Latest / Leaders In Payments / Andrew Helms, CEO, USA at SumUp | Episode 461

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Andrew Helms, CEO, USA at SumUp | Episode 461 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast, where we talk to sea level leaders from across the payments landscape.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Greg Myers, and today's special guest is Andrew Helms, the CEO USA of Sum Up.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, Andrew, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right, before we dive into your career in the company, if you could give us a quick snapshot of your personal background, maybe where you grew up, where you call home today, a few things like that.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, absolutely.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually grew up in Colorado, the south of Denver, before Denver was the place to move for half of the U.S.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then actually ended up leaving for about 20 years.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: So after high school, I jumped around both the U.S.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: and the world.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I was out in California and then DC for grad school.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Then I spent about eight years in the Middle East.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I was in Cairo and Dubai and kind of all over the Gulf region.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then more recently had jumped back to the US, Madrid, Chicago was there for a while.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then when Current Opportunity and Sumup came back, actually went full circle after about 20 years, ended back up in Boulder, Colorado, which is our sum up headquarters here in the U.S.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's quite a different world from when I left Colorado.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: We've had a series of the legalized weed boom followed by COVID, and this place is booming.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking before we started because I was in Longmont before the boom really happened.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand it's uh grown quite a bit up towards the Boulder area.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Still going.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Good deal.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you don't mind, can you walk us through your professional journey and then maybe how you ended up there at some up?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of took a roundabout way to get into the business world and the payments world as well.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I had started out in grad school doing Middle Eastern studies.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I was doing history and politics and was leaning towards somewhat of a, I would say an NGO and journalism career.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: So after that, when I had moved out to the region in Cairo, I was working at a local newspaper, I was doing some Arabic studies and was really on this track.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then for various reasons, I ended up applying to a management consulting firm out in Dubai and moved over there, got the role, and was just astounded.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: At the time it was about 2010.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's an incredible dynamic.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Dubai was thriving, it was growing like crazy.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Entrepreneurship, new companies going on, and I was doing management consulting across the region.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it was oil and gas, it was new business ventures, innovation, all these different things that were kind of new and up and coming.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And was able to see a little bit of taste and seeds of getting into the payments world down the line, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it was the first time I was able to use the Uber app or Kareem, which was a local Uber type player there, where you had embedded payments in the app, but that was a novelty there, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then coming back for Christmas, I the first time I saw the square dongle on one of the taxi drivers, I was coming back.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I was seeing elements of this.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then I quickly actually had moved over into a corporate strategy role also in Dubai at the time.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it was real estate, it was exhibitions, it was conferences, it was helping plan for the Expo 2020 in the region.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: And really got to lean into a little bit of this: how do you bring innovation and new ideas and things to a region, right?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time you had just incredibly bad banking services out in the region, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Where you'd have to spend pretty much your day to go to your bank if you wanted to get anything done and come with 25 different stacks of papers with signatures and all these things and grab your ticket, wait online, and you know, five hours later, they'd send you back saying, Oh, you forgot your 12th signature and your wax seal here, so you got to come back next week when we're open again, right?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: So seeing a lot of these things and the pain points in daily life.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually ended up opening a restaurant.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was this part of the company I was working for.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted to open up this new chain.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I got to really get my hands dirty with everything from a new idea, a new business, entrepreneurial side of things, including the POS software on payments.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's ultimately what kind of propelled me to jump from a much more traditional career of consulting and corporate strategy into the more entrepreneurial space.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I moved back to the US to go work at a small company called Home Chef based out of Chicago.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time, it was the second largest meal kit company in the U.S.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: So if you know Blue Apron or HelloFresh, you know, a pretty large fad when it comes to basically putting food in your mailbox, sending it to you, and then allowing you to cook at home.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh joined them about person number 30, I think, and was able to really see a small company just explode across the US, ultimately get to the point where we were bought by Kroger, one of the largest supermarkets in the US, was able to really launch and go to market with that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then COVID hit, and the milk industry continued to explode from there.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: But this opportunity came up with Sumup, the company I work at today, which is this global company.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when I first started talking to them, it was, you know, we've got this role back in the US, running our US team.