July 13, 2021 • 51 mins
In this episode of "B2B Cashflow Conversations", Ernest and guest Marwan Forzley, the CEO and Founder of Veem, discuss how Fintech companies are simplifying the experience of both global and domestic B2B payments. Also discussed: Permanent changes in business operations as a result of the pandemic, the winners and losers of RTP, and how SMBs can level the playing field through payment automation.
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Episode Transcript
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Ernest Rolfson (00:00):
Give it a second to kind of kick in start the
recording. Great. Okay, so todaywe've got Marwan Forzley, the
CEO and founder of Veem. Marwanis an entrepreneur, disrupter
and visionary in the paymentsindustry. He's made significant
contributions in theimplementation of blockchain
(00:22):
technology and B2B payments.
Definitely one of the movers andshakers in the industry. Veem
actually describes itself as aVenmo for businesses and is
rapidly growing, as no surprise,the B2B payments industry
continues to heat up not justdomestically but really
globally. So without furtherado, Marwan great to be with
(00:46):
you.
Marwan Forzley (00:48):
Thanks for having me. Good to see you
again.
Ernest Rolfson (00:52):
Absolutely, absolutely. Your'e up in Marin?
Or Bay Area?
Marwan Forzley (00:59):
Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Just outside the
city.
Ernest Rolfson (01:02):
That's where you're holed up? Have you been
there the whole time?
Marwan Forzley (01:07):
We've been here holding the fort during the
whole COVID era. So from thestart of COVID until now, we've
been in the same spot. My houseis becoming not only an office
for me, but for me, the kids,and the wife and we're all on
Zoom, maximizing our internetusage all day.
Ernest Rolfson (01:28):
You've got to keep AT&T or Verizon happy. They
don't like it when you're notusing the pipes. You've got to
keep it on.
Marwan Forzley (01:38):
I'm definitely utilizing the pipes.
Ernest Rolfson (01:43):
That's good.
That's good. So well, look,thanks again for being with me
here. You've been a collaboratorfor several years now. I've
enjoyed getting to know you, andwork with you. You've been at
Veem now, what is it eightyears?
Marwan Forzley (02:03):
We started Veem in late 2014. I used to run
ecommerce for Western Union andbefore that, I was in a startup
called eBillme, which I foundedand sold to them. And before
that I was another startup thatended up at Nokia so I've been
back and forth between startupsand tech companies. I started
(02:26):
Veem back again in 2014. It is asimple idea really that, you
know, that when you go buycoffee in the morning, you don't
think of how you pay, you justdo it. Whatever you're doing you
have cash, card, or whatever youhave in your wallet and you pay
and you move on. Your mind issomewhere else, you know, your
mind is on emails and calendarsand work and everything else in
(02:46):
life. When you do businesspayments, it's the opposite of
that. It's like an experiencefull of friction for both the
parent and the receiver. And sothe experience just goes from
like really simple when you gobuy coffee to really complex
when you go to businesstransactions. And I thought
(03:08):
that's gonna change--you'regonna make it a simple way to
send money domestic andinternational. Just like paying
for coffee, you don't thinkabout it. In the world of
business payments, it doesn'tfunction like that for a variety
of reasons. It doesn't work likethat. And so that's why we
started Veem so we make itreally simple for businesses to
(03:30):
pay and get paid.
Ernest Rolfson (03:35):
Beyond the kind of personal experience, and I
think that's so right, is thatwhat I think the market could
learn from us is that B2Bpayments are so different than
regular "payments" in terms ofhow much effort and work there
is between buyer and supplier. Iknow that your company was
(03:58):
bought by Western Union orinvolved there. Did you see
something about your experiencethere that also inspired you on
Veem? Or did you learn somethingabout international money
movement that you said, I thinkthere's a better angle here. Was
that part of the inspiration?
Marwan Forzley (04:16):
You know what is interesting is Western Union is
a really good platform to learnabout countries and currencies
all around the world. And sowhen they acquired my company, a
lot of my experience have beendomestic payments in all its
angles from consumer tobusiness, consumer to consumer,
(04:39):
and business to business butit's all domestic. When I got
into Veem, it was interestingand eye opening to learn about
all the various paymentexperiences in Europe and Asia
and different parts of theworld. And the more I learned
about that, the more the moreI'm thinking man, that whole
experience is more difficultwhen you start doing
(05:01):
international. And that's anopportunity to really simplify
it and make it look like it's asimple consumer experience and
it's like a domestic experience.
That's the way we design Veem.
