That’s why Glint is the right choice for security and independence.
“In general, Libra is a force for good,” says PayPal Co-Founder and Affirm CEO Max Levchin. “It’s a really interesting experiment. I’m glad they’re doing it in a way that isn’t just Facebook because of all the headwind that Facebook has experienced with the regulators. There are many questions to ask about the practical applications. For example, if you are buying into Libra, does that create more opportunities to do as we call it, money fraud, or not?”
Max Levchin, PayPal co-founder and Affirm CEO, discusses Facebook’s Libracryptocurrency and how that is a good example of the use of blockchain technology in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
Blockchain Technology Is Inevitable
I agree with David Marcus (the Co-creator of Libra and Head of Calibra) from his testimony where he very aptly pointed out that blockchain technology is inevitable. It’s been a hammer looking for nails for quite some time. We’re now starting to see real applications to the blockchain tech. I’m not speaking of Bitcoin or any one particular currency, just the idea of a public ledger is a very powerful idea. It will get put to good use. I think Libra is a good example of good use.
The most obvious application where Libre as a concept is being brought down to an individual level is cross-border payments. You could make some very very cheap remittances happen. If you look at costs being charged by companies to send money back home from wherever you are, you will see they’re making some enormous spreads. There are plenty of startups trying to attack that, like TransferWise where I’m an investor, for example. They’ve done a wonderful job in Europe. I think Libra could potentially just massively compress fees in that market and that’ll be very good.
Libra Is a Force For Good
In general, Libra is a force for good. It’s a really interesting experiment. I’m glad they’re doing it in a way that isn’t just Facebook because of all the headwind that Facebook has experienced with the regulators. But there are many many other questions to ask about the practical applications. For example, if you are buying into Libra, does that create more opportunities to do as we call it, money fraud, or not? It’s going to be a set of open problems for quite some time.
It’s the job of the US regulators to not trust large companies or any companies. I think their job is to audit, to regulate, and to provide equal treatment under the rule of law for everyone. Libra is a particularly interesting one because it’s not just a company, it’s Facebook’s sort of initiating this thing, and there’s this giant group of other companies coming together to govern it. So it perhaps is more complicated to regulate.
But I think, yes, government should take an extremely active stance in regulating this thing that Libre is and will be. Within that, they should not rely on this notion that Facebook is going to be a good company. They may be and I’m sure they will be, but they’re also going to act in their best interest. That is the assumption of a smart regulator. Companies will do the thing they need to do and our job is to protect consumers and make sure of equal competition.
Breaking Up Facebook Is a Terrible Idea
The real question that lawmakers are asking about Facebook, is it too big? That’s the underlying dynamic that they’re trying to explore. That question is a much harder question to answer. It is very very big. It is bigger than most nations. So in that sense, I think they’re right. It is hard to say Facebook is too big if you step back and ask who do they compete with. If you actually compare them to, for example, Chinese companies that they go up against in a world of ad spend, companies like Tencent are just are gargantuan. And Tencent is not at risk of being broken up by the Chinese government from last I checked. If you want a Facebook to compete to with companies like Tencent successfully I think breaking them up seems like a counterintuitive thing to do.
I think Facebook and all US company should absolutely be regulated. There’s a huge difference between being regulated and abiding by the set of laws and regulations and antitrust and all the stuff that the US government’s amassed over the last couple hundred years of how to behave in a sane way in a capitalist society with the rule of law. But breaking Facebook up does, in fact, hurt its ability to compete, internationally most importantly. I think breaking it up is a terrible idea, regulating it is exactly what the US government should be doing, and they should do a better job by the way.
Facebook’s Libra Is a Force For Good, Says PayPal Co-Founder Max Levchin
“Over the last several years in the company’s history we’ve diversified the business so that we have less and less exposure to fuel,” says WEX CEO Melissa Smith. “But as fuel prices go up we do have some benefit from that and when fuel prices go down we do have something negative to that. When we first went public almost 70 percent of our revenues were exposed to fuel prices and now it’s in the 20s.”
Wex DriverDash App Makes Fleet Fueling Efficient and Secure
On the field card side of the business, we’ve developed a product called DriverDash, a mobile payment device. People use their mobile phones, they have our app loaded on that, and it uses facial recognition in order to allow someone into the app which turns on the pump. If you’re driving your Ford F-250 and you’re sitting next to the pump, it turns the pump on remotely. So it’s very secure. Then as you fill up your vehicle the information gets transmitted back to us and so we’re collecting data around that transaction.
It’s a savings not just in terms of time but also in the ability to make sure we’re collecting data in the right way that allows the product to work better and making sure that it’s more secure. It gets turned on at the point that the person hits that pump and then the pump is turned off as they turn off that transaction. It eliminates this concept of white plastic fraud.