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's in Boulder, Colorado, which is an hour from where I grew up.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a combination, I'd say, of incredible company, great opportunity being back in Colorado, and also having a newborn in a small apartment in Chicago during COVID that got me back here.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, 20 years later, I'm back where I started in in Boulder at Sumup, which is this German London-based payments company.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh quite the journey that you've been on and experienced.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about Sumup now.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So tell our audience what SumUp does.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: So Sumup is a ultimately originally a global payments company.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we're based out of Europe originally, Berlin and London, that has just expanded around the world.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we're in 37 countries around the world.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're huge in Europe, we're in all over South America, and more recent entries into North America, the US, in about the last six or seven years, or give or take.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we started off with your white card reader, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Similar to brick and mortar, white card readers, small micro- andanomerchants across Europe.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then as we've expanded over the years across both continents and our product selection, we've now got a pretty robust ecosystem that obviously depends on the country you're in, but includes everything from payments, POS, invoicing, banking, lending, instant payments if you're in Brazil, different things that are relevant based upon what the merchants need in those countries.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, you know, our vision is really to be the first global payments company around the world helping merchants thrive in creating their own business and living their dreams and doing whatever they want to do.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that looks very different from the US from what it does from Brazil, from what it does from Bulgaria.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, we're offering broader ecosystem products to our merchants around the world.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're about four million merchants around the world.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: And in the US, we're more of a more recent entry, about five, six years ago.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been a journey, it's been a fun journey of being as this global European company coming into the US.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: In some ways, we made some of the mistakes of the ugly American, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Coming in with a product and saying, this European product will work for Americans.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: This will be great.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, quickly learning, and there's things you have to adapt to: taxes, exclusive taxes, inclusive taxes, tipping, as we all know in the US.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Certain things that are, those are the obvious ones, but other ones that come up along the way.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's been great.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've got two big offices here in the US.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a Boulder office, we've got El Paso office, we've got some sales teams across the US, both in Denver, and then field sales around the U.S.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been a journey.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredible working for a large global company out of very tiny Boulder, Colorado.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are most of your clients or merchants on the small business side?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think by origin, we were really focused on the long tails, the micro and nanomerchants around the world.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think as we've seen, we've really focused on them, but we've got a little bit more focus more recently on small versions.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: So again, the definition of small obviously depends on your geography.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: But we're focused around those small versions in the US that are somewhere between 20,000 to 100,000 TPV a month, with the added benefit of all the products we're developing, all the features we're focusing on for them are completely applicable most of the time for those micro-nano versions as well.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we're really focused on mix of brick and mortar, actually more brick and mortar, more in-person businesses.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Everything from a micro, nano, small.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And in some cases, we've even got larger than that as well.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the biggest challenge your company is solving for your customers right now?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good question.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think it keep caveating this, but it really depends on the country you're in, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I think one of the ones that is consistent that we're seeing in the US, and I think is actually pretty relevant around the world, is it's a very uncertain time.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's just so much economic uncertainty going on, whether it's political, whether it's economics, whether it's new factors such as AI, different things are really we're finding merchants are very uneasy.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: They just don't know where things are going.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know what the future is going to be like.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know if the economy is going the tank tomorrow or it's going to be at record highs, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we're finding some reticence from merchants, particularly if you're looking at small and like Reniano, to invest, to open a new business and try something out.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we're looking to really help them put their mind at ease, help them find a way to know, okay, if I'm going to run a business, here's how I'm going to do it.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: How do I, for one, stay open, keep paying the bills?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do I keep providing for my family?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: How do I pay our medical bills?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: How do we save for college?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: How do we save for retirement?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: But two, I think ultimately where we really lean into is like, how do we provide these merchants with the tools they need to both sustain and grow their business?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got this broader POS ecosystem we call it, where it includes it includes loyalty, it has payments, it has a number of different things.