Fintech South 2023

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from FinTech South. 2023, where we’re celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Our first guest today is the head honcho at TAG, Larry Williams. Welcome, Larry.

Larry Williams: Good morning. Delighted to have Business RadioX back here at FinTech South.

Lee Kantor: We’re excited to be here. Tell us a little bit about, why don’t you preview FinTech South for the folks who aren’t familiar.

Larry Williams: You know, FinTech South is the largest fintech conference in the Southeast and it really has national and global appeal. So we’re delighted to be here. This is our sixth annual FinTech South, and I think y’all have been with us all along. When we started it, Mercedes Benz Stadium, and continued it throughout the pandemic in a virtual environment. And now we’re back. And this is our second year back live and in person since the pandemic, but our six year total. So we’re delighted to be here.

Lee Kantor: So tell folks about what happens at FinTech South. What what can they expect?

Larry Williams: You know, you really got to think about fintech South as the nexus of all things that are fintech and all the things that really create this great vibrant ecosystem and really make Georgia the global hub of fintech. And so let me tell you what that means. So I think we all know and familiar with the stat about 70% of all debit credit and reward card transactions are processed through Georgia. That’s an incredible, incredible stat. You know, 51%, you’re number one, 70%. You dominate and we dominate in this field globally. And what you’re going to see here today is everything that helps facilitate from the point of sale from B2B transactions, how the latest technology, everything from frictionless payments, how artificial intelligence is going to affect this, the importance of privacy and cybersecurity, all the major themes that are extremely important to us. But I think what really happens here, though, is the connections, the connections that people make. And it’s going to be these B2B people that are actually that have the great creative solutions that other people can use to help drive their business. But also what you’re going to see here this year is a lot of talent. So we’ve partnered with the FinTech academy, we’ve partnered with several universities in the area, and they’re bringing their students here because one of the great things that our ecosystem has and what continues to keep us at the forefront of the fintech ecosystem is we have the world class talent to be able to build new businesses and drive the ones that we have here.

Lee Kantor: So there’s people who are attending. They’re coming from all over the globe, right? This is an event that is kind of a must attend event if you’re in the fintech industry. You know.

Larry Williams: I’ve already seen, you know, our friends from Britain are going to be here. Our friends from Canada are here. And I know that there are a lot of other countries that are being represented here. Ireland is here. So, yes, definitely very, very important. You know, we really went global with the global appeal of FinTech. South really started from day one, and we’ve continued to have that appeal from around the globe as well as around the country.

Lee Kantor: So now talk a little bit about some of the speakers.

Larry Williams: Well, you know, Robert Park, I think is one of the stellar ones that is just absolutely incredible. He’s one of our keynotes. He’s really going to talk about what’s driving AI, artificial intelligence. He just flew in from New York. He’s a leader in this, so super excited about his keynote, super excited about yokes, and I’ll just call him Yokes, The CTO at Deluxe, who has really been at the forefront of driving innovation. And as that whole company is going through an innovation, innovative change, we’ve got great representative from Truist, but also we get to induct a new member of the Georgia FinTech Hall of Fame. And we’ll be I’ll be chatting with Jeff Sloan, the former CEO of Global Payments, as we induct him into the global the Georgia FinTech Hall of Fame.

Lee Kantor: And then from an education standpoint, is there an opportunity for folks to kind of learn from experts as well?

Larry Williams: By all means. So, you know, we’re looking forward to our students being a part of all of the sessions and being, you know, benefiting from the mainstage speak speakers. We’re also working very hard to make sure that we can facilitate introductions not only of students in the workforce, but also the B2B. We’ve launched something called Brain Date. It’s a wonderful app and partnership that we have with this company. We’ve got tables set up that are going to facilitate a couple of things. It can be one on one meetings where people can meet and talk, but we’re also having some some power brain date sessions that will be thematic and just check the app and you’re going to see some. Credible content about people getting together and have larger 10 or 12 people discussions about everything that’s driving fintech today.

Lee Kantor: And then if you’re a fintech company and you’re right now located anywhere in the world, you should really consider kind of moving to Atlanta because it’s rare to find kind of the synergies that you have between the universities in terms of talent, upcoming talent and the opportunities to work with some of the biggest players in fintech from around the world.

Larry Williams: You know, Georgia’s where fintech and where technology meets the real world. There’s no doubt about it. It’s, you know, it is the names, the main names that are in fintech are here. And so if we think about global payments, we think about fiserv, fis, tsis, all of these important companies here in transactions 11 they’re all important, but all of the ecosystem that’s supporting that is here. So yep. Lee you’re 100% right. If you want to be in fintech, you need to be in Georgia because that’s where it’s happening and that’s where the next generation of ingenuity is coming from. And these are the people that are leading the industry globally.

Lee Kantor: So what do you think? The community needs more to keep the keep going and keep thriving?

Larry Williams: You know, glad you asked that. It’s really about staying at the forefront of innovation. And so we do something called our fintech challenge once a year where we actually work throughout the year with some of our great entrepreneurs and people that are really thinking about, you know, what is going to help drive this industry, what are the trends, what are the new technologies that we can incorporate into solutions? How do we protect our data? How do we protect the privacy of our of our customers? All of this happening. So we do this great innovation challenge and we’re going to we’ve been through the process. We’re going to get it down to three companies and we’re going to have a great competition. We’re going to vote on it. And one of them is going to walk away with a non-dilutive check for $25,000.

Lee Kantor: Wow.

Larry Williams: You know, and I got to tell you, there’s a story a few years ago about one of these companies coins and the CEO, They have done great things. And they were on stage, I think, four years ago. And they had actually said to themselves, hey, we’re either going to win this or we’re not going to go right.

Lee Kantor: That’ll be it.

Larry Williams: That’ll be it. And they did win it. They got they got the $25,000 and it meant a lot to them. But what meant more was that vote of confidence. Right. That pat on the back. Yes, we have a relevant solution and so delighted they’ll actually be here on site today. And it’s such a great story and a great turnaround story.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s so important for especially those emerging firms. You know, you the mouse has to get the cheese sometimes or else, you know, they stop searching for it. So you got it exactly right. So now for folks who are in Georgia and they want to plug into tag. Tag is a must, an association that everybody should be a member of and should be taking advantage of all of the resources that you provide. So how would somebody kind of plug into tag if they’re not?

Larry Williams: Well, please go to tag online.org. My contact information is on there. Please reach out to me or just any of the great team at Tag is a great connection point. We’d love to have you. We’ve got 20 societies talking about everything from data science and artificial intelligence, data governance, fintech, digital health, cybersecurity. There are so many critical areas of discussion that really help position Georgia be the top and the leader in a lot of technology areas and really makes us one of the top three technology states in the country.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff, Larry. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Larry Williams: Thank you. And thanks for being here again. Good to see you all.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor, we’ll be back in a few at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from FinTech South. 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now, we have Jeff Sloan, Hall of fame recipient. Formerly with Global Payments. Welcome, Jeff.

Jeff Sloan: Thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: Well, first, tell us a little bit about your career at Global Payments.

Jeff Sloan: So I spent the last 13 years at global payments versus our president and COO, and then for the last ten years as our CEO and just retired in June.

Lee Kantor: So for people who don’t know, can you tell us mission, you know, how are you serving? How is global payments serving the fintech world?

Jeff Sloan: So one of the largest providers of digital payments technologies on the planet, a really good example. As I mentioned before, we started, a really good example since we’re sitting here in the World Congress Center is for the Falcons, for the United, for the Hawks. When you get your tickets, you let them into your digital wallet. You go to pay for them to get your food, you get your parking, you name it. A lot of that software technology payments connectivity is developed by global payments right here in the United States and especially in Georgia.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about the beginning? Like what was the vision of global payments when they first started? And, you know, just talk about the evolution of where they’re at today.

Jeff Sloan: So I’ll date myself a little bit late by saying global payments and Jeff Sloan are pretty much exactly the same age. I think we were born within a week of each other, 56 and a little bit years ago at at this point. So I’ll date myself also, if you remember and you go back in the 80s and you used to have to call what would we call these knuckle busters, which is when you use your credit card, it was over a sheet of like mimeograph paper and they would take it and like do the impressions and global payments was born as a company that said this transaction is good. The paper or you would open that onion skin book and say, Hey, that card number is bad. And that’s literally the way the business started in the 70s and 80s. And we grew from a company that was a subsidiary of another company here in Georgia called National Data Corporation. And when I was in banking many years ago, I helped take global payments public in the late 90s into 2001. And we’ve grown from a company that had a market value of $400 million at the time of the IPO. And you know, the other day it was 50 billion. So it’s obviously been a great growth story for global payments and we’ve always been headquartered here in Atlanta and a great growth story for Georgia.

Lee Kantor: So now how does a company make that transition from paper to all digital? And now paper is not even you know, they don’t even make brochures for this conference here. You know, everything’s online.

Jeff Sloan: Well, I think it mirrors the developments we’ve seen in computing in the United States and kind of globally over the last probably 4 or 5 decades. Lee So think about where we are today. So today, most of the technologies that global payments sells are cloud based, meaning they’re in the ether and they’re not even really on your desktop and they’re not even really at the point of sale. You may see a terminal and may tap it with your phone, but a lot of that heavy lifting is done in the ether with Amazon or with Google. And in fact, we’re shrinking the number of physical data center sites that we have from something like a max of 55 down to three. And as we’re shrinking those, that’s all getting done in the cloud and in the ether. And I think that’s probably the best way to think about where cloud and computing has gone over the last 5 or 10 years. But you can work in reverse and you can go all the way from the paper example in the 70s and 80s up through Apple and up through Commodore and up through the developments, up through IBM and all the developments in computing power over the last 4 or 5 decades have really been a nice tailwind and included the benefit of people like global payments all the way up to the current day through cloud based technologies.

Lee Kantor: So now what made Atlanta the place for for this to happen? Like what were the elements here in Atlanta that was conducive to having a company like that grow so, you know, so dramatically?