We’ve Diversified the Business
We have exposure to oil (prices), although less and less. Over the last several years in the company’s history, we’ve diversified the business so that we have less and less exposure to fuel. But as fuel prices go up we do have some benefit from that and when fuel prices go down we do have something negative to that. We’re very transparent. We talk about what the impact is and even when we give guidance we talk about what we’re assuming around fuel prices.
The biggest thing for us is we’ve diversified the business. When we first went public almost 70 percent of our revenues were exposed to fuel prices and now it’s in the 20s.
Processes Consumer Hotel Payments For Expedia
If you think of a company like Expedia, when we go into the background they’ve got all these payments they have to make to hotels around the world and they’re getting payments in advance by consumers. What we do is make a connection to that individual consumer payment and make a payment on behalf of Expedia to the hotels around the world.
For someone like them or other online travel agencies, it allows them to focus on scaling their business and to not have to worry about this idea of many different payments to make. Also, if that consumer ultimately wants to buy a movie or do something that’s ahead of what they paid for we can block that.
A Fintech Provider For American Express
Aa virtual card means card-not-present, no plastic. We started virtual cards many years ago and the idea behind that was being able to make a payment, typically an online payment, and doing it using an account number but without any physical plastic. You think about this concept of high integration, very seamless, you can facilitate a payment without having a card present and you can do this with huge transaction volumes. We have $76 billion worth of volume running through our company and you can do some of that with virtual cards.
Someone like America Express comes to us because of the technology that we provide as a fintech provider. We want to make sure that we’re providing technology, integrating it through API’s, to businesses, to partners, to financial institutions, individually to companies, a whole host of different types of customer sets. American Express would be using the technology as a piece of their technology stack as they go out into the marketplace.
Using Data From HSA Accounts To Advise Employers and Consumers
Regarding health benefit services, if you have an HSA account or a flexible spending account we’re often the technology that sits in the background to that. When you are making a payment we’re making sure that you’re paying for things that are appropriate so that they’re health-related but also allow them to be made on a tax-deferred basis. We’re accumulating data around your purchases so that we can help advise employers around how much money should you fund into someone’s HSA account. Also, (informing on) how much should you as a consumer be directing into that account.
A lot of what we do is integrate the data that sits in the background and that’s important because it allows companies to do what they want to do. We sometimes grow, sometimes save money, but at the end of the day where we can pull data into the equation and we can show it to customers in a visual way that’s where the wow comes in.
How WEX Has Dramatically Diversified Its Payment Solutions – WEX CEO Melissa Smith
“What’s happening is that the subscription economy is just taking over the world,” says Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta. It shows up for our consumer lives with Netflix, Amazon, etc. It shows up at work as well. Because of that, all of those companies just can’t afford to just sell to their customers and move on. They’ve got to make them successful.”
Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, discusses how both B2b and B2C subscription businesses are booming because they are better for the customer in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
The Subscription Economy Is Taking Over The World
I just heard about the deal (SalesforcebuyingTableau Software for $15 billion) this morning. It just felt perfect for both sides. Tableau is one of the most respected companies in general and Salesforce has proven that they can buy companies and put them through their distribution channel. I think both customers are very committed to customer success.
I think it just keeps accelerating. If you look at it overall there is a Subscription Economy Index that Zuora puts out and it shows that companies that are in subscription businesses are growing five times faster than the average S&P traded peer company. What’s happening is that the subscription economy is just taking over the world. It shows up for our consumer lives with Netflix, Amazon, etc. It shows up at work as well. Because of that, all of those companies just can’t afford to just sell to their customers and move on. They’ve got to make them successful.
Subscriptions Are Great For Consumers
Subscriptions are great for consumers. We get to choose what we want, we get to turn it on, and in most cases, we can turn it off. Sometimes we have to make a phone call to make that happen. The phone call is annoying but we have choice. In the business world that’s happening now. They have choice. Before they used to buy things, install them, and have no ability to switch. You were just stuck with what you got.
In this new world customers have choice and therefore all the vendors, whether it’s a Salesforce or a Tableau or a Slack, have to proactively make sure that you are using all the stuff you buy and getting more value. Also, not just getting more value, that you are getting more value than any other alternative out there.
There Is A Huge Megatrend That Is Happening
Slack is a very special company. It’s sort of this triple threat. Customers love it, we run our whole business on Slack. The numbers are amazing in terms of growth rate, in terms of efficiency and net retention. Their existing customers keep spending more money with more than 140 percent net retention. They are also a great culture. I think Slack is one of those businesses that is built for the long term. They can go public in any market.