But there's definitelyinspiration from my days of
Western Union. You know globalpayments are complex and full of
friction and there's a lot ofroom to simplify it. It's an
(05:24):
area that that can be simplifiedfor a long period of time. It's
not like, you know, let me makesome quick changes. And we're
done here. There's room foryears and years of
simplification that can befactored in perfectly, because
this industry B2B has not seeninnovation for a long period of
time. You know, I mean, if youlook back to the past few years
(05:51):
FinTech became hot and sexy.
That's because partly it's beenbaking for a while that there
needs to be changes. And partlybecause this is an area where
you can go at it for a long timemaking some dedication, and
there'll be room for all kindsof players to do well.
Ernest Rolfson (06:08):
Right. I mean, it's such an enormous global
market, it's inevitable thatthere'll be multiple winners in
angles based on specific needs.
Marwan Forzley (06:23):
It's a big world. So many countries and
owners.
Ernest Rolfson (06:28):
Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize this, you wrote a
book, Small Business in a BigWorld: A Comprehensive Guide to
Doing International Business.
Was that partly because you'refocused on the SMB market? I
mean, is there a uniquechallenge around SMB and
(06:50):
navigating payments and orinternational payments? And is
there something unique about howyou're approaching to solve for
that? Is there something crucialto understand there or something
that you really got fired upabout? Just, you know, as a
layman that doesn't understandmaybe SMB versus mid versus
(07:12):
large market?
Marwan Forzley (07:15):
Yeah, it's an interesting question. So the
reason we ended up writing thatbook is because we started with
a bunch of blogs about how to dobusiness in, you know, China and
India, and Germany and Franceand different parts of the
world. And it was interesting, Iwas at CES, actually and I
happened to bump into a customerwho was telling me, man, it's
(07:37):
tough to do business with, youknow, country x. I won't mention
the country, but he wascomplaining that.
Ernest Rolfson (07:44):
(Laughter) Yeah, you want to stay safe.
Marwan Forzley (07:50):
It was complaining about doing business
with that country. This businessin particular was in the in the
US. And then, just at the sameevent, I happen to run into
another beam customer that wasfrom Japan, and he was
complaining about how difficultit is to do business with the
US. And so, I got into detailsof like, so why is it difficult
(08:12):
to do business, and then theystart talking about, you know,
all kinds of issues, fromcommunication to expectations to
logistics. And a good chunk ofthat was payment related, like
just basic stuff, like, youknow, do I actually pay you
before you ship the goods, and Itrust you enough to actually
send you my money, before youshowed me the goods. And the
(08:34):
other side of it is that if Iship you the goods, and I don't
have your money, how do I knowthat you actually going to pay
me so like basic stuff. Then itgets even more ingrained into,
like, all kinds of culturalstuff. So for example, if you're
in the US, you would send anemail to some supplier in China,
(08:56):
while the supplier in China isprobably like, a lot more
interested in actuallycommunicating with you all
through WeChat or SMS. And sothere's a lot of nuances to
doing business between thesecountries and I thought it would
be interesting to turn the blogsinto books and that's what we
ended up doing. We kind of turnit into a collection of chapters
on how to do business in variousparts of the world.
Ernest Rolfson (09:19):
The best of. I love it. The best blog posts.
You sound like a VC orsomething. They have all their
blog posts. They've got enoughblog post they turned them into
a book. You're like a BenHorowitz.
Marwan Forzley (09:31):
I got inspiration from talking to
customer so that that's why weended up doing the doing the
book. Global payments are aninteresting thing because you
touch on, first of all howpayments work in different
countries but also you touch oncultures and ways of doing
things that are maybe okay foryou in the US but are difficult
(09:55):
to do in other parts of theworld. I can give you an
example. In the US, let's sayyou're doing a payment online
and I asked you for your socialsecurity number. That's
something that people do in theUS like I'll give you my last
four digits and it's a commonpractice. That same experience
of getting somebody's socialsecurity number in other parts
(10:16):
of Europe or other parts of theworld may actually be a big
no-no, because I'm giving you alot of information here that,
you know, why do you need thatinformation? And that touches on
privacy concerns and securityconcerns where there's different
tolerance to that type ofinformation and in other parts
(10:37):
of the world. So you assume thatif something works in the US
that's going to work indifferent parts of the world and
that's not true. And it'scomplicated, because every
country has its own nuances andstories, and what they like and
they don't like to do.
Ernest Rolfson (10:52):
Yeah. Now different to that point on
collecting socials, a lot ofit's around regulation. Right?
Around compliance andregulation.