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: But really, with the idea of any small merchant has a million things on their mind and they're worried about the economy and they don't know where things are going, how do we make this as simple as possible for those merchants to run their business and ultimately make money as well?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And what we have this incredible loyalty product we use that's really focused on this, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's basically a customer communication tool, sign up customers, you're then able to communicate with them through text, through different means.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really about building the community around you, bringing in those repeat customers, providing them ways to ultimately keep the revenue coming, repeat customers, win back customers, as well as acquiring new customers.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you get that ongoing revenue stream?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: So they're not worried about will I survive tomorrow?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: So they're not worried about the broader economic uncertainty.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: But really, they can just focus on doing what they want to do, run their mom and pop shop, run their business, take care of their family, and you know, ultimately live their life how they want to live it.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what would you say differentiate some up from your competitors out there?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's a good question.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the US is an incredibly large market, as we all know.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I think one of the things we have found is even in this time of it being very this economic uncertainty of it being really hard to be a small merchant right now, some of our competitors are just squeezing the merchants with incredible amounts of fees.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not even really pretending anymore, right?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's a$300 technology fee for no change in technology.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's some other end-of-year fee, which is basically just, you know, buffer our bottom line a little bit.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's just a lot of kind of exploitation, for lack of a better term, going on right now, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's it's coming for a lot of these merchants at terrible times as they're already unsure, as they're already saving, as they're already in a precarious spot.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's something we've been consistent with always at some point is we don't have hidden fees, we don't have technology fees, we don't tack on miscellaneous, undescribable made-up fees at the end of the year.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: We have very clear, transparent contracts, pricing, rates, everything else, and you never end up seeing any sort of fees from us that are that just come out of nowhere, simply for our benefit, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think the second one is customer support.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think even in a time, we can talk a little bit more about AI here, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: In a time where there's been a huge push towards AI and chatbots and really saving costs on the customer support front, we've been actually been investing.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: So as I mentioned, our our El Paso office, we've got an incredible team of in the US bilingual speaking agents that we're actually growing that is there to pick up the phone for merchants when they need us, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of sending you through 12 chatbots and various things to then get back to you 48 hours from now with an answer that doesn't actually solve your problem, you can pick up the phone.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can call our reps.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're not yet at 24-7, but we're aiming to get there.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: We're seven days a week, we've got 365 days a year, and we're looking to get to 24-7 as well.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's you know, ultimately these merchants that are, as I mentioned, in economic uncertainty, worried, try to check out a customer, they can't wait 48 hours for someone to respond to their email or for a chatbot to not answer the question.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: They need that transaction to go through in that moment, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think overall it's just a lot of our time and energy and sweat is focused on like how do you help your merchants grow your business?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So everything we are doing is really about recognizing that without these merchants, these small merchants, we have no business, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like their success is our success.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: If they go under, we go under, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's all about how do we provide them the tools in the cleanest way possible to help them grow their business.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we're spending a lot of time on just that of like how do we build this product better?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: How do we enhance our loyalty more?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: How do we find ways to help the merchant focus on running and growing their business, being successful, as I mentioned, living their dream and spend less time on the nonsense?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's really not about helping them live their dream.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about the future a little bit.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see the biggest growth opportunity in your segment of payments?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's you see a lot.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I mentioned the US is incredibly huge, and a small percentage of this is billions and billions of dollars, right?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: But we've seen, we've been really focusing on kind of narrowing our focus on our ICPs, our ideal customers.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we're seeing a lot of success within what we call kind of the undifferentiated heavy inventory retail customer.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of a mouthful, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's basically convenience stores, bodegas, liquor stores, toy stores, pet stores, stores that have a lot of inventory, a lot of large catalog, a lot of forecasting, a lot of stock on shelf.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they need some way to manage all that, right?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at a level that's beyond what you would find from just your kind of standard level of Square or some of your competitors, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: So when really focusing on how do we, going back to this idea of letting customers run their business, thrive, be successful, how do we make this as simple as possible for them, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in some cases, you have versions with a lot of stock on shelf that's costing them tens of$15,000,$20,000 a year, whatever else it is to buy it, and they don't know anything about it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: So the product we have, the POS product and loyalty product, is tied together, and it provides just really strong insights on this, basically saying, here's how much you have on shelf, here's how much it's worth, here's when it's going to expire.