There is a huge megatrend that is happening. We have almost this dissonance where technology in some ways is coming more into our lives and taking away more and more of humanity and the people in business. But on the flip side, all of us are longing for a more personal and human connection to the businesses that we work with. We are not ready to turn the whole world over to AI and machine learning. We need that human connection. What’s happening is companies are saying I need to treat my customers more like human beings. I need to be more proactively focused on customer success and make sure that they are getting value.
They’re also saying I need to treat my employees more like human beings. I need to give them great technology like Slack, like Zoom, and like other great technologies that are going public this year that are helping employees be more successful. There’s this big approach, we call it human first business, which is really changing the way people think about work.
The Subscription Economy Is Taking Over The World, Says Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta
Facebook announced today a new digital wallet for a new digital currency. It is currently in a test phase and will launch live in 2020. Here is how Facebook explains the launch in its announcement release:
“Today we’re sharing plans for Calibra, a newly formed Facebook subsidiary whose goal is to provide financial services that will let people access and participate in the Libra network. The first product Calibra will introduce is a digital wallet for Libra, a new global currency powered by blockchain technology. The wallet will be available in Messenger, WhatsApp and as a standalone app — and we expect to launch in 2020.”
“From the beginning, Calibra will let you send Libra to almost anyone with a smartphone, as easily and instantly as you might send a text message and at low to no cost. And, in time, we hope to offer additional services for people and businesses, like paying bills with the push of a button, buying a cup of coffee with the scan of a code or riding your local public transit without needing to carry cash or a metro pass.”
A sneak peek at what the experience of using Calibra will be like.
This Is Designed From the Ground Up To Be a Great Medium Of Exchange
If you want to compare Libra with traditional cryptocurrencies the first big difference is that typically they are investment vehicles or investment assets rather than being great mediums of exchange. This is really designed from the ground up to be a great medium of exchange. Libra is a very high-quality form of digital money that you can use for everyday payments and cross-border payments, microtransactions and all kinds of different things.
There are a lot of issues that need to be solved. If you were to get out of the studio right now and ask anyone to send ten dollars on their mobile phones to Canada, they probably wouldn’t know where to start. This is 30 years after the web was invented and mobile broadband is available to so many people. We felt that it was time to try something new and this is the beginning of a long journey to launching this new network in this new digital currency.
Moving money around the world with Libra should be as easy and cheap as sending a text message.
When You Can Move More Value Around Profound Changes Might Happen
We are privileged. We live in a country that has a very stable currency and has very trusted institutions, easy ways to pay each other on mobile devices. That’s actually not the case for many people around the world. Definitely, cross-border payments are still very hard and very expensive. They cost an average of seven percent to send across one border. They sometimes take three or four days to clear. It is a very cumbersome and expensive process for many people around the world. If you think about it from a use case, cross-border payments are definitely going to be a primary use case.
But when you think about the effect that having an internet of value exists, or protocol for money on top of the existing internet, and all of the things that can be built on top of a low-cost system. Microtransactions are things that we’ve been talking about for decades and haven’t materialized because the amounts we are trying to transact are actually lower than the transaction fees. When all of these things change and you can move value around the Internet in a really easy way I think profound changes might happen.
There’s Never Been a Better Moment For Us To Do This
I have a slightly contrarian view on this (trust). I don’t think there’s ever been a better moment for us to do this because of the way we’re doing it. We’re actually going to launch this new blockchain at some point next year. We’ve launched a test net today that people can start experimenting with. This new blockchain is actually going to be decentralized and run by the members of an association.
We’re just going to be one among many to govern over this new network and currency. When you look at how much effort we’ve put to limit our influence and limit our control over this network I think it’s a new way of operating. We don’t have control over the network and we don’t have control over the currency. What we have control over is going to be the wallets that are going to operate within Facebook and on top of the network.
We Aren’t Going To Be the Defacto Wallet
We aren’t going to be the defacto wallet. There will be plenty of competition. To earn people’s trust we are going to have to make strong commitments notably on privacy, ensuring that financial data and social data never get commingled and really earn people’s trust over very long periods of time. There are going to be a number of wallets that are going to compete with us on the network we helped create.
Designed From the Ground Up To Be a Great Medium Of Exchange, Says Facebook Calibra Head David Marcus
“It’s an incredibly positive signal for the overall blockchain and crypto market to have a player like Facebook leaning in,” says Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “There’s been obviously a lot of skepticism in the origins of crypto coming from kind of an anti-government and anti-bank point of view. To see major industry players lean in and participate in marketing is really positive for the overall market. What I’ve heard is the technology isn’t quite ready to go live but sometime in 2020 they’ll be out there actually deploying that.”