Jeff Sloan: So as Larry will tell you from Tag, who is, of course, hosting this conference, more than half of the transactions that are credit and debit card based here in the United States flow through Atlanta, which is why it’s called transaction alley flow through here. Now, why is that? I think there’s a few reasons. Number one, it starts with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has historically been known as the payments experts in the United States. So for the last number of decades, there has been a body of knowledge, governance, oversight and regulation that’s developed in the US, but especially here in Atlanta. And as a result, a lot of the people who came into the industry 34 years, 30 or 40 years ago came from the Federal Reserve, kind of point number one. Point number two, we’re blessed here in this state with Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Emory with a very. Sound technology footprint and very sound technology base of people who grew up in tech land here in Georgia and want to stay. So we have probably in the state of Georgia, we have about 7000 team members. But right here in Atlanta, in the greater metropolitan area, we probably have 1500 team members. And a lot of those folks are technology specialists, particularly in digital payments. And a lot of them grew up here or went to school at the schools I just mentioned. So I don’t think there’s a better place in the country to hire, recruit, train, motivate and keep people in the technology business, especially for payments than than Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: So what does the ecosystem need more of in order to continue the growth?

Jeff Sloan: Well, we need more investment. So global payments, just to pick one example, we’ll invest $2 billion this year in OpEx and CapEx in our technology environments all focused on digital payments. But we need to continue to do that number. You know, probably five years ago was a billion, right? So we’ve doubled over the last five years. Our investment in technologies. And if I had to guess where I’d be in five years, hopefully it’s 3 to 4 billion of investment. So if we don’t continue to make those investments, particularly here in Atlanta, in Georgia, in the United States, we won’t grow at the rate that we should be growing at. The other thing I would say, as I mentioned in the in the group session is, you know, we need a favorable government environment, which we have here in Georgia, but federally in particular, we need a level playing field. So we build these technologies in the US and we export them so our net exporter worldwide of our technologies, we need a level playing field with countries in Europe and countries in Asia. So the expiration of the federal R&D tax credits a couple of years ago that have not been renewed is a really big headwind for development and investment in our technology environments. And all we’re asking for is not a leg up, we’re just asking for a level playing field with people in Ireland and in the EU and in Asia and the like who have a lot of government support for developing the technologies that we’re going to build right here in Georgia.

Lee Kantor: So how does a government kind of keep keep up and keep the pace when technology changes so quickly and dramatically and government tends to kind of lag?

Jeff Sloan: So we need to incent private corporations to make the decisions around what the next successful technology is going to be, whether they’re right or wrong, you know, they’ll fail and they’ll be successful. Right.

Lee Kantor: But government doesn’t like to fail. They don’t like that, you know, they only want wins.

Jeff Sloan: But if you can create the favorable conditions where people can make those investments, you’ll naturally get to the right place in our type of economy. So what we need is the R&D tax credits, for example, back. What we need are incentives to continue to train, hire and develop and retain our our people. And I think we have a lot of those here in Georgia. But multinationally, we need to make sure that as a country, not just as a state, that we’re making the investments we need. So 5 or 10 years from now, that 2 billion is 3 billion is 4 billion on the line.

Lee Kantor: Now, talk about the Hall of Fame being a Hall of Fame recipient. That must have been a proud moment. You know, kind of the cherry on top of the career.

Jeff Sloan: I mean, it’s a real honor when you look at some of the recipients. Picket My predecessor, Paul Garcia, who hired me at Global Payments 13 years ago and I’ve known for 30 years. It’s really an honor to be on the same piece of paper, you know, to be honest, We mentioned in even remotely the same breath as all the technology leaders you’ve had here in Georgia. I’d also say, you know, I hate to feel old, right? But when you you know, when you’re kind of like moving on and retiring in these things and you see it, it’s really nice to see. It does make you feel. And I know 34 years sounds like a long time. It didn’t sound like a long time when I was living it. You know, it sounds like a long time when you’ve done it, but it does make you look back and I think reflect on the things that while you’re growing yourself, your family, your company, you don’t really reflect on those things because you’re so focused on moving forward. It does give you an opportunity to sit back and reflect on, well, what have we accomplished? You know, here at Global Payments and here in Georgia, I really none of that could have happened without the team members we have without the support we’ve gotten here in Georgia. And it makes me feel very grateful and kind of humbled, you know, to be in that position.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the next move for you? Where are you staying connected to the fintech world and still getting involved in different ventures.

Jeff Sloan: So while I’m pretty old, I’m not too old, I think, to continue to be helpful. So I really think my greatest value add is mentoring, coaching, advising younger CEOs, people who are just getting into the role, or people who are in senior management and private companies. Well, how do you think about growing and scaling your people, your businesses, your investments, your markets, your boards? How do you think about IPOs? How do you think about buying and selling assets? How do you think about raising capital? And look at Goldman. When I was in banking and then at global payments, I’ve done those things. So I think that I can provide value there in terms of sharing things I’ve done wrong and sharing things I think that have gone well. And if I can make those things happen and create value over time, I’ll consider that a success.

Lee Kantor: So before we wrap. What’s one piece of advice you can share with that emerging CEO?

Jeff Sloan: Yeah, I would say don’t get too high or don’t get too low. I mean, I think it’s very easy, especially with what the world has been through, you know, in the last three and a half years. I think it’s very easy to get sidetracked, you know, in a given day with the volatility we’ve all experienced and obviously the dramatic health impacts we’ve had. I think this stuff is a marathon. It’s really not a sprint. And I think it’s important in that context to keep your wits about you and realize that nothing’s ever as good as it seems and probably nothing’s ever as bad as it seems to. And I think if you can do that successfully and provide team members with hope and opportunity, I think you’ll be pretty well served.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. You’re doing, important work, and we appreciate you.

Jeff Sloan: Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: Me, Lee. All right. This Lee Kantor will be back in a few at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, FinTech South. 2023 Broadcasting Live, celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now on the show, we have Dara Albright, an old friend from Worthy. Welcome, Dara.

Dara Albright: How are you? Thanks for having me here.

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Worthy.

Dara Albright: So Worthy is an awesome, awesome company. Essentially, what worthy is? I like to kind of describe it as an acorns on steroids. Essentially it is. It’s it’s two things. First of all, the mission of Worthy is to help small investors access greater yield and save for retirement. The mission. It’s a worthy one, actually, where we’re out there, we’re really trying to help people and trying to help thwart a looming retirement crisis that we have right now. So essentially, what worthy does and how we do that is we have a fintech app which enables users to go every time they go shopping. They. Let’s say you go to Publix, you spend $99.50 at Publix, you pay $100.50, goes into your worthy roundup app. So similar to like an acorns, right? So you’re accumulating your roundups so you don’t even know that that you know, that that you’re actually saving while you’re shopping. The difference between worthy and an acorns, however, is that whereas acorns you’re only they tell you there are certain ETFs where where you could put your money in with worthy and you don’t know the you know the volatility and all of that with worthy. Worthy has its own proprietary product which is a worthy bond that yields 6% and it is no fees, fully liquid and available in minimum $10 clips. So I mean, essentially for, you know, less than the price of two Starbucks, you know, you could be having a bond and getting started on your, you know, financial journey.

Lee Kantor: And then how does that does that rate change? Like how long is that rate going to be in effect?

Dara Albright: So we started off with 5%. And this was we’ve been around for a couple of years now since around 2015, 2016. So since, you know, back then, as you know, rates were quite low. Now the rates have we we start we raise them to help people fight and combat inflation. So we went to 5.5%. And now now this. So this one will be 5.5%. This we went to six for we’re doing a six for six promotion. So six for six months. And then then probably go back down to the 5.5% or 5.73% APY But we’ll see how, you know, Worthy will gauge how the, you know, how the economy is doing and what’s happening with inflation. And, you know, we like to give our our users and customers raises, so to speak.

Lee Kantor: So and it’s one of those things that every $10 I’m accumulating, I could just get I can just kind of pop it into that fund.

Dara Albright: Yeah, exactly. So you could actually you could actually buy bonds on your own if you wanted to, and you could just, you know, buy as many as you. Well, not as many as you want. They’re capped because we really want this to be a retail product, right? So, I mean, you could go you could buy up to I think it’s $50,000 worth of bonds if you wanted to. But if you just wanted to use the roundup, you could do that, too. And then every time you get to $10 in round ups, it automatically.

Lee Kantor: Automatically just puts in. Now, when that’s occurring, your target then is like, who is your target market?

Dara Albright: So it really for for smaller investors, it’s for people who are looking for a different type of saving solution and easier type of saving solution. It’s also people for a lot of gig workers, people who don’t have traditional, you know, you don’t have a pension, they don’t have a, you know, a 401. K, So it’s really for the people. And they’re really a large percentage of people now in the US that are really outside of the traditional retirement market.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it something that it rounds up, you know, whatever. It changes under a dollar. Can you set it to round up more?

Dara Albright: So, yeah, you could. You could have automatic. No. Well that. No, that the round ups. That’s the way you know, you’re just so you.

Lee Kantor: Can only round up the cents to the.

Dara Albright: Nearest dollar but.

Lee Kantor: You can’t say round up to the nearest $5 or the nearest $10.

Dara Albright: No, but what you could do, you could. There are other ways that you could, you know, kind of play around with it. So. But no, you can’t you can’t do that. It only goes to the nearest dollar.

Lee Kantor: But there are ways to if you want to just incrementally invest more, you could do that. That’s doable.

Dara Albright: You could do that on your own.

Lee Kantor: So now talk about the what was the genesis of the idea of somebody just wanted to just do a better Acorn? That was a.

Dara Albright: No. So so this was actually So Sally, Who’s here? Sally? Sally Outlaw, who’s the the CEO of Worthy and our fierce leader. She I’ve known her for a while now. She’s she’s actually one of the crowdfunding leaders pioneers. She actually wrote the book Cash for the Crowd. So she literally wrote the book for crowdfunding. And she came up with this idea I said was around the 2015 time frame. And she told me about the idea. And this was this was actually. I want to say around maybe the same time as acorns. But really there was really it didn’t really have anything to do with acorns. Acorns. But she her her vision in this was she was looking at at the time being in the crowdfunding space helping a lot of these small businesses access capital. And then at the same time it was, you know, we also want to be able to give opportunities to smaller retail investors that didn’t have those same investment opportunities as institutional investors, Right. So that’s really where sort of so.