Marwan Forzley (11:01):
Regulation, compliance, safety, and what's
acceptable in different settingsand different countries. You
know, so somebody who was buyinga product, in Germany, for
example, may find that to beoverkill. Why do I have to give
you all this data to dosomething? While it probably is
(11:22):
a common practice in the US andCanada and is something that
people do. So thesesensitivities show up when
you're doing when you'reservicing customers all around
the world.
Ernest Rolfson (11:39):
We'll get back to some of that, I want to talk
about kind of meeting customer'sneeds, especially domestically,
and what you're doing there andhow you think about the B2B
payments space. What I wanted totouch on too, is to congratulate
you on your funding round,recently led by Truist,
(12:01):
something like $31 million.
You've been able to attract someinternational banks to support
you, some very fancy venturefunds. You know, some good
names, I would say. What hasbeen--it can't just be the
technology--I want to mentionyou about blockchain and see
your thoughts there. But whathas been the drivers around
(12:24):
investor interest here? And whatare you guys doing well in
serving this B2B payment needthat is getting some of these
banks to the table to supportyou that they're not able to do
on their own? Because it feelslike a lot of your investors are
more strategic in nature, thatthey really understand this. And
(12:44):
you've smartly taken advantageof that.
Marwan Forzley (12:49):
Yeah, and we did this by design. We were
interested in partners wherethere is an investment and there
is potential commercialrelationship with with a
partner. It's like BB plusmoney. And what we're solving
for is basically something thatthe partner values. So if you
(13:11):
think of the way it works today,we have payment capabilities,
payment infrastructure, we haveKYC infrastructure, we have
customers, and we have created amodel where we see growth with
the customers that we have onthe system. And so what's
valuable to the investor isreally the combination of the
various pieces connect together.
The fact that you can do paymentprocessing with KYC automation,
(13:34):
with integrations intoaccounting systems with
customers that like the productand you can get enough of them
at a faster pace, it attractscapital to help you scale it to
the next space. That's that'sthe way it's it's architected. I
do think, though, that the valuethat strategic spraying is the
ability to have relationshipswith them, where really money as
(13:57):
a way to align interests andgoals and agendas. That said,
it's not necessarily the end allbe all. I mean, you know, we can
do commercial deals with otherinvestments. We can do
investments that just for thepure return on capital. I like
the combination where you'regetting the investment, plus
(14:17):
some commercial relationshipthat you can potentially have an
interaction with with a partnerthat ends up yielding to
something that benefits both ofus.
Ernest Rolfson (14:30):
Is it that a lot of these partners or banks--is
it the untappe need in SMB? Isit hard to bring commercial
payment solutions to smallercompanies? There are some gaps
that you're kind of working toovercome? It's almost like when
(14:53):
you're dealing with an SMB in away--tell me if I'm wrong--isn't
it almost like they havedifferent almost consumer-like
expectations around experienceor usage, right? They need
maybe--an SMB needs somethingsimpler. It still has as to work
and be very effective. Butalmost like form factor is more
important than if you're sellingto some enterprise company. And
(15:15):
they're using older green screentechnology for a lot of their
business. They're not usingcloud, is that some part of it
as well? Or maybe I'm off? MaybeI'm off base. But I'd love to
hear your thoughts.
Marwan Forzley (15:27):
No, you're absolutely right. If you look at
the banks and how they servicetheir customers, you know,
there's a retail business unitthat deals with consumer
customer, and there's corporatethat deal with commercial and
larger accounts. SMB has almostlost this sort of. Some banks
(15:47):
put them in retail, some banksput them in commercial payments.
And the reality is they'reneither consumer, nor
commercial, like nor corporate.
They are their own class.
They're a struggle between thetwo. They need services that
look like a consumer service.
Simple, easy to use, but theyneed sophistication that comes
(16:08):
from corporate-like products,where you can do account
approvals, payment approvals,you can integrate accounting
systems, you can have multipletypes of accounts on the system.
So they need moresophistication, but it needs to
stay like a consumer experience.
And they also have differentpricing needs compared to
(16:29):
corporate when compared toretail. So they usually are like
the most restructuring group ata bank. They could keep moving
them around. And it's a hardergroup to service. They don't
have enough balance to put themin a, you know, in corporate
accounts, you have accountmanagers on them. The pricing
(16:52):
that they need is very differentthan consumers. So they can't be
in the retail group. So they endup being this lost, under
serviced market. And that's themarket we go after. And the
reason we teamed up withpartners, because they know that
that's a market that'sunderserved, and they're looking
for tools and services to helpfor that market to go after that
(17:12):
market more efficiently. Andthat's what we bring to the
table. We aggregate that marketin a self-serve, simple to use
structure that appeals to thepartner we're working with.