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, discusses their investment and partnership with Moneygram and the impact on the blockchain and crypto market on the eve of Facebook’s entry into cryptocurrency in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
Incredibly Positive For the Blockchain and Crypto Market to Have Facebook Leaning In
It’s an incredibly positive signal for the overall blockchain and crypto market to have a player like Facebook leaning in. There’s been obviously a lot of skepticism in the origins of crypto coming from kind of an anti-government and anti-bank point of view. To see major industry players lean in and participate in marketing is really positive for the overall market. It’ll be really interesting to see what part of the market they focus on. David Marcus has been an incredible leader and given his experience at PayPal I expect we’ll see them do something very consumer-oriented part of the payment system.
I’ll be watching alongside everyone else to see what they decide to pursue. What I’ve heard is the technology isn’t quite ready to go live but sometime in 2020 they’ll be out there actually deploying that. For me, what money Graham and the stuff we’re doing today is the key difference. It’s what can we do today with these technologies to solve real problems? It’s been really hard for the people following this industry to separate what is noise and what is actually real and pragmatic today.
I don’t think (anything Facebook does will make Ripple less relevant). Facebook is obviously a company with Instagram and Whatsapp. What Ripple is doing is really enterprise infrastructure and interconnecting various payment networks around the world. We’re working with some of the biggest banks around the world, small payment providers, and really providing that interoperability between the different networks as opposed to solving within a network kind of problem. It’s just very very different than what I expect Facebook is going to be doing.
Ripple Investing In and Partnering with MoneyGram
The deal (with Ripple investing in and partnering with MoneyGram) is a big step for Ripple but it’s even a bigger step for the overall industry. There’s been a lot of excitement around what blockchain and what digital assets and crypto can mean for the industry. I think it’s the reason why players like Facebook are diving in also. But we haven’t yet seen much beyond experimentation. Really at Ripple, we are the market leader because we have matured aggressively and we’re really solving real problems for real customers. MoneyGram is just the manifestation of that. As the second largest global remittance company we are able to have a big impact with one customer and one partner in this.
What Western Union said, and they’ve been around for decades, what they said is that in our beta time, the time where the product hadn’t yet launched, they said that we matched the efficiency of what they were already optimized. My view on that was they had spent decades getting to an efficiency that we matched with a beta product. I was actually really pleased that Western Union could come out and say we’re already as good as their (current product) considering the other decades they had invested in building out that capability.
MoneyGram Is An Undervalued and Strategic Asset in the Payments Landscape
With MoneyGram we know out of the gates we can actually make their system much more efficient. The key reason is today both Western Union and MoneyGram pre-fund accounts around the world so they can make payments. MoneyGram and Western Union have negative working capital. What our products allow those companies to do is to not pre-fund and to shoot payments in real-time. That’s a massive savings in terms of the efficiency, not just in terms of what is the cost in FX, but the capital cost, and the outlays. That’s really a dormant asset when you pre-fund those just sitting there waiting for people to make payments. That’s really the transformational thing that XRP as an extremely efficient digital asset allows for the industry.
What we committed to do is to invest up to $50 million. We will end up owning somewhere between about 6 or 7 percent and 10 percent of the company. They decide over the course of the next year how much of that $50 million they want to call down. At close, they’ve called down $30 million at a price of $4.10 per share. We’re excited to be shareholders because we think that actually it’s been an undervalued asset. As you may know Ant Financial tried to buy MoneyGram over a year ago. That was ultimately blocked by CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States). We think it’s a really undervalued and strategic asset in the overall payments landscape. We couldn’t be more excited to have a shared vision of how digital assets can change the nature of how liquidity is managed for payment providers globally.
What’s next for us is to continue to build out and expand the number of corridors where we’re live today. We work with over 200 banks and financial institutions around the world today. With this new product around liquidity, we’re now enabling liquidity into the Mexican peso and the Philippine peso. We certainly expect to be much broader than that but we’ve only been live with this product for about six or seven months. I feel like we’ve made tremendous progress in a short amount of time. We’re going to continue to invest with the customers we have today as well as expand the number corridors we support globally.
Incredibly Positive For Blockchain Market to Have Facebook Leaning In, Says Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse
“Everything can be digital at the end of the day,” says Wingstop CEO Charles Morrison. “We still take a lot of phone orders and a lot of people still walk. So every time somebody accesses us we want the opportunity to digitize that transaction. Why? Because the digital transaction tends to have almost a five-dollar higher average ticket and is more profitable for our franchisees which means a better return on investment and more new restaurants to grow on.”
We believe it’s a fantastic partnership with DoorDash. What they focus on is making merchants successful. As the merchant that’s exactly what we want. And they take care of the logistics. In our partnership, we’ve made sure that we are always working together to ensure that no matter how you access Wingstop, whether it be carryout or walk-in or through delivery, you’re going to get the same great experience. We believe they’re best positioned to provide that.