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then being able to tie that up to either running promotions to, you know, one, get rid of expiring product before it goes bad and you have to throw it away, or two, focus on your 3,000 widgets you have on shelf that are not selling so well, launch a promo, launch a special, launch your autopilot, some way to get customers in, buying that product, potentially at a discount, to really clear some of those shelves to then give more room and effort to your products that have higher margin, that sell faster, whatever else it may be.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it's you know, taking a step back.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously there's payments grouped into that, there's different things too, but it's how do you help these merchants run their business in difficult times, do so successfully without having to spend so much time on the weeds of things they may not have experience in or don't have the time to actually dig into further.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a lot of where we're seeing growth opportunities there is on this kind of inventory heavy retail segment.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the second one, as I mentioned, is you're starting to see, I think, this jumping ahead to predictions for the year, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I feel like you're seeing a slow shift away from some of the more classic payments players.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it goes back to my point earlier of just these unnecessary fees, poor customer support, not being able to contact them for help, onerous contracts, whatever else it may be.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're starting to see a shift of these merchants away from them towards some of these companies that, like some up, that actually care about them, want to help them, build products for them, and are not just finding ways to squeeze them every opportunity.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we're really leaning into that messaging and who we're targeting and really letting our experience and customers and proof points be the proof that we need to prove that you know we care about them more than the others and we're actually invested in their success as a company.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit of a cop-out answer because that applies to everybody, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it's being able to kind of like find those merchants, grow those merchants through authenticity and ultimately helping them thrive as a business.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for your company specifically, what does success look like, say, over the next three to five years?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think for the US, I would like to see us be incredibly successful in that space.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is really have a strong foothold in proving we are there, we have the best tools and products available for this retail space.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we are now and will continue to be invested in the success of these merchants.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: So really having a much larger footprint, having much higher brand recognition here, but also just having a lot of word of mouth of merchants referring us to others because they want to see, you know, really acknowledge.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know, Toast had a lot of early success of servers from one restaurant would go to the other one, which would go to the other one and talk about this incredible new food FB focused uh POS system.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: We want that here in the US as well.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've got that in Europe, we've got that in South America.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: We also want to expand that here in North America as well.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that then ties to some of our ambitions for the next three to five years for some up as well, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: So currently we're in 37 countries around the world.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned Europe, South America, North America, recently Mexico, Australia.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: We want to be offering that around the world.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we're really looking to expand our international presence, continue adding countries.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have Canada coming up shortly, expand that further in Mexico, more of South America, finding ways to keep helping Merchants around the world, no matter their language, no matter their background, no matter their geography, open their business, thrive, and be successful.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's ultimately what we want to get to of offering this incredible ecosystem around the world to merchants to help them thrive.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when you look at the payments industry as a whole, what do you think are the biggest trends that are reshaping the industry right now?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a good question.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: 2026, I think it's I always laugh about these things because the predictions are always, you know, you can almost be an idiot to predict what's gonna happen because things are moving so fast nowadays.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll I'll be that idiot here and in and predict a little bit of where it's gonna go, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think if you look at, I mean, obviously there's a lot in the news around stablecoin, around AI, around economic uncertainty, various things there, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think if I look at the stablecoin space, I think that is that to me is pretty interesting.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think on the one hand, it seems to be finding its use case more quickly than distributed finance or blockchain or different things early on.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're finding that both startups and larger companies of East's the MasterCards and others are really investing in this space, seeing the potential for stablecoin as this way for cross-border settlement, for instance, settlement 24-7 around the world.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we haven't yet seen that trickle down to what to the benefits small merchants or for micro-nano merchants.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we're really excited to see where those use cases, where do they come from ultimately?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: How do they actually help these merchants and not just help your larger companies, but really help merchants have faster payments to their bank accounts, faster bill payment, things like that, with stable coins or whatever else it may be, whether it's PICs or VedNow or RFP, different things there.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's one that's gonna keep growing and it's not just overhyped.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna be a lot of really use cases.