Ernest Rolfson (17:25):
Right now, in your mind, is it right to say
that you're helping these SMBsthink like big companies in a
way? Or are you democratizingaccess to payment products in a
way that maybe bigger companieswould? Or is it is there
something else that may be theirunique needs are different?
Marwan Forzley (17:43):
I'd say in an unlevel playing field, we're
leveling the playing field. Imean, like some of this that we
typically see for big corp. Youdon't have access, and usually
the banks don't offer it forSMB. And so what we do, because
we're developing if you know,self serve fans, you go simple
(18:05):
product, you make a lot offunctionality that's only
available for corporateaccounts, you take it and you
make it available for the large,small number of customers that
want a product like this. Sothat's that's the way you know
Veem works. And, you know,leveling the playing field is a
good way of describing it.
Ernest Rolfson (18:33):
Touching back on the technology side, I mentioned
earlier blockchain. I don'tthink we have to go so deep
here, but I understood you wereone of the first or the first
company to do something like$300 million worth of payments
through blockchain. It had beenhot, it was cold. Blockchains
hot again, we're seeing ElonMusk on SNL talking down
(18:54):
Dogecoin. Now, I mean, what doyou think? You know, what do you
see a future for this? And whatdo you think the biggest benefit
of blockchain technology is orwill be around payments? Or like
why do you think it's importantthat you've made some investment
there? And is this somethingthat will maybe be more behind
the scenes going forward and ismore just really infrastructure
(19:17):
and folks don't need to reallyknow how this is happening? But
that there's a better way,perhaps? Is that is that the way
to think about it? How have youthought about how to use that
for SMB? Because it seems that'sa newer, bright piece of the pie
here.
Marwan Forzley (19:33):
Yeah, as you mentioned, you know, we've done
this like really early, back in2014 and 2015. We were doing,
you know, payments on crypto andblockchain. And the reason we do
it is because it gives us theability to service markets that
are harder to get to usingtraditional methods. So for
(19:58):
example, If I want to move moneyto Mexico, traditionally, what I
would do is I would have my ownbank account in Mexico. I have
pesos in it and whenever I havea transaction or payment that's
going to Mexico, I use my pesosposition to essentially disperse
pesos to the recipient inMexico. What the blockchain
does, is it gives me the abilityto service that customer using a
(20:21):
very different infrastructurewhere I use crypto as a way to
synthetically cross from onefiat to another. So I go fiat
crypto crypto fiat. And I also,one of the key things here is
going in and out of cryptoefficiently because you know,
the price changes all the time.
So you got to do it in anefficient manner. It allows me
to service that market withouthaving essentially all the
(20:43):
infrastructure required to dopayment processing in that
market. It's kinda like a way toget going using alternative
technology, where the technologygives you an edge compared to
traditional methods. Thetraditional methods here being
either bank wire, or you set upyour own bank account
(21:04):
infrastructure. What's niceabout crypto also is that you
can do transactions in themiddle of the night. There's no
banking hours and you can trackpayments because of all of the
payments process a note on theblockchain, you can basically
Google map your payment. So itmakes it really simple to
operate the payment flows. Andthat's why we took advantage of
(21:26):
it. It is behind the scenes forus. The customers don't see it,
don't know it. They're notreally aware. They're not aware.
It is by design. And they don'tcare. They don't care.
Customers, you know, if you'reselling clothes or books or
furniture, do you really carehow the payment actually got
(21:48):
there? What you care about ishow much am I paying to get this
payment delivered to mysupplier, or the person that's
helping me out on this project?
I win. That's all they careabout--cost and timing. And
that's the way we think aboutit.
Ernest Rolfson (22:16):
It has to be less about products going
forward and more about theexperience overall. Right? And
more about what can you deliverfor buyer and supplier. And to
your point, they--especiallywith an SMB--they know even less
about payments and moneymovement than a big corporate.
(22:37):
Right? They're small mom and popand to your point they just want
to know the service is going tobe provided. And that's fine.
And if you can do it in abetter, more efficient way, it
allows you to expand yourbusiness more rapidly and serve
your customers better. Andthat's where I see payments
moving. Not to say there's goingto be a black box, but I think
(22:59):
the payments industry and thebanks are struggling with around
thinking about, you know,product product product pushing
card, pushing a CH, pushingwire, instead of more talking
about what are the outcomes?