Everything can be digital at the end of the day. We still take a lot of phone orders and a lot of people still walk. So every time somebody accesses us we want the opportunity to digitize that transaction. Why? Because the digital transaction tends to have almost a five-dollar higher average ticket and is more profitable for our franchisees which means a better return on investment and more new restaurants to grow on. I think people spend more time with the menu (on digital). They get to know the menu. They add a couple of items on to that and they’re not as intimidated by the phone call and the rush that they see at the front counter.
Digital Technologies Create Efficiencies To Help Us Grow
We’ve been a socially active brand as it relates to social media for many years. We’ve become large enough and have scaled to national advertising. Our franchisees generously added one percent to the advertising spend so they now spend four percent to a national fund. That has been redeployed into fantastic new media and new creative which is really helping drive that same point 7.1% comp that you saw in the first quarter.
In our brand, we’re pretty well insulated (against labor shortages). We have a very small roster already, so in that small footprint, it doesn’t take a lot of people to operate a Wingstop. I don’t know that you’ll necessarily see us doing anything to remove the number of people in a restaurant. We do believe through digital technologies and further digitalization of our business that we can create efficiencies that create capacity that will help us to grow. This will take the pressure off the labor line.
Everything Can Be Digital At The End Of The Day, Says Wingstop CEO Charles Morrison
“We’re enabling what we call this new era of hospitality,” says Toast CEO Chris Comparato. “We’re investing heavily in R&D. This is a massive opportunity and the restaurant community is a massive market. The market is untapped and we’re in the early days of a major transformation across the entire industry. For us in many ways, we’re still getting started because we’re making massive investments in R&D across the whole spectrum.”
Chris Comparato, CEO of Toast, discusses how the company is continuing to invest in R&D and innovate as they disrupt the hospitality industry in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
We’re Enabling a New Era of Hospitality
We’re going to do a lot with the money. It’s a nice capital raise ($250 million). We’ve been busy over the course of the past two years really trying to affect a lot of change across the restaurant community. We’re enabling what we call this new era of hospitality. We’re investing heavily in R&D. We look at all of the stakeholders, we look at the guests, we look at the employees, and we look at the owner-manager-operator. This is a massive opportunity and the restaurant community is a massive market. The market is untapped and we’re in the early days of a major transformation across the entire industry. For us in many ways, we’re still getting started because we’re making massive investments in R&D across the whole spectrum.
A good example of what we are doing is how do you get orders into the restaurant? In today’s consumer, personalization, and convenience environment, how does the restaurant get orders? Whether it’s a tool like Toast TakeOut which we piloted in Boston, which allows you to do mobile order ahead with your phone. Or possibly a kiosk or online ordering or a device called Toast Go which we released last year that allows the waitstaff to take orders at the table and turn tables faster. Toast brings (to restaurants) two things. It’s all about more revenue in the door and then operational efficiency.
Toast Growing North of 100 Percent Year-Over-Year
First and foremost we’re happy being private and putting investments to pilots and R&D and really breaking fruit to the future for the restaurant community. I’ve had a lot of friends who have gone public recently and we’re in no rush. I think it’s a milestone. We’re after building long-term shareholder value. When we look at the opportunity for us it’s to build a pillar company in Boston for the restaurant community that builds long-term investor value.
We’re growing north of a hundred percent year-over-year in terms of the customer base (and revenue). We’ve got over 1,500 employees. We’ve probably added a thousand employees in the past couple of years. We have an engineering center in Dublin but we’re still US-based in terms of the restaurants that we serve. We serve restaurants across the United States, whether it’s an enterprise like Jamba Juice or nationally acclaimed restaurant operators like Danny Meyer and Jose Andres. We’re all over the US in 30 markets but it’s still the early days.
Innovating Across the Entire Restaurant Value Chain
We look at the entire restaurant value chain and we’re trying to make their lives better. It’s hard to run a restaurant. This week we announced Toast Payroll and Team Management. A lot of restaurant operators are spending hours doing payroll every Friday. If we can give them their Friday’s back and streamline payroll so that they can get hours back on efficiency to spend more time with guests that’s what we’re doing. We launched that this week which is an exciting new venture for us. We’re going to continue to innovate across the entire restaurant value chain. This includes the back-office, front office, supply chain, whatever it is.
There are areas where we built and there are areas where we partner. I think it’s a space that’s dynamically changing. At the end of the day, we want to help transform the community and move the community forward. The Boston Market (where Toast is headquartered) is tremendous. There is sort of two sides to the market. You’ve got this amazing supply chain of talent with MIT, BU, UMass, and Harvard. There is plenty of talent. Then you’ve got on the other side of the market these companies that are transforming industries like Wayfair, CarGurus, HubSpot, and Toast. It’s an amazing market for us to thrive in and it’s an awesome restaurant community.