Lee Kantor: This was the mechanism that she thought of to do that. Exactly.

Dara Albright: Exactly. And she wants to make it as easy, you know, as easy as possible. And then and then, you know, work to create Worthy’s own proprietary financial products. And so what we did was so the the product is SEC qualified, so it’s qualified by the SEC. So it’s a under the reg A+ exemption. So the difference between like a bank, like let’s say for example, you know, if you go to a bank and you deposit your money into a bank, your savings account or a CD, you know, what have you, you’re giving the bank your money and the bank, basically, What do they pay you? I mean, nothing.

Lee Kantor: Basically 0.1 or 0.01 or I mean even negligible, right?

Dara Albright: Even recently we saw there was a there was a advertisement for a bank that was advertising a 6% savings account. But then if you read the fine print, it was 6% on the first thousand dollars deposited and then it was like 0.01, right?

Lee Kantor: Like they’re hoping you don’t read that much, right? Right. The fine print.

Dara Albright: So the difference is, you know, worthy. So the way worthy is able to give out the 6% were they invest in different real estate projects.

Lee Kantor: So that’s the engine behind it is real estate investing.

Dara Albright: Exactly. And this one in this fund we’ve also done for small businesses, we’ve done inventory lending in the past. So these are types of products that traditionally get higher yields, but mostly only, you know, institutional and larger accredited investors have access to. So what worthy does is uses the reg A+ exemption to create a new product for retail investors. So, you know, the the difference between what worthy would make investing in, let’s say, you know, a real estate project and then they’ll give the consumer, the client, the 6%.

Lee Kantor: That’s why the consumer gets a better return.

Dara Albright: Exactly right. Because, you know, we’re basically the worthy is not under the umbrella of of the feds that are telling them how much, you know, interest rates are and and where you should be.

Lee Kantor: So so now what’s worthy? Why are they here at FinTech South?

Dara Albright: So Sally and I are both speaking on a panel tomorrow, talking about really helping, you know, smaller investors access, you know, all these types of of products and how fintech is really helping also underserved communities. So we’re all going to be talking about that tomorrow where we’ve got a booth here and just, you know, talking to people, meeting people.

Lee Kantor: So where is worthy at in kind of their growth curve? Are they just expanding? Is that that that’s what you need more of? It’s just more people kind of downloading the app.

Dara Albright: Exactly. Exactly. So worthy is has done already just recently crossed $200 million in bond sales. Wow. You know over the years. So yeah, now we’re growing. You know, the people like the product and we’re looking, you know, in the future to build upon that and launch all sorts of different products for retail investors and give them, you know, a lot more. And it’s not.

Lee Kantor: Just retail like your definition of retail, you want to be as broad as possible to involve as many people who are maybe not the typical like a bank customer. You want to get more people that are maybe some of the unbanked, some of those folks as well.

Dara Albright: Well, I think you still would need to have it because you still you still connect through bank. So it’s so I wouldn’t say so much the unbanked, but I would say it’s more of the it’s more that the small investor or the smaller investor that doesn’t think that they have the wherewithal to save. They don’t feel like they have, you know, extra. They don’t have extra money. You know that they’re living paycheck to paycheck. This is an option for you. So it’s I think it just brings more people into, you know, financial services and helping them, you know, really save for retirement and and build a financial future.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Dara Albright: They could go to worthy bonds.com. And there’s tons of information.

Lee Kantor: They can download the app from that website.

Dara Albright: Yeah, you can find all the information there. We companies based in Florida. We also just recently opened an office in Alpharetta. So we’re right here in. Yep, in, in good old Georgia. And I do want to say, too, so, you know, I compared it a lot to banks. It is not FDIC insured, so it’s under a different regulatory framework. So I just want to make sure I get that out there, too, as a disclaimer.

Lee Kantor: And then. Well, thank you so much, Daryl, for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dara Albright: Yeah, Thank you so much. Thank you for all you guys do.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll be back in a few in FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here live from FinTech South. 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now we have Brian Benn. TAG Chair and the CTO of Clark Atlanta University. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Benn: Hi, how are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. For folks who don’t know, talk about your role at Clark Atlanta. What is the CTO doing over there?

Brian Benn: Well, it’s actually CIO, but kind of the same thing. I’m over the Office of Information Technology and Communications and just making sure that we’re using and leveraging technology to help support the university, help increase the productivity and profitability and attract more students and make the the technology experience great for both the student and faculty.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Brian Benn: Well, I came up I did computer science and math undergrad, and then I started my career at NASA and just always kind of gravitated towards it. I just loved being able to use technology to pretty much do anything. And so I came up a little bit at NASA. Dod did some consulting for a while and spent ten of the last 11 years as the CIO for Atlanta Housing Authority. So I’m about 35, 36 days in this new gig.

Lee Kantor: So this is brand new for you.

Brian Benn: It is academia higher? Ed Yep.

Lee Kantor: So what is some of the challenges that academia has that maybe your previous world didn’t include?

Brian Benn: Well, you’ve got a lot of you’ve got a lot of brilliant minds. I don’t want to say God complexes per se, but I got a lot of PhDs and so forth to support and understand the dynamics and it’s and its research. So you want to be able to make sure that we can do our things but also segment them so they can research and they can be they can really kind of be innovative and leverage technology. So you’ve got to think beyond just keeping the systems up and running. But you’ve got to think about those 4000 students as well as the 1000 faculty and staff that you have to support. So you’ve got to be real, comprehensive and broad and you’re thinking and then employment of information technology.

Lee Kantor: So how is Clark doing when it comes to attracting students that could follow into a path, into fintech, into technology?

Brian Benn: I think they’re doing really well. I think they have I think they have a great business department for one education. Just all the departments I’ve seen already in my in my just over a month, they’re they’re really set up and really preparing the students to to step into the workforce and and really compete. And I think it’s really kind of exciting. It’s really exciting using technology and leveraging technology so they can get the best and the brightest out there into the workforce.

Lee Kantor: Now, what attracted you to get involved in Chair and take on the leadership role?

Brian Benn: Well, I just really love this tech ecosystem here in Atlanta. And I think the the thought leadership, the intellectual capital as well as the camaraderie is second to none. I know the Silicon Valley. I know there’s the research triangle, but I’m really excited about what we have potential and the upside regarding our tech ecosystem here.

Lee Kantor: So what since you’ve been around the block a little bit, what what do you think the ecosystem needs to do a better job with?

Brian Benn: I think we just need to continue to evangelize. I think we really need to understand how dynamic technology is and to just get out in front of it. I think if we can be more proactive instead of reactive and we can just continue to to employ technology to help the youngest all the way up to the oldest, whether we’re helping support those those older ones, a little reticent to use technology or whether we’re bolstering those young ones who’ve grown up in it. I just think we have a responsibility to make sure that we’re a technology evangelist and also like to bridge the digital divide. I think that’s important that we make sure that we understand that that’s a great equalizer in terms of technology, just like education was and still is.

Lee Kantor: So if you were kind of in charge, how would you bridge that divide? What are some of the things that we can be proactively doing to kind of lesson that divide?

Brian Benn: I just think wherever we can lean in, in terms of making sure there’s access and that’s access to devices, whether we have old devices that we might throw away, we want to make sure they get in the right hands where they can be reused. I also think we have to look at Wi-Fi that connectivity the same way we look at electricity and water and just make sure that even some of the barren areas around the city, whatever we can do to lean in and make sure there’s access to Wi-Fi. And lastly, I think training is important, whether it’s rudimentary training, basic computing skills or even what we can do with our jobs in terms of workforce development and and making sure we leverage technology in that way.

Lee Kantor: Is there an opportunity to introduce some of the. Computer sciences in an early age.

Brian Benn: Absolutely. I think the earlier we get them, the more and again, they’re playing with these things. But but I think so the application that they have is good. But I think we can also introduce that theoretical side and that theory early. And I think that combination of both the application and the theory will make the the best and the brightest practitioners.

Lee Kantor: And is there a way you think that we can get more mentors involved earlier because there’s a lot of mentors and job shadowing as the as the kid is, you know high school college. But if they saw the possibilities and understood that there’s a and they can have the ability to create things rather than just be a consumer of things, I would think that that would just accelerate everything. I think you’re exactly right.

Brian Benn: I think once the opportunity is shown to them, I think I think they really take advantage of it. I think we have a responsibility, especially when it comes to people of color, make sure that they have that access and also women who we don’t necessarily see in this field. So I think the earlier we can get both of those groups engaged, I think the better off we are for everybody.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that something that Tag is tackling or is that something that’s outside the scope?

Brian Benn: I think Tag is definitely doing that. As part of their tag ed initiative, they’re making sure they’re focusing on not just people of color and and from a diversity side, but also getting women. And we’re talking about young women. We’re talking about creating opportunities for them to get to the workforce, for them to make sure that they’re able to start businesses and companies and have incubators. So I think the tag is playing in that space very well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, we’ve done a lot of work with women in technology and it seems that at a certain age it it just kind of splits where either they’re self-selecting out or they’re not getting the opportunities to continue down the path. And anything that can be done to help keep them on that path. I just see so many young people are just such consumers of this and they just can’t change their mindset. To say that I can be a creator as well. I can I can get on the other side of the table here.

Brian Benn: I think you’re exactly right. I think it’s more of a mindset. And I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the other initiatives that Tag has, and that’s bridge builders and that’s getting that’s getting minority and people of work, people of color, not just in the workforce, but helping them, like those incubators we mentioned start companies. And again, once you see that possibility and once you know it’s a possibility for you and then you get engaged at that level, especially in an early age, I think it’s not just I think there’s a win for everyone because we’re now maximizing our potential by leveraging all of our talent.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some things that a person can be doing to get involved so that they can show that representation and show that path for especially young people in this?