What is the experience you canexpect? I think you've spoken a
lot of time on the experienceand about a comprehensive
solution.
Marwan Forzley (23:20):
Yeah, I don't think this small businesses
actually care about how paymentshappen. You know, I don't think
they want to learn. I guessanother thing at one point, this
is early on, we kind of startedexposing the logic of having,
you know, customers choose therail they want to work with, and
(23:42):
nobody cared. Customers want tosend money to a location and
they need to understand thesetwo things: cost and time.
That's it. How it gets there islike, you know, you do it for
me. That's the reason I'mworking with you.
Ernest Rolfson (24:00):
Yeah, yeah, you're the expert. You're the
expert. Is it fair to say mostof your business's international
today? Is that an accuratestatement in terms of the flows
and the types of customerproblems you're solving is
international?
Marwan Forzley (24:21):
We do both international and domestic.
International is the biggerpiece of the business.
Ernest Rolfson (24:29):
That's right.
Marwan Forzley (24:29):
Domestic US, domestic Canada.
Ernest Rolfson (24:33):
Canada, right.
Domestic Canada, that's growingfor you?
Marwan Forzley (24:36):
And US as well.
Yeah, both are growing segments.
Ernest Rolfson (24:42):
Can you share, I guess why the domestic piece is
important? And the expansionyou're doing there? The SMB
space has been heating up. Therewas a very big, build up comm
acquisition this past week andexpense management, very high
valuations. There's really beenseveral different entrance, only
(25:08):
a few bigger players, you'rereally one of them doing
something interesting. But itseems to me that you sense
there's a big opportunity atdomestic here. So help us
understand what some of yourcustomers--please.
Marwan Forzley (25:24):
I'm a little bit different in my approach in that
I don't think of, you know, Veemas a domestic service or
international service or crossborder, I think customer. So
what do you need to do payments,let me help you do it. Some of
its going to be domestic, someis going to be international,
some of it requires foreignexchange so if it stays in US
(25:44):
dollar. And I don't really pushone way or another, it's like
whatever the customer wants todo. So we think I've had more
coming at it from a customerperspective, what is it that
they want to do? Rather than areyou doing, or are you playing
here or playing cross border. Wehave a different approach.
Ernest Rolfson (26:06):
Understood. Is there, I guess in terms of the
typical US based customer, whatare the, the kind of typical
problems you're solving forthem?
Marwan Forzley (26:21):
Generally?
Ernest Rolfson (26:23):
Is it unique?
Like and it's the CFO, is thatwho you're speaking to the CFO?
Or the business owner?
Marwan Forzley (26:31):
Business owner, CFO, controller, sometimes their
accountant depending on the sizeof the business, and generally,
they're looking for a simple wayto move money around, either to
pay or get paid. In domesticmarkets, what they like, is
generally the ability to paywith email, like, that's what
they were looking for. I'm abusiness in California, I have
(26:53):
this supplier that I'm workingwith in New York, I want to send
them some money. And here's asimple way I don't, I don't
really have their bank accountinformation on me, it's taking
some time to go figure it out.
So let me just log in and sendan email out. And here's money
for you. Kind of similar to youknow, Venmo, or Square cash or
Zelle its like that, but forbusinesses and people like that.
Ernest Rolfson (27:23):
Okay, so it's almost like you've removed a lot
of that friction and if theydon't have the data available,
they can still pay and still letpeople know that they're trying
to pay them.
Marwan Forzley (27:34):
Yes, that's a key.
Ernest Rolfson (27:36):
Is that a fair summary?
Marwan Forzley (27:37):
That's a key value proposition is simplicity
of experience. Because when youare doing domestic payments you
generally are doing ACH, check,card. These are like the main,
you know, instruments. Oh, an orwire. Wire tends to be the sort
of bigger instrument for largertransactions. Generally, when
(28:01):
you're doing you know, smallpayments, they end up happening
on the station cards, and largepayments they happen on wire. So
what we're doing is we'rebasically giving the ability for
you to do larger payments in asimple way by email, pulling
money on one side and depositingon the other side. And that
experience essentially ends upbeing a wire replacement type
(28:23):
experience for domestic workers.
Ernest Rolfson (28:30):
Understood, understood. You know, our
companies partner together andwork with you on some domestic
payment products, specificallyin the check space. I guess tell
me why was rolling out a newpayment modality important to
you and your customers? Youknow, why do you see this as
(28:52):
being necessary? And do youforesee that kind of... Have you
seen that in other markets oryou see that customer demand is
saying, "Hey Veem, we want toneed you to do more for us?"