We feel like we’re enabling the community to thrive. A lot of the restaurants that are running Toast are adding workforce. Because we’re making their jobs easier they can spend more time with guests, more time cooking, and more time managing the operations. We see a lot of restaurants that are thriving and adding labor and we’re trying to make it easier for them.
We’re Enabling a New Era of Hospitality, Says Toast CEO Chris Comparato
“For multinationals to issue their own currencies and request that their consumers purchase in that particular currency is not that outlandish,” says Blockchain Capital Limited co-founder Gavin Brown. “So perhaps with multinationals being what they are the fact that they are able now digitally and technologically to issue their own currencies and request their consumers to use it is perhaps not a sort of an unreasonable thing to think. It may not be the whole mission short term but certainly in the medium term for sure. I mean a Facebook coin is probably the next big one I think.”
Wherever There is Potential for Mistrust Blockchain Can Be a Solution
We’re still very early in the technology, so a lot of people obviously associate bitcoin with blockchain, which is the underlying technology, which is understandable. However, the thing that most people fail to realize is that blockchain technology can obviously be applied to many different sectors and many different industries. I’m really keen, especially in the UK where I do a lot of work in my Future Economies Research Center which is a run out of Manchester Metropolitan University.
What we do there is we look at various industries where blockchain is a really good solution to manage lots of things around provenance and trust, scalability, traceability and things like goods supply chains. Really, wherever you’ve got the potential for mistrust blockchain can be a potential solution.
There Are Now Over 2,000 Cryptocurrencies
Regarding cryptocurrencies, If you look overall there are over 2,000 coins in total now. If you look at fiat currencies, the money we use day-to-day, there are 180 fiat currencies recognized by the United Nations globally. Yet there are over 2,000 cryptocurrencies most of which are trying to be some kind of money replacement. So the general play and the way I perceive it is that we will have a shakeout phase as we do with any kind of technology and we’re likely to see it coalesce around either one or a handful of winners.
Those winners will obviously win big. Identifying who they’re going to be is obviously the challenge. That’s why for most people they’ll probably want to run a portfolio inside the crypto asset space to try and maximize their chances. This is almost similar to a sort of leverage private equity-type model the way you’re running lots of different plays, where most will lose, but if you get the winner then you win big.
A Facebook Coin is Probably the Next Big One
What we’re seeing really is the democratization of money. If you and I wanted to we could create a CNBC coin and within three hours we could have it up and running and when we transact with people we could request that we do it using that particular coin. It raises the question of will people trust that coin? They will trust it if they trust your brand and f they trust your products. For instance, Starbucks has over a billion dollars worth of assets on its balance sheet of people who prepaid for coffee on their charge cards in advance. That’s because they trust the brand, they like the product, and they’re confident it will be there.
For multinationals to, therefore, issue their own currencies and request that their consumers purchase in that particular currency is therefore not that outlandish. We live in an era where McDonald’s has got a higher credit rating than the country of Ireland. So perhaps with multinationals being what they are the fact that they are able now digitally and technologically to issue their own currencies and request their consumers to use it is perhaps not a sort of an unreasonable thing to think. It may not be the whole mission short term but certainly in the medium term for sure. I mean a Facebook coin is probably the next big one I think.
A Facebook Coin is Probably the Next Big One, Says Blockchain Capital Limited Co-founder
The real secret to Venmo is that it’s not just a payment transaction, it’s really a social experience, says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. “It really is tying into this desire in the millennial generation to tie into your social network,” noted Schulman. “It’s really a social experience. You do a payment, you tag it, you put an emoji next to it, you share it with your friends, and they see what you’re doing. It’s exploded.”
Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, discussed PayPal’s fast-growing social payment platform Venmo in an interview on CNBC:
The Real Secret to Venmo is the Social Experience
Venmo grew at 80 percent year-over-year in terms of its volume process. This year we will process over a $100 billion on the Venmo platform. The real secret to Venmo is that it’s not just a payment transaction. It really is tying into this desire in the millennial generation to tie into your social network. It’s really a social experience. You do a payment, you tag it, you put an emoji next to it, you share it with your friends, and they see what you’re doing. It’s exploded.
We’re adding more and more services to that like enabling you to use Venmo to buy things at merchants, to take money off instantaneously, and to have a debit card associated with your Vemma account. That’s allowing us to also monetize Venmo. We’re really seeing a tremendous turn in our ability to take that business model and turned it into a very profitable one for us over the medium to long term.
We exited last year at an approximately $200 million run rate for Venmo. That’s practically up from nothing twelve months ago. It’s obviously hitting an inflection point in terms of its revenues. But in terms of profitability people shouldn’t expect it to be profitable in the next one to two quarters. My view on Venmo is it’s an incredibly precious asset for us. We ought to keep investing in it, adding more services to it, continue to monetize it, and see the revenue start to scale quite nicely. Eventually, that will lead to profitability, but I wouldn’t predict exactly what quarter we will turn profitable on that.