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think the other one too is AI as cliche as it is right now, right?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's there's been so many bad use cases of AI, and I think all of us can talk to AI slop and things that have just been utterly worthless and never should have been invented in the first place, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: However, I think we are kind of getting to that tipping point where you are seeing true, powerful use cases of AI when used selectively, when used smartly, do actually help merchants have a better idea of their business to understand different things about how they're transacting, what's working, what they're doing, trends in the area.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, despite my comment earlier, there are use cases where a chatbot can be incredibly powerful as a chatbot to help someone with a customer support request.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think there are a lot of things that are going to continue happening in that space.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, there's tons of money being pumped into this, so I hope so, because it's it's the future of the economy at this point, right?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it will be exciting to see where some of those real use cases actually actually arrive.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think just in the US context, I think one of the benefits of being such a global company around so many continents and countries is it almost feels like we have a cheat code or a crystal ball sometimes, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: We're able to see some of these fintech payment trends that are happening around the world and be able to try try those out in a different form in different markets, in different parts of the world, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Then I think Brazil, as I have mentioned with their picks, instant payments just being an incredible.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Success is incredible, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And being able to see, okay, in that current form, it's probably not going to work for the US, but maybe we could tweak it this way.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe it could work here in a different part of Europe or being able to try different things or the kiosk market, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: If I look at every time I go to London, I'm shocked at how many kiosks are across London.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you go to the US, and it feels like it's gaining momentum, but we're like two or three years behind the kiosk movement in London, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: But being able to take that insight, bring it to the US, think about how to localize it in a way that makes sense.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's just a lot of trends you're able to see that, you know, it's not always the US leading the way.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's definitely other countries that are that are bringing the trends and vice versa, and being able to leverage that crystal ball to kind of anticipate what may be coming up next in the space.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned AI as a way for these smaller merchants to get more insights and maybe predict different things.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a powerful use case.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Are you hearing much about sort of the agentic commerce part where people at some point, I don't think it's going to happen anytime real soon, but it's definitely going to happen, I think, using sort of AI to go out and purchase on their behalf.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's a lot of discussion, at least I'm hearing, about, you know, the bigger merchants, the Walmarts and Amazons are going to have an advantage because they have the resources to do that versus the small businesses that you know maybe more some upworks with.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just curious your thoughts on that whole agentic commerce space.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is a obviously a very fast-moving, still very undeveloped space, right?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think everyone's investing in it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, the extent that I have dabbled in it has been really like going into ChatGPT and saying, you know, shop for this, you know, certain parameters, find me at one day shipping under this price, you know, and it's been there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: It hasn't been to the point where it's a one-click buy different thing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's, I think everything that we're already doing on Google nowadays to research a product that we're interested in can be done in this new IGENTIC AI world in the future, probably more efficiently, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, I think it this doesn't replace the interest in me walking out my front door and walking to a coffee shop down the road, right?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: I still want to go and have that experience, have that physical interaction with the employee, have a conversation, build some of that community, build some of that local feel, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I so do I think this is going to be a successful, it's gonna be a trend for sure.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna give Walmart an advantage, I think it's gonna give Amazon an advantage.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I think they also have some of that advantage today, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at big loyalty systems, if you look at big data, just the sheer number of resources behind them, they already have this unfair advantage around all of these small local businesses.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't, you know, at least it almost seems like it's been the opposite.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're seeing almost a resurgence back towards local and community and authenticity and almost a rejection of some of these things on the AI side because we're still humans at the end of the day.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some people want to do everything online.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to have that community and that thriving local businesses and providing that's you know, again, where I spend a lot of my time thinking and waking up too early thinking about these things.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we provide that mainstream advantage for these small merchants?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: How do we provide them with these tools that will help them continue to build that community?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you have that Walmart at every corner, I don't know about you, but for me, that's not a very exciting town to live in, right?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have those 100 independent shops that have a great loyalty system and have community and events and things, that to me is much more exciting.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, yeah, I think long way of answering your question.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: I I think there is gonna be obvious, it's gonna go somewhere.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it will provide an advantage for those bigger players.