Help us understand kind ofwhat--I think you're calling
this Veem local--Is that theright kind of your
comprehensive, you know, kind ofpayment solution. I'd love to
(29:16):
learn more about kind of howyour thinking about this.
Marwan Forzley (29:18):
Yeah, being local is really the concept of
having businesses in localmarkets, pay locally and have
choice in their payments. Theycan choose one, you know, check
card, ACH, whatever they want.
We teamed up because eitherthere's something interesting
that happened during COVID. Wegot feedback from the customer
(29:41):
that they want to spend check,which is kind of odd during
COVID because, you know, youassume that because of this
situation were in people want togo and do electronic payments.
What was interesting about that,though, is we have this tracker
with Veem where you can trackwhat happens the payment, kind
of think of it like a FedEx forpayments where you can give to
(30:03):
people.
Ernest Rolfson (30:06):
Right. Yep, yep.
Marwan Forzley (30:08):
And so when the sender sends the check, it sends
a notification to the receiverwith an expected delivery time.
What was interesting about thatis the receiver actually never
showed up to the office to pickany mail. It's just that when
they got on that notificationthat there's going to be, you
(30:29):
know, a check, they will showup, pick up the rest of the
mail, pick up the check and go.
And it was, you know, it's likemarrying a new and old together.
Like the new stuff was like thetracking and the ability to
refine delivery times on things,and then the oldest actually
sending a check. And so we putthem together, which was
(30:50):
valuable for the payers and thepayees in a in a situation where
still the payer had thesepolicies to send the check, and
they wanted to do it. And thereceiver wanted a way to notify
them that, hey, maybe theyshould show up to the office to
pick up whatever mail they have,including the check. And so it
ended up appealing to bothparties--the payer and the
(31:10):
payee--so we ended up teaming upwith you to do it. And, you
know, a lot of that is just backto customer feedback, you know,
customers want to pay this wayso like who am I to tell him to
choose the other way or youknow, maybe there's other ways
to do things. I would just gowith whatever the customer
(31:30):
wants, we do for them.
Ernest Rolfson (31:36):
Do you see this though, as a way to expand your
share of wallet with eachcustomer and be more valuable to
them? Right. And because you'redoing more?
Marwan Forzley (31:45):
We think of it primarily, we come out of, first
of all, the experience--like isthis a delightful, simple
experience? And this, whathappens is as an outcome of
that, is you end up getting moreshare of wallet from the
customer. Share of wallet is abyproduct of a simpler
thing--that I am giving you adifferent experience and what
(32:07):
you get today and thisexperience is lifelong.
Ernest Rolfson (32:14):
Prior, they would be doing this outside of
Veem on their own, maybe bywallet. Right. And is there
something about COVID that wasunique? And you probably don't
see this slowing down, but inthe past, you described that the
customers cared less about howthings went out the door. It
(32:36):
seems around the checks andCOVID, and your customers
wanting to do more with you andget more out of your platform.
Was there anything that youcould tell that seemed to drive
that? Just as a point ofcuriosity, it's kind of
interesting. Cash Flow may be anidea. I don't, I don't know. I'm
just curious if you have anyinsights?
(32:57):
Cash flow is definitely one ofthe variables, especially during
COVID. Because everybody watchesyour numbers, and especially in
a situation where, you know,demand, and sales might be more
powerful than usual. So you wantto keep an eye on where your
cash position is and when you'regoing to get paid and what
happens to payments whetherthey're in or out of your
(33:20):
balance sheet. I think what'sinteresting during COVID, is
that, you know, we have a lot ofonline businesses, you know,
combination of ecommerce, emailstartups, online business
services, and they did very wellduring COVID compared to more
traditional segment like retailand travel. And because their
(33:42):
business expanded, they ended upexpanding both domestically, as
well as cross border. And sothat was interesting in that we
see an uptick in volume on bothsides of it. And that's a good
sign, usually businesses good,you're servicing more customers,
you're getting more revenue,you're getting more sales, and
you're expanding on both ends.
And that's why when I go backtody, you know, organizing
principles around this, I don'treally think of it as like I'm
(34:05):
just going to do your domesticpayments or your cross border
payments. I don't think of itlike that. I think of it as like
you have your payment needs,it's growing, let me help you
get there and we'll simplify itas much as we can for you.
Whatever you want to do. If youwant to pay with check, with
(34:26):
card, with bank, whatever youwant. We support that. That's
sort of how we think of it.
Given that they do have choiceelsewhere, is it the
experiential factor that peopleare choosing you over others?