Brian Benn: Well, again, I’ll definitely talk about tags since this is a tag event, but there’s several other there’s several other organizations here that we we partner with. But Tag has 20 plus societies. And if you go to tag online.org, you look at the different societies around all the different disciplines. You can find one that matches with you, that aligns with you and that aligns with your interest and your skill set. And then you can kind of see if you can volunteer and lean in in that space. And even if you want to step in with Tag, I think if you’re good technology savvy, I think that it’s important that we again, go back and give back in the schools at work and just be intentional about it. I think intentionality is is a big piece of this.

Lee Kantor: Well, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you. It’s my pleasure.

Brian Benn: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor will be back in a few at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, FinTech South 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. And we’re so lucky to be having some of them on right now. We have Maria Luisa Pineda, and Alejandro Ciallella who’s the CTO with MPS Group. Welcome.

Maria Luisa Pineda: Thank you. Thank you for having us here.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about MPs Group. How are you serving folks?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Thank you. So MPs group. We specialize in providing customized software development solutions and talent for both small businesses and large enterprises. What sets us apart is our commitment to truly understand the unique needs of each client. We pride ourselves on offering a blend of innovative technology solutions combined with a personalized touch.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the backstory? How did this whole operation get started?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Well, we started actually this year, and we got a great opportunity with one of our clients, which is our Fortune company here in Atlanta, Georgia, and one of the biggest airlines. And we just got the opportunity to develop some of their customer experience capabilities. So we decided let’s go for it.

Lee Kantor: So what do you think is MPs superpower?

Maria Luisa Pineda: So our superpower for sure is going to be our people. And we have a great group of professionals who are constantly learning new technologies and on a constant path for personal development. Their expertise, commitment and collaborative spirit is what drives success for our clients.

Lee Kantor: So how did you become aware of FinTech South? What made you want to come here to this conference?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Oh, I love this conference. I’ve been coming. This is my third year and I am part of the Board of FinTech Tech Society and I’m also co-chair for Advanced Awards. So I was just presenting a couple of hours ago the advanced awards prizes for the five winners. We announced the five winners just a couple of hours ago.

Lee Kantor: So now what advice would you give other organizations to partner with companies in Latin America? It seems like there’s a great opportunity because Latin America is so close to America, especially in the South here. What are some of the do’s and don’ts when partnering with a firm in Latin America?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Well, as we have our CTO here, Alejandro, and he’s leading the development team from Latin America, I think he can better answer that question.

Alejandro Ciallella: Yes, hello. Thank you for having us here. I believe that the advantages that US companies have been working with us are, well, the timezone cultural alignment, great technical expertise. We have a really, truly team spirit. And finally, I think that maybe the most important is that we love to help our clients to be successful with their projects.

Lee Kantor: So how are you kind of attacking the America in terms of getting new clients? How do you make more and more companies aware of your firm and the way you can help them solve their problems?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Well, definitely things like joining the conference, being part of the boards, volunteering, I believe a lot in volunteering and connecting with the community, with the ecosystem and just give, give, give as much as we can first and then definitely having a great network. People can remember that we’re truly here to support the ecosystem and that’s where we get most of our clients from referrals And based on the great network that we have here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s the pain a company is having? Where is the solution? Like, what is that kind of initial point of entry.

Maria Luisa Pineda: Based on their needs? So, for example, we are working with a client that needs help with their customer experience and using technology to personalize offers to their clients. So truly, it’s all about understanding the, the client and and a deep level and finding a customized solution for them more than just pushing kind of like a product or a solution. We focus more on the understanding, specifically what they’re working on, what they need so that we can provide a very customized solution to their to their needs so we can mix between. Nearshore offshore on site project development. And we have a very flexible approach because we want to focus on their their needs more than what we are offering to them now.

Lee Kantor: You mentioned doing work with airline. Do you have any industries you specialize in? Is there a niche that you have a sweet spot in?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Yes. So for airlines, that’s definitely one one of the industries and fintech, just for being so connected and having such a great community of fintech companies in in Atlanta, more than 200 fintech companies are here. So that’s definitely an area where we have a lot of expertise as well. And I’ve worked before also we have with insurance companies. That’s another good area. So I would say banking, fintech and airlines, travel industry will be some of our main main core.

Lee Kantor: So what would be a good outcome for you after this show is over that you go back to your team and tell them this was a great show? What would you like to achieve here during these couple days at FinTech South?

Maria Luisa Pineda: I would love to be able to share with the world how what a great community that we have here in Atlanta, Georgia, and in the fintech industry and overall and even we were talking about next year, hopefully we can bring a lot of our team members from Latin America and just provide more visibility globally about the talent that we have here and, of course, in Latin America as well.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Nptc group, what is the coordinates? What’s the website?

Maria Luisa Pineda: Perfect is a website is W-w-w dot nptc-group.us.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you both for coming on and sharing your story. You’re both doing important work and we appreciate you.

Speaker5: Thank you so, so much for having us.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor will be back in a few at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Sharon Cline: And we are broadcasting live from the FinTech South 2023 Expo celebrating the fintech leaders from around the world. And I am Sharon Cline so happy to sit here with Mike Morris. How are you?

Mike Morris: Doing great today. Thank you.

Sharon Cline: Sure. So tell me what company you’re with.

Mike Morris: I’m with a company called Wipfli. We’re a full service accounting firm based out of the Midwest.

Sharon Cline: All right. So what have you. You’ve obviously been to fintech before. Yes. How has it gone in the past? How have your experiences been?

Mike Morris: So I actually am part of the tag fintech society. And so we’ve been putting this on for almost 13 years now. Oh, no way. We started with a symposium about 90 people back in 2010, and it’s just grown over the years. It’s been a lot of fun. 90 people I know at how many are here, close to 1200. So really, really amazing how much has grown and just shows how great the ecosystem is here and how people want to get together and connect.

Sharon Cline: So what do you hope to accomplish while you’re here this year?

Mike Morris: I just want to make sure we’re focusing on showing the world how great the fintech ecosystem is in Georgia, why people should come here and invest here and be a part of this great ecosystem.

Sharon Cline: So what exactly does your company do?

Mike Morris: So we do a wide variety of industries, but I’m mostly financial services, work with financial institutions and the fintechs that serve the financial institutions. So that’s really how I got more involved with the fintech side of the House, but really helping them understand the regulatory requirements and the things they need to do to work with other financial institutions and also with investors and other people who are now interested in some of the things that show how how they get the controls in place and how they’re managing their businesses.

Sharon Cline: I bet you’ve seen tremendous changes over the years.

Mike Morris: Yeah, Yeah. Usually, especially on the fintech side of the House, they don’t quite understand what they’re getting into. They have great ideas. They know what their their specialty is. But when they get into the regulatory side and the compliance side, there’s just a lot of landmines to navigate as they go through that. And sometimes they don’t quite understand that until they get burned by it or their significant partners are figuring out, Hey, we really need to see what you’re doing here.

Sharon Cline: So what are some of the pitfalls that you see people tend to fall into?

Mike Morris: Well, a lot of it is not quite knowing the federal laws around some of the transactions that they’re performing, not understanding how to partner with the right financial institution and have the right account set up for them to to process legally the payments they want to make happen. A lot of it is just growing too fast and not having the right risk management teams in place to make sure we’re monitoring and managing that risk for us, our customers and our partners.

Sharon Cline: Technologically, what would you say are the biggest changes you’ve seen over the last couple of years? I mean.

Mike Morris: Really, it’s no surprise, but AI and machine learning, getting involved and taking some of the decisions out of the humans hands and making them a lot quicker, a lot more accurate. So those have been good. But also there’s a pitfall of, hey, we got to make sure their accuracy is there and that the AI and machine learning are learning the right way and operating the way we expect them to.

Sharon Cline: Do you find that people don’t even know how much they need you? I’m serious. You know, Are you finding that people are like, Wait, I had no idea. Yeah, I.

Mike Morris: Think I think usually I talk to especially early stage companies and you talk to them and they think, Oh, we got everything covered. And you just bring up a few items. They say, Well, we don’t think we have that. We don’t have that. So yeah, it is interesting to get in there and I just love helping people. I love helping them figure out how to maximize their businesses. You know, there’s a cost to compliance. How do you keep that minimal? How do you set a roadmap so you can’t do it all at once and you build your compliance program and your vendor management program in a way that’s going to be something you can handle because it is a lot of work and you don’t understand the compliance side of it. How much, how much work is really there?

Sharon Cline: So what is it like to network while you’re here? What are what are some of the things that you experience that you’re surprised about?

Mike Morris: I’m really surprised at the wide variety of the types of companies that come here and what they’re looking for, what they’re trying to accomplish. I mean, you have the early stage company just trying to to meet people, meet investors, have some of the later stage companies that have been around forever and have great products, just making sure they’re supporting the ecosystem. And you have kind of everyone in between, whether they’re the attorneys or the accountants or, you know, vendors that help with with managed services. Just there’s such a wide variety of people who really specialize in this. And that’s what’s really neat to to see those companies come together and have that opportunity.

Sharon Cline: That’s awesome. I mean, I’m thinking about AI in particular, how much that is so pervasive everywhere right now, how you had mentioned that that’s really important, but do you find that most people are using AI in a responsible way or not?

Mike Morris: I think they’re trying to. I think we’re still learning on how to use it And how can the decisions have bias in them? Can they have make problems? Can they get us in trouble? Is it learning correctly? Is it going to take over the world like in the movies we see? You know, those are all things that we’re not really sure on. And so it is take testing and time. And but people, I think, are using it responsibly. So except for the ones who are getting ChatGPT to write their speeches and presentations.

Sharon Cline: I’ve heard about that. I have. It’s interesting. I’ve I do voiceover work as well, and some people are using AI to write their copy, right? So but that some of that is actually not considered. It’s not public domain, it’s actually copyrighted by other people. And so it’s becoming more of an editor scenario. So anyway, I was just wondering how much that impacts your life? Well, it’s much.

Mike Morris: It’s different nowadays. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: Everything feels.

Mike Morris: Different. Yeah. Yeah. We actually had to get a library and look up references and, you know, to play catalog the old fashioned way. Yeah, He’s a Dewey decimal system.

Sharon Cline: It makes me so happy. You even know what that is.

Mike Morris: We’re probably a few.