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: However, I think it will not replace that local community authenticity and need for those smaller micro, you know, and small businesses as well.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a couple of final questions.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you could go back and give yourself advice at the start of your career, what would that be?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, how many hours do we have to go through?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's it's interesting.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking about this recently, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think for whatever reason, I have no idea why I thought this when I first got into the professional world, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Was I had this impression that you should never ask questions.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I would go to work, right?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: My boss would tell me something, and he would say, do this.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: And even if I didn't understand it, I had this weird misconception that, like, if you okay, yep, I got it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: That means like, you know, working all day doing the wrong thing because you didn't ask one simple, stupid question.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think my first advice would be like, go back to the professional world, go back to your first job, ask lots of questions, ask stupid questions, ask questions that will make you actually understand what you're working on and the why behind it, to be able to have that conversation with your boss.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, tied to that, I think was this misconception that bosses either know everything or think they know everything or want you to think they know everything.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think now that I've you know have a team of a couple hundred people that I'm managing here, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I love when people come to me with questions, ideas, new things, because I definitely don't know what's going on.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have an idea of all the answers for everything in the world, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And being able to use that collective brain power to use experiences and people's brains and professional experience of things makes all of us stronger, makes our business stronger, makes makes us empathize more with merchants, makes us understand what's going on in the world better.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the first advice I would give myself.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think the second would be enjoy the ride a little bit.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: All of us spent a lot of time at our jobs.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think early days when I was in consulting and different things, I was always super stressed, lack of sleep, different things, and the time and place for that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's you know not true now as well, but I think there's there's a need to like enjoy what you're doing, because if you're spending 40, 50, 60 euros a week, some weeks at your job, you better enjoy it and the people you're working with.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: So lighten up and enjoy the journey overall.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think both great advice for people.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the the questions one.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've asked this question a lot, and and I don't get that answer very often, but I think it's spot on.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about my early career, same same thing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Ask more questions.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you said something in there too that I think will resonate is understand the why.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you doing what you're doing?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Where do we get these misconceptions?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know where that, where we were where we learned that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: We must learn it in school or something.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But no, great advice.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, one final question.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's the one thing that payments leaders that are listening to this show today, what do you think they should be thinking about right now?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think there are a lot of ways that I think you can, you know, in the payment space, you can make a quick dollar, make a quick buck, right?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of ways where you can go in, provide something, get the right good market motion, get the system in place just good enough to get out there and sell it, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think that really does a disadvantage to the payment space.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that the more you have some of these shady actors who are really just out there to make as much money as possible and then drop and run or exploit merchants or lock them into long-term contracts.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think it does a disservice to all of us in the payment space who actually really care about this space and really care about the merchants we're working with.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: But ultimately it does a huge disadvantage to those merchants who are getting hit with those fees that are getting hit with those things which don't help them thrive, don't help them run a business, and in some cases, actually sink their business, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it it really goes back to this idea of like our success, some payments professionals, human beings, whatever it is, is dependent upon others, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Their success of the merchants is a success that we have in ours.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's really like asking myself and others like, how are we building our products every day to help merchants thrive, grow, live their dreams, build their business?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And how are we doing so and making sure they're able to have that longevity and not just that short-term exploitation or payment bump that ultimately helps no one in the end, except maybe the person who's shadily doing it?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's for me that's what it is.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's there's so many ways where you can exploit merchants, but ultimately all of us together need to grow this together, build this trust and grow together as merchants and companies, payments professionals.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's what will get us there to be successful in the end.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know your time is very valuable.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being here.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And until the next story.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpayments.com, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 27:53
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