Peer to Peer Payments Are Exploding
I don’t think it’s unfair at all that the banks partnered to create Zelle. That’s the way of the world that companies are coming together and sharing platforms. We share our platform with other banks and financial institutions as well. P2P or peer-to-peer payments is exploding in the market. It’s a multi-hundred billion dollar marketplace. This will definitely not be a winner-take-all.
The difference between a Venmo and a Zelle is pretty stark. On average a Zelle transaction is $250. The average Venmo transaction is about $50. The average Zelle transaction happens about once a month. Venmo happens four or five times a week. It’s a very different market and I think both will both will grow. We’re seeing all-time record net new actives coming into Venmo. The amount we’re processing is accelerating. I think the two will live side by side and it won’t be a winner-take-all.
This is a $100 Trillion Market
Asia is one of our fastest growing regions in the world. It has been for quite some time. That’s the thing about digital payments. It’s a great industry. It could be you know a $100 trillion market. That’s the total addressable market we’re playing in. We may have one to two percent share of that market today. Every region of the world is one that we can expand in, but every region of the world today, almost equally, is growing at a double-digit pace for us. I’m quite pleased with our progress in Asia but I think we can do so much more there still.
India is one very large opportunity and we’re gaining traction there. We launched domestically in India about a year ago and I’m really pleased with the traction we’re getting. You look at Japan, Indonesia, China, and they’re all great opportunities for us including other markets there.
Bank of America has gone massively digital and it is now powering their growth. “We had a billion and a half logins to our apps last quarter,” says Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. “This is not theoretical. We are one of the largest digital companies. We are also one of the largest physical companies. It takes both high-touch and high-tech.”
On the consumer side, they have a branch in their pocket. Anything you can do at a branch, in the traditional banking sense, or over the phone, you can do in your app. There are 36 million digital users, 26 million mobile users who are not digital users growing at 10-15 percent a year. Sales are at the 20 percent level and 25 percent of all sales are digital. Our digital mortgage product is growing. Our digital auto product is growing. What you can do is do everything.
Half of the checks we have are deposited at the ATM and a little over 25 percent of deposits are by people taking pictures of them with their phone. It’s the exact same activity but you don’t have to go anywhere. You can do everything.
Then you have Erica. We have five million Erica users and it only started a little over a year ago. That’s where people can just talk and ask questions and it learns about you. It’s artificial intelligence voice recognition program. When you pay your bills you just say, “I need to pay X.” It will say, “You want to pay X, here is the amount.” Think about how easy it is versus writing out checks or even going into digital bill payment. The technology enables consumers to do more faster and easier.
Apps on the Institutional Side Getting Interesting Too
The applications on the institutional side are getting interesting too. Believe it or not, corporate treasurers want mobile capabilities also. With Cashpro Mobile they can initiate a $5 million wire on a mobile device while sitting in a meeting with all the controls around it and all of the foreign currency features.
To me, it was… really? But absolutely, that’s the way they want to do it because that’s the way they are used to operating.
It Takes Both High-Touch and High-Tech
We had a billion and a half logins to our apps last quarter. This is not theoretical. We are one of the largest digital companies. We are also one of the largest physical companies. It takes both high-touch and high-tech.
What have we learned? We are always a curious company and always out their learning. When we go and talk to fintech companies or observe what they are doing, more importantly, we’re trying to learn what does the customer see in that activity that they don’t see in our activity? Then we look at how we can adapt to that.
Are we interested in acquiring fintech companies? There will be no acquisitions, we just work.
Small Business Still Very Optimistic About the Economy
We do more small business than most of the people in the world. When you think about small business, what’s interesting is that the business community in the United States is very optimistic still. Even though they are not as optimistic as they were at the highest point they’re still very optimistic on a relative basis.
In our small business surveys late last Fall they are saying, “We’re going to invest more. We’re going to hire more. We can’t get people.” Those are the common themes.
I think it is a good year for investment as long as we solve a couple of key issues. We have to get the sutdown done. The incremental impact of the workers is important but it’s also just the process of getting approvals and stuff is being held up. Then ultimately the trade situation has to be solved. I’m not giving you any news, everybody says that, but it’s time to get some of this stuff done.
“Bitcoin today is around $60 billion so I think it has the opportunity to replace gold as the dominant store of value in which case it can go up a hundredfold from where it is today,” says Lou Kerner, a founding partner of Crypto Oracle Strategic. “This is just a better store of value and if the world comes around to sharing that view and I think we’re on that path, then we are easily over 100,000 in three or four years I think in Bitcoin.”