Sharon Cline: I know this call. No one would understand that in my in my house, they’d be like, What? Yeah, but no, I mean, it’s very exciting what you’re doing. Then you really are trying to help people and protect them. Yeah, it is.

Mike Morris: Fun and it is fun. I just love connecting people too. I love making connections and meeting new people.

Sharon Cline: Is that what’s the most satisfying part of your job?

Mike Morris: That is. It really is.

Sharon Cline: Oh, that’s awesome. Well, Stone, I’m trying to think of some other really great questions, but I feel like I’ve gotten the gist.

Mike Morris: All right, so.

Speaker3: How are you going to attack the balance of the conference? You’re here, the balance of today and tomorrow, is that right? Do you have an agenda? Is not the right word, but do you have a plan? Like what are you going to what are you going to what’s going to have you high five and when you leave here?

Mike Morris: Well, I’m going to go try to talk to as many people as I can. It’s a great environment. There’s so many people I don’t recognize, which is good. So I really don’t come in with a plan. I just want to come in and have it happen naturally and just see what happens, you know, see where we go to dinner or we go get drinks. Do we go with, you know, just it’s fluid and it’s a lot of fun to do that.

Speaker3: Well, I want you to know there’s a table over there not 30 yards from here. They have purple I call them trade show socks. Okay. I got these last year and then I got the purple ones a little while ago. So make sure you hit that booth. Okay.

Mike Morris: I’ll get my. My socks. Yeah, It is like adult trick or treating here, right?

Sharon Cline: Like Christmas.

Speaker3: It really.

Mike Morris: Is. Yeah.

Speaker3: Hey, thanks so much, Mike Morris. We sure appreciate it. All right. We’ll be back in a few from FinTech South 2023. Thank you.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here live from FinTech South 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now we have Mitch Rutledge with Vertice AI. He’s one of the Innovation Challenge finalists. Welcome, Mitch.

Mitch Rutledge: Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about Vertice. How are you serving folks?

Mitch Rutledge: So Vertice Ai is an analytics solution for community financial institutions, credit unions and community banks. And our vision is to empower these institutions to be able to provide a more personalized experience for their customers and members using advanced analytics. And without having these organizations have to hire a team of data scientists.

Lee Kantor: So how are they attacking this issue right now without your service?

Mitch Rutledge: You know, today most of these organizations are, you know, taking a scattershot approach where they send every marketing or product offer to to every customer or member. And that’s not what we expect today. We live in the Amazon, Spotify and Netflix era, where we expect a personalized recommendation in every interaction. And that’s our goal is to empower and provide capabilities for them to provide a more personalized product and recommendation experience.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this even come about?

Mitch Rutledge: Well, my co-founders and I were working with our first customer, which is Coastal Credit Union up in North Carolina, and they had a very visionary CEO that really wanted to find new ways to compete against the neo banks, the digital first banks and even the big banks. They know they have lots of data and they’re not using it to provide those personalized experiences for their members. And so we really came out of an engagement with them that we said there is a real need in this sector, in the community, financial institution sector to provide more personalized capabilities. They have the data. They just need a solution. And again, the gap is those organizations aren’t big enough to hire teams of data scientists. So we want to provide a solution that marketers and strategy teams can really understand and execute on more personalization for their clients and members.

Lee Kantor: And then when they plug into your services, this kind of a SaaS product where they just kind of as a new customer, a new interaction comes in, it’ll kind of sort them and put them in the right bucket so they can market to them effectively.

Mitch Rutledge: That’s exactly right. This is a software as a service solution that we’re putting in the hands of those marketing and strategy teams. You know, kind of first principles of our of our solution were B2B software with a B2C feel. Again, we’re this isn’t built for data scientists. It’s built for marketing teams that they can just easily go in and understand where their membership is, where their client base is today, and find opportunities to do more personalized engagement with them. We also another kind of core principle was we didn’t want this to be a big data project, right? We’re not creating, you know, a new data warehouse. We’re providing a member gross solution that we really can give these recommendations based off of a very small set of data that these community banks and credit unions already have. So we’re not trying to make this a big data project. We’re trying to give them a way to easily provide a more personalized experience.

Lee Kantor: And so does it kind of work as a dashboard for the marketers at these organizations where they can kind of see, okay, this person is a better prospect for this kind of service rather than this one. So we can only send them messaging around that 100%.

Mitch Rutledge: That is our that’s exactly your spot on to what we’re doing. We’re identifying groups or audiences of customers that they have that have a higher propensity for a particular product and service. And we have, again, recommendations within the solutions that say this audience is high propensity for a CD or a money market, but they also can do their own kind of querying of that data to understand, hey, we need to grow deposits, which is, you know, front and center for most financial institutions. And so we’re giving them an easy ability to understand where to do better targeting.

Lee Kantor: So when you piloted it, what kind of results were they getting? What kind of lift were they getting from your service?

Mitch Rutledge: Yeah. So we were really excited. You know, the initial results were between 4 and 10 times higher conversion rates for those. We have dramatic right and 41% higher new account opening values for those deposits, which again, critical for these institutions today. So we’re super excited about that. We’ve got we’re working with five credit unions today and we’re, you know, are expanding.

Lee Kantor: And how many credit unions are there in the country?

Mitch Rutledge: So there’s 4800 credit unions, 138 million Americans are part of a credit union. So we think there’s a, you know, strong addressable market within community financial institutions.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you.

Mitch Rutledge: You know, introduce us to your community, financial institutions. They’re all talking about this. They understand that they have. To do something different to compete against the big banks and the digital first banks. And we think we have a solution that can really give them real value quickly. This isn’t you know, we’re seeing getting value to these institutions in 4 to 6 weeks and really helping them provide a more personalized experience for their members.

Lee Kantor: And right now, being an innovation challenge finalist. How did that come about? How did this even get on your radar? Yeah, so.

Mitch Rutledge: We’re pretty excited to be part of this. So they did a selection process, got it down to ten companies. We had to do kind of a first round pitch competition last week and we were really excited to get down to the final three that are pitching today at some really innovative, stiff competition. So, you know, as we say, happy to be here, but, you know, excited to be on the homestretch. That’s right. You know, excited to be on the big, big stage this afternoon.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you bootstrapping this or is this you have funding? Do you have.

Mitch Rutledge: We are bootstrapped today. Yep. We’re a bootstrapped startup. We’re you know, we’re cash flow neutral so far, which is where we want to be and, you know, continue to grow our customer base and and see how we can really impact this industry.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect with you, learn more about the offering. What is the coordinates? Yeah.

Mitch Rutledge: So check us out on LinkedIn Vertesi. Our website is actually Vertis Analytics I or Mitch Rutledge on LinkedIn, we’d love to connect with you and share more about our vision and what we’re doing.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff, Mitch. Congratulations on all the momentum. You’re doing important work. We appreciate.

Mitch Rutledge: You. Thank you so much for having me on today and hope everybody is having a great time at FinTech South.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back into for you at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here live from Fintech South 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now we have Lara Hodgson with NOW. She’s the author of a new book, Level Up Rise Above the Hidden Forces Holding Your Business Back. Welcome, Lara.

Lara Hodgson: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: So tell me about the book. How did this come about?

Lara Hodgson: Well, you know, it’s interesting. A friend of mine that I went to business school with saw me post something about congratulating Stacey Abrams on an award she had won. And she said, oh, my gosh, how did I not know that you were business partners? And I thought, Well, I don’t know how you would know that I don’t walk around with a sign on my forehead or anything like that. And she said, that is so fascinating to me because people obviously know the policy side of Stacey’s life. And Stacey obviously is a very successful author in both fiction and nonfiction fiction books. But nobody knew about her business background. And I think what intrigued people the most and it’s it’s a big theme in the book is Stacey and I are not the same. We are very different on almost every axis, quite frankly. I mean, we have very different backgrounds. We have different ideologies. And many people will say, how do you overcome the challenge of your differences? But we would tell you, as we do in the first chapter, that our differences are, in fact, our superpower.

Lee Kantor: So talk a little bit about her role in now and your role and now and how you’re able to kind of have that synergy and combine the superpowers to create a super business. Like, Yeah.

Lara Hodgson: So Stacey and I met in 2004 in Leadership Atlanta. At the time, she was the deputy attorney for the city of Atlanta. I was running a real estate development company called Dewberry Capital. We spent a year looking at challenges around the city of Atlanta. And at the end of that program, she was actually leaving her job to run for state office for the first time. I was leaving my job because I was pregnant with my son and I was about to become a mother. And I said, you know, you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. We should do something together. And she said, Well, you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. We should do something together. And then we said, What should we do? And I think there’s an interesting lesson in that in that. Most people focus so much on the idea and not enough time on the people. And I truly believe that you can have an average idea with amazing people and have every chance of success. But if you have an amazing idea with only average people, you have very little chance of success. So from there, Stacy and I started the first of three companies together. We started a consulting company called Insomnia because we don’t sleep. We started a company called Nourished, which was our patented bottled water for children. And it was that business growing to death that caused us to start now account start the company now.

Lee Kantor: So then when you started working together and you had the first iteration, I guess consulting, which the consulting kind of is probably low hanging fruit, right? Like that’s like we’re both smart. That’s right. Yeah, we were.

Lara Hodgson: Like, Mikey on the life commercial. If you have an impossible problem, give it to us. We’ll solve.

Lee Kantor: It. So now when you’re doing that, and I would assume that since there’s three iterations that that wasn’t going the way that you wanted to go or maybe to the amount you wanted.

Lara Hodgson: No, actually it was incredibly successful.

Lee Kantor: So it was super successful.

Lara Hodgson: It was super successful. We had great clients. We were growing. One of the things we recognized with a consulting company is you don’t make money while you sleep because your unit of value is time, right? And Stacy and I are incredibly efficient compared to most humans, but we’re still limited to 24 hours in a day. The reason we started nourish is I had my son. I birthed a child after the nine months, and as I was going to meetings and I had him in the carrier and in the car, he was constantly spilling things everywhere. And I showed up one day for a meeting with Stacy, and my son had spilled something all over me. I was complaining would be the politically correct way to say it, but there’s a much better way to say it. As I walked in, I was just complaining about the fact that he had spilled things and I was like, Somebody has got to make a spill proof bottled water for kids. And she looked at me and said, Why don’t we do it right?