Marwan Forzley (34:47):
Yeah, I mean, the reference point--
Ernest Rolfson (34:49):
Is that the big the big selling point there?
Marwan Forzley (34:51):
Yes, the reference point is backfire. I
mean, most of these customers,they go to Chase, Wells (Fargo),
BOA, smaller banks they workwith, and they send wires. And
they're looking for, you know, adifferent experience-- something
simpler, less fees. Yeah, that'sanother thing fees. Like so you
said domestic wire that's like,you know, 20 bucks, for example,
(35:15):
to send the wire. Yeah, withVeem you're sending local
payments for free. So just asimpler, free pay as you go, you
don't have to worry about sellerfees, monthly fees. You have
payments, we support you and agood chunk of it is free. We
make money on cars and foreignexchange.
Ernest Rolfson (35:37):
Understood, understood. So coming out of
this, and actually before COVID,small business was up like 15%.
In terms of your volume, I'msure you've seen a big snap back
so far, especially in some ofthe verticals you said that have
been strong during COVID. Yousaid you have a lot of smaller
businesses that are ecommerceand others that probably were
(35:59):
just, you know, COVID was a blipin many respects. But with
everything that's happened inthe world since, do you think
that these other SMBs are goingto continue driving growth? Do
you think there's going to be alonger recovery? What kind of
trends you're seeing crossborder and domestic, but maybe
(36:21):
have a favorable mix. But it'sinteresting to just kind of hear
your trends about thesebusinesses needs going forward
based on just what's happening.
Marwan Forzley (36:29):
I actually think something super interesting is
developing. And these arestructural changes that are
going to stay for a long time.
And I described them into twodifferent pockets.
You know, the rise of ecommerce.
Ecommerce is going to stay for along, long time, I think habits
have changed. In pre-COVID, youused to go to the store. And if
(36:49):
you're stuck, you needsomething, you can't find a
store, you go online. WithCOVID, you start online, if
you're really stuck, and there'ssomething you need immediately,
and you can't wait for it to gethome, you know, to get shipped
to you, then you go to thestore. So these habits have been
like this for like almost a yearand a quarter. And so these
(37:13):
habits are set now. Now, mygrandma can do shopping online,
and she finds it actually quiteenjoyable and simple. And so
that's going to keep going. Theother thing that I think is a
structural change is labor. Youknow, in the past you used to
employ people around you. Solike you have an office in
(37:35):
Boston, I go find people inBoston, I get them to come to
the office, and I pay themdeposits on one of the payroll
processors. That also ischanging and changing quite a
bit. We're seeing volume to allkinds of places around the world
because if I'm in Zoom all day,it doesn't matter if I'm in San
Francisco, you're in Boston. Imean, if we're both on Zoom,
(37:59):
well might as well also haveemployees or labor join in from
Canada, from Mexico, fromPhilippines, from Germany. And
so you're seeing this rise ofremote labor, and payments to
labor all around the world.
That's a big trend. And that'salso supplemented by the gig
(38:23):
economy and the rise of, youknow, payouts to that
environment. So I think theseare like, you know, large
structural use cases that haveshifted. And I think it's gonna
be like this for a while, Imean, you know, sure, we're all
going to go back to an office,and we're all going to find it
enjoyable to go to a restaurantand have real meetings in
(38:43):
person. But I think it's all thehabits that have developed
during COVID are going to stayfor a while and going to be the
predominant use case.
Ernest Rolfson (38:58):
Seems like that's where things are going,
what you're saying. We'veexperienced that here and any
business now your understandingremote is at least going to be I
think the majority, or at least50% of the way people work. And
companies I believe are gettingmore flexible about who they do
business with and where andwhere they hire. So you seem to
be spot on the money. Unlessyou're running a factory,
(39:21):
there's really no other reason.
Marwan Forzley (39:23):
Even when you're running a factory, it's
surprising how many of the folksin the factory are now remote,
you know, joining in on Zoom. Imean unless you're operating the
machine itself, just themanagement, the HR parts, I mean
good chunk of that is like emailthese days. So I think the
(39:46):
interesting piece here is thatthis has gone on for awhile, but
if this was a couple of months,people would go back to their
old ways and life moves on. Butthis is now a habit. And the
thing is because we've beendoing this for a long time,
having assumed that this is theway it's going to go forward,
we're being in an office orgoing to the restaurant or
(40:10):
shopping offline are going to bemore like things you just enjoy
doing, but not your defaultcase.
Ernest Rolfson (40:23):
I feel you. What are you excited about next,
whether you know B2B payments,anything you're excited about?