What it’s evolved into today is a stored value. Today, the main stored value is gold, it’s a $9 trillion thing. Bitcoin today is around $60 billion so I think it has the opportunity to replace gold as the dominant store of value in which case it can go up a hundredfold from where it is today. Even if it becomes a strong second it can go a long way. It’s just a better way to store your value.
I think we just got ahead of ourselves. That’s what happened. I have a word that I use to describe the tendency of markets to become bubbles and the word I use to describe that is capitalism. There’s something called Amara’s law which is the impact of all technological changes overestimated in the short run and underestimated in the long run.
Bitcoin is the Yahoo of Its Day
Bitcoin and the broader kind of crypto category, which is this whole new computing platform of blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts and such, that the disruption from that is going to greater than the disruption we saw from the internet. Bitcoin is kind of the early leader, kind of like the Yahoo of its day. While it’s a massive thing it’s not the thing.
If this is a thing and we really believe that in 20 years it will have created trillions of dollars in value similar to how the internet has, then we are at the very beginning today and it’s going to be here (way up) in 20 years. That’s my forecast. The great thing about making 20-year forecasts is that nobody knows you are going to be wrong for a long time. If it’s going to be here in 20 years the only thing we know for sure is that the path to getting there is going to be like this:
If Bitcoin Becomes a Store of Value It Will Go Sky High
If you focus on where you are going to be in 20 years then all of this (up and down) is just noise. If this becomes a store of value, and we think it is well on the path… Gold has had a 5,000-year run. It’s a great run. What else has lasted 5,000 years? This is just a better store of value and if the world comes around to sharing that view and I think we’re on that path, then we are easily over 100,000 in three or four years I think in Bitcoin.
If you take a look at the history of currencies over time 100 percent of them up until 400 years ago went to zero. The truth is if you think about the dollar, it’s a Ponzi scheme. It’s fine, this is how governments work. Nobody thinks we are ever going to pay back the debt that we have. We are never going to pay back $20 trillion in debt. By the way, there’s going to be more tomorrow and more the day after.
Bitcoin Has Taken Over Second Place From Silver
The only way to maintain your purchasing power and the only thing that has held up has been gold. That’s how you store your value. Over time all currencies degrade and eventually they all go to zero. Today, $8 trillion is stored in gold, in value that people are saying I don’t want to hold the dollar. It’s part of a diversified portfolio generally. Silver is the second biggest store of value at about $50 billion and Bitcoin today is $60 billion. So it’s really kind of take over second place from silver as a store of value.
Bitcoin Struggles to Evolve But it Doesn’t Need To
Bitcoin started off to be a digital currency. It can still potentially become one but the problem as really the first iteration of a decentralized entity that achieved scale there’s not a functional governance. So Bitcoin really struggles to evolve. It doesn’t need to evolve to be a store of value, but it does need to evolve to be a digital currency. We think that there will be digital currencies.
We think that governments are going to issue their own digital currencies. But they will obviously be pegged to their regular currency and they will degrade over time. We think that pure digital non-government digital securities where you know how many dollars or whatever it is are going to be (is better). The problem is nobody knows how many dollars there are going to be tomorrow other than you know there are going to be more.
If Bitcoin Becomes a Store of Value Then it Will Be Over 100,000 in a Few Years
Digitalization is not something that’s coming, this is something that already exists, says Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. He says that 25 percent of their sales are done on digital. Moynihan says his goal is to bring the whole banking system to the digital age to make it more efficient for customers.
Brian Moynihan, Bank of America CEO, discussed the digitalization of banking and much more during an interview on CNBC:
Digitalization is a Big Boon for Everybody
Digitalization is a big boon for everybody in a sense in that you can continue to provide better service for the customer and take the cost structure down which then can pass through to the customer. The way to think of all this work on a consumer side is that we have 26 million mobile customers, 25 million digital customers, about 1.5 billion logins last quarter. This is not something that’s coming, this is something that already exists. About 25 percent of our sales are done on digital.
Digitalization Improves Service and Reduces Costs
All this is extremely important in how we run our franchise. What that has done for the customer is give them better services on their time, the way they want to do it, 24/7. At the same time, it reduced our operating costs so we can take out overdraft fees on point of sale debit, ten years ago now almost. What allowed us to afford that was to change the operating structure. That makes this very good.
Small banks and larger banks are participating in digitalization. We helped small banks to drive digital payments. The volumes are growing 100 percent per year for us with that and across the board.
Bringing the Whole Banking System to the Digital Age
The goal is to bring the whole banking system more and more to the digital age and make it more efficient for the customers. The key is that on the commercial side it also goes on. Everyone talks about consumers, but on the commercial side, the same impacts going. CashPro Mobile, a product we have, is up and operating very efficiently. When you think that a treasurer of a company would sit down at their desk to do an interface to send it, they want their mobile interface because that’s their daily life. It’s all good for all of the companies.