Lee Kantor: Be the change you want in the world. Yeah.

Lara Hodgson: I mean, you know, the all innovation comes from the demand side of a problem. And I was on the demand side of the problem.

Lee Kantor: And you did enough market research.

Lara Hodgson: We know. You know, I mean, that’s that’s nice. That’s what they teach you in business school. But honestly, we had the idea. We we did some focus groups with some friends of mine that also had young children and said, Hey, would this be interesting to you? They said, yes. We cobbled together our own money to get the molds made and get the first couple of bottles made. And we had our first sale with the parody shops and so off we went. But we kept the consulting company until Nourish had taken off because, you know, while people like to think that entrepreneurs love risk and they just live in their garage and eat Cheetos until like they make it and they’re a unicorn, that’s not how most people do it. I could not not have an income. I had a child in the house. She could not not have an income. So the consulting company gave us great current income. It gave us flexibility because as nourished grew, we could actually not take another project and dial that down so that we could launch nourish.

Lee Kantor: And then from nourish that birth.

Lara Hodgson: Now nourish, absolutely birth now. I mean, you know, again, just like Insomnia was wildly successful, Nourish was wildly successful, and within a few months we had gone from shipping ten and 20 cases here and there to airport shops around the country to large orders from Whole Foods that were truckloads instead of cases. And when you get an order for a truckload, there’s a lot of zeros on the end of that. Right. And what we realized is that they wouldn’t give us a credit card when they when we shipped the product. And I thought, that’s how commerce works, right? I give you product, you give me money. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. I guess. Even on Popeyes, though, you know what? I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Yeah. The wimpy, wimpy formula. That’s what we all use. And so, you know, we got this first big order from Whole Foods. We started to cheer the fact that we had bagged the big deal and we were going to be on the cover of Fortune and somewhere in there you start to do the math and realize, Wait a minute, that’s a lot of zeros that I have to pay my vendors and my employees and wait and wait, right. And I quickly realized net 30 is just a suggestion. It doesn’t actually mean you’re going to get paid in 30 days. You know, you might as well write net pay me when you feel like it on an invoice. Especially the bigger firms like Whole Foods, right?

Lee Kantor: The larger firms seem to take more than a lot of.

Lara Hodgson: Small they can, right? Because what am I going to do? What am I going to say? I’m not selling to you anymore, right? They’d say, Fine. There’s a line of people waiting for your shelf space. So as we had this issue, we took the order. It took the first order. I took almost four months to get paid and meanwhile more orders are coming in. I need to make more product. I’m going to my suppliers saying, guess what? More orders. And they’re like, Guess what? You haven’t paid us yet. And I said, Well, of course not. Nobody here has been paid. And that’s when everybody said, Well, you just have a working capital. Bless you. You should get a line of credit or try factoring.

Lee Kantor: And you know how easy that is.

Lara Hodgson: Well, and not only that, but I’ll be honest. I’m not a banker. I was an aerospace engineer. It’s very good for rocket science jokes, but not so much for finance. And so when people said, you just have a working capital issue, I said, well, how do I get rid of it? And they said, Well, you can go borrow money. You can get a line of credit. And I thought, Why am I borrowing money? I’m the free bank to Whole Foods. They should borrow money and pay me faster. But we all know how that works, right?

Lee Kantor: Did you make that suggestion to them?

Lara Hodgson: You know, I did at one point go to them and say, why don’t you just pay me with a credit card? Wouldn’t that be easier? Because then I would get paid immediately. And you can pay your visa bill whenever you feel like it. And they smiled, but they said no because they said, if we pay you with a card, we now owe the bank. And if we don’t pay it on the deadline, interest and penalties. But if we don’t pay your net 30 invoice on the 30th day, nothing happens.

Lee Kantor: Nothing bad happens to us. So no.

Lara Hodgson: It’s kind of like a Seinfeld episode, right? Like you can take the order, but you can’t actually fulfill the order. And so that’s when I was like, There has got to be a better way. Like small businesses, the largest lender in the United States is not a bank, it’s not SBA. It’s small businesses because last year, small businesses originated over $11 trillion of of of loans to their customers. They look like invoices, right? That’s a free loan that you just.

Lee Kantor: Made and that and that reframing birth now.

Lara Hodgson: Absolutely. I remember the very first event I spoke at at SBA and I thought, you know, how do I introduce this concept? And I was on a panel with a bunch of bankers and they each introduced themselves and immediately launched into things like, you know, Libor and personal guarantees and bassist points. And and I could just see the room of small business owners sitting lower and lower in their chair. They came to the event optimistic they were getting less so as they heard about all the things they could not get. And so I started and I said, you know, first of all, how many people think a BIP is something that happens on your computer and you wish it would go away? Right. So let’s lose the jargon. But more importantly, I said, how many of you sell a product? About half the room raised their hand. How many of you sell a service? The other half raised their hand. How many of you started a bank? And they all looked at me and I said, Every single one of you is a free bank to your customers. You just don’t realize it. And I have to be honest, there was a gentleman in the back that yelled out like, Hallelujah, I thought we were in a Baptist revival like we were. People were getting excited. But I think it’s this epiphany people have.

Lee Kantor: Well, it’s they’re they are not seeing it that way.

Lara Hodgson: No, because we’re all told it’s the cost of doing business right. But quite frankly, the cost of doing business shouldn’t be your business. Right. And that’s what it is. Right, is if I have to be the free bank to Whole Foods for 30, 60, 90 days, then unfortunately, I either take the order and go out of business. Actually, I go out of business or I don’t take the order, which is what most small businesses do is they turn down orders. Now, have you ever started a company to turn down orders? That’s called a hobby. It’s not a business plan. That’s a.

Lee Kantor: Hobby. And people’s business plan, they’re like, Yeah, we’re going to turn down about a third of our.

Lara Hodgson: Exactly. But I think what it also makes people realize is the word small and small business should not be a permanent status, right? But for many people it is. Now, if you want it to be like you want to have a lifestyle business, that when you’re done, it’s done. I think that is perfectly fine. But if you want to grow and you can’t because you’re an indentured lender to your customers, I just think not only is that wrong, but if you could undo that, the entire US economy grows exponentially.

Lee Kantor: And that’s the mission.

Lara Hodgson: And that is the mission. Our mission is to allow small businesses to grow fearlessly.

Lee Kantor: So for people who don’t know, talk about how that works for a small business, how would they kind of tap into the until now and then now account?

Lara Hodgson: So if you’re a small business and your customer is another business or a government or a nonprofit, it just can’t be a person. So let’s say you’re a landscaper. If you’re landscaping my house, you wouldn’t use now account because I’m an individual and I’m likely to give you a credit card. You probably have it on file. But if your invoicing, let’s say your landscaping, the local school, you are most likely going to show up, do the landscaping and send them an invoice. They’re not going to pay you that day. Right. And when you send them that invoice, if you know that they’re going to pay you in 1 or 2 days, then you should just wait. If you if they’re willing to give you a credit card, you should take it. But 98% of the time what they’re going to say is, send me an invoice. I’d like net 30 terms or net 15 or net 60. Or if you’re selling a Coca Cola, it’s net 120 these days if that is a burden. Which it is for everybody, by the way. And you would prefer to get paid immediately than when you deliver the good or service you send your invoice to the school. You upload a copy onto your now account app. It’s on your phone, it’s on your laptop, You upload a copy of it, we will verify the invoice, make sure all the information is correct. We will pay you the full amount of the invoice minus a one time 3.5% merchant fee and you typically get paid in two days.

Lara Hodgson: So you upload the invoice, you’re going to get paid the full amount of the invoice -3.5% fee in two days. You book your revenue as cash and you book a 3.5% expense. You’re done. You have no accounts receivable, right? Your customers still got the invoice, The school still received your invoice. It still said net 30. They’re not going to pay it in 30 days. Somewhere around 55 days they’ll get around to paying it. They’re going to make out the check or the ACH of the wire to you. But the remittance address that was on your invoice goes to my lockbox. So when every day, when we open our lockbox, nothing is made out to now account. It’s made out to all of our clients. But we paid them 60 days ago. Right? And so the beautiful thing is for our clients, they go from having a days sales outstanding of 40, 50, 60 days to two. And imagine what that does. You have all your revenue, including your margin right up front. So you can hire more people. You can take on that big account, you can add more inventory. And so one of our clients the other day said you are like, well, you’re my secret weapon for sales. And B, they said, you’re like outsourced accounts receivable because I don’t have it anymore.

Lee Kantor: Right? It goes away.

Lara Hodgson: Yeah. So they said I said, Well, here’s the unfortunate thing, although maybe it’s not. It could be a very good marketing campaign if we’re are as a service. The acronym is not SAS, it’s SAS. But it kind of.

Lee Kantor: Is.

Lara Hodgson: Right, because not yours anymore. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: So it’s your problem?

Lara Hodgson: It’s my problem.

Lee Kantor: That’s right. 120.

Lara Hodgson: I’m taking that out and I’m waiting because I have protection like insurance. I have cheaper capital. I can wait longer. Right. And so I’m doing all that borrowing so that you don’t have to.

Lee Kantor: So now in the book, what are some of the kind of key points in the book that an entrepreneur can benefit from?

Lara Hodgson: Well, you know, so I’ll be the first one to say I can’t stand business books. I don’t like them. They drive me crazy. You can usually read the first chapter and you’ve learned all of it like the rest of it is just reiterating the same thing. So when it was suggested we write this book, I sort of thought to myself, Oh my gosh, I don’t even like business books. And so it’s really the arc of the book tells the story of how Stacy and I met in 2004. We talk about how incredibly different we are and yet how we were able to use that as a positive, not a negative. And so it talks about all of those businesses, the ones that failed, the ones that succeeded, the one that turned into now account. And then we very honestly take you through now account up until today and anyone will tell you that the key to entrepreneurship is staying alive long enough to get lucky. So we have many near-death experiences which we share in there. And so what people have said about it is I had someone say that it’s a business book that reads like a thriller.

Lara Hodgson: I don’t know if that’s a good thing, that my life is a thriller. And I even had a gentleman say that it was a great beach read, which has never been said about a business book ever. But I think what we do is in each chapter we share an experience that we faced in many cases humanize. Yes. And we share what we were feeling. There are many times in this book where my head is on a steering wheel crying because I feel like I’ve messed up and and even to the point where when we did the audio book, you hear my voice crack when I’m reading it because it’s painful to relive it again. But I think it’s so important. Coming out of the pandemic, more businesses are being started than ever before, but at the same time, we’re in an entrepreneurship crisis because the vast majority of what looks like new businesses are not businesses yet. They’re jobs. People are starting a job for themselves. Right? And if we want some of those to become businesses, we have to share not just the good, not the sexy Shark Tank stories, but the ugly. Right? Right.

Lee Kantor: The good, the bad, the.

Lara Hodgson: Ugly, the good, the bad and the ugly. And quite frankly, the ugly is the one that you learn the most from. And so it is very raw. It is very real. We talk about situations where, for example, we were sitting in front of a company, a very old school, large Fortune 50 company, and Stacy felt like they wouldn’t ever address her. And she didn’t understand why I didn’t notice that. So we even talk about the times when we had conflict as partners, right? And so we talk about the pitfalls, the conflicts, the things we did wrong. And then at the end of each chapter, we offer up lessons for how we would have done it differently or how. How should you think about it? And so it’s interesting because I’ve had everyone from veterinarians to pastors say, you know what, Laura? This actually is not a business book. It’s a book about life.

Lee Kantor: Well, and I think it’s needed in today’s environment that’s so polarizing where people who don’t aren’t exactly the same are having a hard time, you know, having conversations. And in business, it seems like that’s a good area where people should be getting along and differences should be embraced and celebrated to serve people better. And not only should.

Lara Hodgson: They, but they have to be. And I’ll be honest, the reason I was willing to write the book at a time when we were both very busy is I have a I have a son who’s a senior in high school, and I cringe when I see him growing up in a world that basically says to him, If you’re not with me, you’re against me. Right? This polarization, as you mentioned, not only is it sad, it is. It’s critical because you can’t have innovation if we only surround ourselves with people that are like us. And we have got to become comfortable being uncomfortable and we have to go back at looking at those differences as a massive opportunity, not a challenge. And so for Stacy and I, we often say the reason we’ve been able to innovate is when two people are totally opposite. We can look at the problem from a 360 degree view, Right? No one else can do that. No single human can possibly see more than 180. Right. And so I do think we have got to teach people, particularly this younger generation, that it’s not about retrenching into your tribe. It’s not about being around people that look and talk and and speak like you. It’s about surround yourself with people that are different and that is your superpower. Right?

Lee Kantor: But you have to have the you have to be civil. You have to kind of respect their opinions. You have to be curious. It can’t be a good and evil conversation at all times.

Lara Hodgson: Right. So what Stacy and I often say, because people say, how in the world do you guys do this? I mean, let’s be honest. When she was first elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives, I was appointed to the Gretta board, the Transportation board by the then Republican governor. And people were like, how does that work? We said, it works.

Lee Kantor: Amazing, right? In fact, if.

Lara Hodgson: The rest of the world worked this way, Right.

Lee Kantor: But there was a time when that wasn’t. That’s unusual. That’s right. That’s right. Where both sides can have conversations and hang out together.

Lara Hodgson: And what Stacy and I say is the key to that. The key to getting back to that is you have to be curious first and critical second, which means if I say something that is totally opposite to what you believe, the very first thing you should be doing is applying curiosity. Right? That’s interesting. Not judgment. Not judgment. Not criticalness. You have you have the rest of your life to be judgmental and critical. But for just a second, fathom that a person that doesn’t agree with you could have a nugget. That’s true. Right.

Lee Kantor: Because and that requires a lot of empathy, requires patience.

Lara Hodgson: It requires empathy. But let’s be honest, in this beautifully diverse country of ours, we can’t all fit neatly in one of two buckets. It’s not possible. Right? So we’re all somewhere in the middle. We’re all this beautiful.

Lee Kantor: Mix, right? It’s more nuanced, obviously.

Lara Hodgson: It is. And you have to have the grace and the patience to to move in the middle and consider Stacy. And I often say if she has one way of doing it and I have another way of doing it, the best way is actually an unknown third that neither one of us know yet. Right. But you have to have the courage to go there because it’s not comfortable.

Lee Kantor: And it’s funny because a lot of people, when it’s your tribe, you give them the benefit of the doubt. But when it’s not you, don’t you, you assume the worst. Well, I find it just got to get past that.

Lara Hodgson: I find it interesting that people seem to decide whether they would agree with something not based on what it is, but based on who said it. Right. And it’s like, But you haven’t listened to it yet. Because I find people that are very different from me have incredibly valid points. Right? And that doesn’t change who I am in any way.

Lee Kantor: It doesn’t lessen or weaken you at all. It only makes it stronger and better because now I’m learning from somebody else. That’s right.

Lara Hodgson: That’s right.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about now, where should they go?

Lara Hodgson: You can go to w-w-w dot now account.com.

Lee Kantor: And then to get the book.

Lara Hodgson: To get the book you can well, of course you can go to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But Stacy and I love to encourage people to go to independent bookstores because those are your small business owners. They’re part of the fabric of your community. So we always tell people to go to your local small bookstore.

Lee Kantor: All right, Laura, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you. Thank you. All right. This is Lee Kantor back into view at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live FinTech South 2023 celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now we have Michael Reed, division president of payments for Deluxe. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Reed: Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: For the two people out there who don’t know, tell us a little bit about Deluxe, how you serving folks.

Michael Reed: Yeah. So Deluxe is a 108 year old business. The founder of Deluxe invented the checkbook. So we say that we’re the original payments company. You’re the.

Lee Kantor: Og?

Michael Reed: Yes. I lead our digital payments business, so it’s my job to find digital solutions for customers, whether it’s credit cards, debit cards, you know, paper based payments, different things like that. But so I’m on the different side of the business.

Lee Kantor: But so how’s business going? Is this a world that just kind of seems like it’s going to keep growing forever?

Michael Reed: Well, you know, we’ve done a really good job of getting, you know, some frictionless experiences from consumer to business payments as an ecosystem. And so I’m focusing most of my time now on business to business payments, where it’s probably surprising to a lot to realize that 60% or so of businesses still send paper based payments to their customers.

Lee Kantor: Is that six?

Michael Reed: 66 060. So just as an example, we process $3 trillion in payments today that originate as paper.

Lee Kantor: Wow. That that is shocking. Is that shocking to you as someone in the industry that it would still be that high?

Michael Reed: It was very shocking to me when I came to Deluxe. I had been working on the consumer side for a long time, working at companies where we were helping businesses, consumers pay businesses, you know, credit cards, debit cards, those types of things. And we had, as an industry, done a good job of getting rid of those paper payments, you know, quite some time ago. So to learn that there are so many out there, it’s really the next frontier for payments. And there’s a lot of opportunity for all of us to go help businesses better pay each other.

Lee Kantor: Why do you think it’s still, like so slow for them to adopt this newer technology?

Michael Reed: Well, we’ve been looking at that quite a lot. And, you know, we try to find out what the job that this piece of paper is doing today that that a digital platform or solution can’t do or doesn’t do as effectively So.

Lee Kantor: Your jobs to be done.

Michael Reed: Person I am a jobs to be done we subscribe we subscribe to the jobs theory or I do and so we deploy that. We deploy that at deluxe. So the you know, the paper check does a bunch of different things where the process of sending it through the mail rather does a bunch of things. One is as we’ve been talking to payers that are looking to send money to another business, if they don’t know that they’re ever going to have to send a payment to that provider again, They don’t really want to store ACH or card information. There’s some some inherent risk in doing that. And you know, it’s maintenance of those databases and different things. So that’s one piece. The other is in many cases, they have to tell the recipient what the payment is even for. So if you think about a medical claims payment, you know, if you’re out on vacation and you sprain your ankle and you go to the closest clinic, you as a as a, you know, you go, you pay your.

Lee Kantor: Co-pay, you do that digitally.

Michael Reed: You’re out. You get your out-of-network copay. Well, today, when your insurance company settles that claim with your with that provider, they mail the final payment. And the reason that they do that is they don’t know if they’re ever going to have to pay that person. They need to tell them why it is they’re making that payment. So, you know, they sent a bill for $1,000. They’re paying 800. They need to tell them why they’re only paying them 800. And they have the address of the clinic. So they stick these things in the mail. And, you know, we’ve got a digital solution. We call it the medical payment exchange that we’ve done in partnership with with another payments platform provider, Echo Health. And we’re working to digitize those payments. So now we notify that provider that they’ve got a payment coming from this insurance company and how do they want it? And we then maintain those databases of information and send those payments digitally and reduce the need for paper.

Lee Kantor: In that case. So when they say, how do you want it? Does anybody pick check?

Michael Reed: Well, check is still an option, right?

Lee Kantor: But that’s an option. But anyone picking that option? No, that’s.

Michael Reed: Not normally, you know, they’re happy with an ACA or they’ll even sometimes want to put it on their PayPal account or what have you.

Lee Kantor: So that’s that’s wild. So so that’s part of your job is just to help people make this transition.

Michael Reed: That is the whole job.

Lee Kantor: That’s the whole job.

Michael Reed: Is to to.

Lee Kantor: Make that 60 turn into six.

Michael Reed: We we obviously do you know, do what we can. We’re privileged to support about 70%, 76% of the top 300 financial institutions in the United States providing these types of services. And we’re bringing digital capabilities to them. It help them to provide these types of solutions to their customers? Bill, Pay different things like that. And, you know, it’s our job to do a good job with what we’ve been entrusted with so far, but help them to to provide better payment options for their consumers and help them educate their consumers so they’ll use them.

Lee Kantor: Right? So that’s a lot of your job is having these conversations to really understand the pain points and understand what it is that job that check is doing in that firm and how you can kind of make that digital solution rather than a paper solution.

Michael Reed: That’s right. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So how do you attack a conference like FinTech South? How how do you get the most out of your time here?

Michael Reed: Well, you know, we you know, I’ve been I’ve been personally transferred in and out of Atlanta a couple of different times. My family and I really enjoy being and living here in Atlanta. It’s a fantastic city for us and for our industry. There’s really only one other market that I’m aware of that has the number of companies that are in payments, and that’s London. So Atlanta is in rare air relative to the number of payments companies that operate here, which gives us the opportunity to find, you know, great talent, a great network of of fintechs and other partners that we might want to package into our solution and and just learn from each other about the different things that are going on. And I like this particular conference because it focuses not just on payments, but it really does focus on technology and how it is that we can deploy technology to solve these different types of problems for our respective customers. So, you know, there’s just a there’s a lot of great things here. The university system is strong. The way that this industry is rallied to educate the students in the university system on the things that are going on in this space. We just it’s a great talent pool. It’s a it’s a great peer group to to be around. And it’s, you know, made up of some really compelling value propositions from these different companies.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding young people kind of gravitating to fintech as a career or is it something that you need more folks to to go into developers?

Michael Reed: Absolutely. You know, I think from a technology perspective, it’s a lot easier to explain what a job is if they’re, you know, if they’re a developer or someone that’s coding. You know, we’ve got the you know, we’ve got the benefit in Georgia of the FinTech academy and the fintech academy helps to educate on the broader on the broader ecosystem with payments, whether it’s, you know, product managers or or the different types of jobs that we would need in different in different companies, product owners, you know, all those, all those different types of, of of roles and how we can bring this young talent in to help us to solve these these next generation problems. So it’s a great it’s a great market for that type of for that type of work. But we do have work to do to keep educating on what this industry is and why companies may want to participate.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for young person deciding what career path to go in? How would you sell them on pursuing fintech?

Michael Reed: Well, I mean, if they’re in Georgia and they want to and they want to have a, you know, an industry that has really been in be in an industry that’s really been embraced by all aspects of the economy here. You know, fintech is definitely that that particular industry. So, you know, if they’re in university and they’re doing things, they probably already have some intellectual curiosity. There’s lots of avenues to go educate themselves on what this different stuff is and and how it works. There’s lots of conferences around like, like these. But, you know, if they’re looking for an enduring industry and a growth in a secular growth environment in a fantastic city to, you know, to live. This is this is definitely the you know, where I would be focused if I was.

Lee Kantor: Is there an opportunity to bring in some of the the fintech curriculum into lower grades rather than starting in college? Like, can we start doing a better job maybe sprinkling in some of those kind of core competencies earlier on in a young person’s life so they can kind of follow that path into this as they get older?

Michael Reed: Well, the fintech academy is already providing curriculum to all the public high schools in the state. So they are starting to see starting to see that. And obviously with the with the Hope scholarship, which is, you know, a scholarship that’s afforded to, you know, most all of the students in the state of Georgia that graduate with a certain GPA and affords them the opportunity to follow and secondary education. You know, there’s a big incentive for Georgia natives to stay in Georgia and to get their education in Georgia. So that combination, I think, is an interesting.

Lee Kantor: And then that’s good for companies like Deluxe to, you know, access that talent pool.

Michael Reed: Absolutely. You know, you’ve got if you think about even. Just the city of Atlanta. You’ve got you know, you’ve got Emory University, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Kennesaw State. And each one of those university systems pull a different type of student. And there’s something to be you know, there’s some you know, there’s compelling attributes from each one of those different types of universities and the types of students that you may draw. You know, you may draw from a Georgia state student, you know, generally speaking, is helping to put themselves through school. So they’ve got perseverance and grit and they’re, you know, they’re doing a lot to drive to drive their personal journey forward. And, you know, you’ve got Georgia Tech where, you know, it’s heavy engineering and you’ve got that type of mindset there where you’ve got, you know, people that understand how this stuff works and, you know, are driven by that. So, you know, you know, the other that’s.

Lee Kantor: Good for companies like Deluxe. Right. Absolutely.

Michael Reed: It’s great for it’s great for businesses like Deluxe.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Deluxe and the opportunities there, what’s the website?

Michael Reed: So deluxe.com we’ve got a got a great website there and you know you can check out Deluxe and our careers page is there if you’re looking for a role and opportunities.

Lee Kantor: Well Michael, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you. All right.

Michael Reed: Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor back into for you at FinTech South 2023.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the beautiful Georgia World Congress Center for FinTech South. 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, FinTech South. 2023 Broadcasting Live, celebrating fintech leaders from around the world. Right now we have Patrick Williams, fintech partnerships with Visa. Welcome, Patrick.

Patrick Williams: Great. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Well, tell us a little bit about your role. What do you spend your time doing every day?

Patrick Williams: I spend my time focused on….

Lee Kantor: Your boss wants to know. That’s why I ask that.

Patrick Williams: Yeah, I think I think she’s got a pretty good idea of what I do. I’ve got numbers to report, so I think she’s. She’s clued in. Yeah. I focus on our fintech partnerships. And really what that means is I spend all my waking hours focused on driving a visa business, transactions, money movement, new flows, new use cases within the financial services space across all of our client base that are fintech oriented. That includes lots of different segments from Neobanks to Remitters to wealth management companies and so on.

Lee Kantor: So Visa is so ubiquitous, is there still opportunity to grow? How much more is there.

Patrick Williams: Tons of opportunity? If you think about the amount of cash that’s out there, the number of checks that are still happening. There is so paper checks.

Lee Kantor: Paper checks. They’re still paper checks.

Patrick Williams: They’re still paper checks. They’re not just coming from my mom either. There’s a lot of people, especially in the commercial small business universe, lots of checks happening.

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. Do you know the numbers? Is it more than people imagine? Because everything seems so digital nowadays. It’s hard to imagine a lot of paper checks going back and forth.

Patrick Williams: Yeah, it’s a lot more than people than people know. I don’t have any numbers off the top of my head, but if you you look across consumer versus commercial, it’s really a lot of that’s being driven through the commercial space. But still a lot of consumer checks that are still flowing out the door. You’ve got other companies here that are in the Atlanta market that still have a check business and it’s thriving. Wow.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s just hard to imagine because everything seems digital that every like no one is clamoring for. I wish I could write a check, at least in my circle.

Patrick Williams: Yeah, we should maybe put you in some of our advertising.

Lee Kantor: So how does how do you handle a show like this? A conference like this? What do you have to do here? Get here in order to be high fiving back at the office?

Patrick Williams: For me, it’s about connecting with different people and sharing ideas and getting really involved from a thought leadership point of view. So we want to, one, share out the different programs and ways that we support the fintech and technology space and payments. So that’s important because not everybody knows exactly what we do every day and all the things that we offer are into the into the payments universe. And then just connecting with people and hearing back their ideas and some of the things that they’re up to that we think could ultimately be new innovations that are going to be the future of technology in the payments universe. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So now so Visa has a presence here in Atlanta. They have an office. I’m sure we do. How long have you been here in Atlanta?

Patrick Williams: We have been here for a little over a year. We started in a temporary space and then now we’ve got a permanent space at 1200 Peachtree where we planted the visa flag with our logo at the top of the building. That was one of my my.

Lee Kantor: You were charged with that?

Patrick Williams: I was I was leaning in on that as far as the negotiations went. I wanted the signage. I let the our corporate real estate guys do the rest. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So now when you decided to move here, what was kind of the the reasons behind that?

Patrick Williams: It was, well, a variety of different reasons. One, the culture at Visa, it’s really important for us that we look like the constituency that we serve, so consumers and small businesses. And that means having a culturally diverse mix of employees. So that was certainly part of it. There’s a meaningful talent pool in Atlanta from a payments point of view as well as a really diverse population here that we wanted to take advantage of as we continue to evolve our culture at Visa. So that was one. And then there’s lots of payments activity here. We’ve got a lot of clients based here. There’s a lot of I’ve mentioned it multiple times now, but thought leadership coming out of Atlanta for payments and we wanted to be part of it.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned serving the small business community. What are some maybe not so obvious ways that Visa serves the small business community?

Patrick Williams: We have different programs that we’ve put in the market to be able to support small businesses. We have some programs that are focused on minority led small businesses. We’ve got a. Program called She’s Next that provides grants to women owned small businesses. So we’ve got a number of different programs that provide funding and education and that type of support into small businesses. And then we also have, of course, just ways that we can support their products, frankly. I mean, we’re a commercial organization making money. We’ve got a lot of value that we add and wrap around what we do for small businesses in the way of research and providing different reports and helping them stay educated about the business universe.

Lee Kantor: So how would a small business kind of plug in like, say, like we’re a small business? Like, you know, obviously we take if somebody wants to do a digital payment, we can do that. And that might be happening right now through Visa. But like, say we want to tap into the other resources, like how does a small business even find a person at Visa to have a conversation with?

Patrick Williams: Well, one, they would start out going through our website, but typically by way of the distribution that we have of of our products and services, that’s through other players, acquirers and merchant processors. And they can work with those entities to be able to tap into the different solutions we provide.

Lee Kantor: Right. But it’s one of those things where you don’t even know where you don’t know, right? Like they.

Patrick Williams: Sure. And we’ve got education out on visa.com for them to go learn a little bit more just about payments generally because you’re right it is it’s a hard space to navigate. And I’ve had personal friends of mine that have come to me that have small businesses and ask, how do I get my my fees down? Right. And those kind of and they’re not really sure where to go. The best place is, of course, always to start with our partners that are working directly with those small businesses. And then again, we’ve got educational resources and other things that we can we can offer up.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more and have a conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the coordinates to do that?

Patrick Williams: If someone wanted to connect me directly, the easiest way is probably just to go out through LinkedIn and search for Patrick Williams at Visa and I’ll pop right.

Lee Kantor: Up Now, what about online? If there’s a fintech partnership that they want to discuss with you, is that within the Visa website there are some fintech partnership. That’s right, somewhere in there.

Patrick Williams: That’s right. Through our fintech fast track program. They can go out, learn a little bit more about it, and there’s ways for them to actually apply for the program through visa.com.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, Patrick, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Patrick Williams: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor will be back in a few at FinTech South 2023.