Anything, you know, maybeupcoming for Veem, that you're
either planning that you cantalk about or involved in? What
are you looking forward to inany kind of big, bigger
(40:45):
trends--maybe industry wise orotherwise--that you think you're
either in a good position totake advantage of or that you
see yourself working on here?
Marwan Forzley (40:54):
Yeah, I think there's interesting trends that
are developing for B2B ingeneral. I think you're going to
see a lot more rise of wallets,domestic and global wallets as a
form of payments and exchange ofreal time, funds between
(41:16):
parties. I think the crypto ishere to stay despite
dismissiveness for all kinds ofindividuals that say, maybe this
is something that has nointrinsic value. It is not going
anywhere, anytime soon.
Ernest Rolfson (41:33):
Now, that I think that's one of the biggest
takeaways that most people don'tunderstand is that crypto is not
going anywhere. It is veryserious and very real.
Marwan Forzley (41:46):
Yeah. And I think there is appetite,
stronger appetite these days forreal time payments. That's
across the board, domestic andinternational. So the rise of
systems that enable real time isgoing to be something that's
demanded by the industry,whether it's RTP, or cousins of
(42:06):
RTP. And same thing in othermarkets outside the US. I think
some of the whys of neobanks isinteresting, where some of the
services offered and experiencesare very different than
traditional banks, I think we'regoing to see a rise of players
in that market starting withconsumer neobanks. But, you
(42:28):
know, over time, also emergingto business neobanks. So that's
an that's a trend that we'regoing to see. Right, more more
players in that in that segment.
I think anything that is crossborder in any form, like whether
it's consumer business, payoffspans, I mean, that market is so
complicated. That just requiresmassive simplifications for a
(42:51):
long period of time, there'sthere's going to be emergence of
a number of players that coverthat market as well.
Ernest Rolfson (43:02):
So sounds like you're in the right spot. One
thing I want to mention on-
Marwan Forzley (43:09):
We're trying to be.
Ernest Rolfson (43:14):
That's right, well, try your best. That's
right. That's all you can do.
But I want to say when RTP--this comes up, it's come up
actually in a lot of myconversations with other CEOs
and leaders in the industry, doyou think RTP is negative for
card and card volume? Or is itvery situational? And do you see
(43:37):
this being more important forSMB, or where they're like, Hey,
we really need to make a paymenturgently and so now we can do
this and pay a fee. Because Isee it being net very negative
for wires, which are cumbersomeand manual and are doing that
same day and you mentionedearlier $20 a transaction. You
know, is there a loser in RTP?
(44:04):
Or is it really a new? Is itsituational?
Marwan Forzley (44:06):
I totally think it's more situational. I think
it's it's RTP will do well insituations where you're looking
to move large amounts of moneyinto real time selling without
fees. RTP does that. So itdoesn't really, I mean, it might
pick up some volume from card,some volume from checks, or
volume from ACH but in general,it probably will pick up the
(44:29):
bigger volume from from wire.
More from wire than the othersystems. There's just situations
where you have a larger amountof money you need to move at
real time. And you know, you'relooking for a cheaper way to do
it real time. I think RTP willfill a gap there.
Ernest Rolfson (44:48):
Yeah, that makes sense. One thing you didn't
mention, where our Finexioteam's made a big bet investment
around the timing of payment andspeed of payment. We launched
something called Finexio Cash,which is about getting the
suppliers paid upon invoiceapproval. So realizing there's a
(45:09):
time value of money and gettingfunds to the suppliers early,
where maybe they're stillreceiving a check, and they
realize that slow and slow todeposit or the buyers are just
paying them slower and you know,some some pressures due to COVID
and otherwersie. Is speed andthe time value something that is
critical? Are you doing anythingin this area? Or is it really
(45:32):
not been for these SMB's? It'smuch more about the banks can't
give them a great turnkeysolution. And so that's maybe
next wave and you're reallytackling, you know, an
experiential component first?
I'm just curious, do you see anyconvergence around this kind of
credit and lending and payments?
Marwan Forzley (45:54):
This is a good topic. Thanks for bringing it
up. And then I think the workyou guys are doing in this area
is quite valuable for customers.
And I think capital and paymentsare cost cousins. If you ask
customer what else can I do foryou, besides payments, usually
they bring up lending. So, youknow, they're very close to each
(46:14):
other. So I think I think thereis a lot of room in this market
as well, you know. And thanksfor bringing that up, it reminds
me that that's an area that is akey area in the future as well.
You're going to see moreconvergence between what used to
be typical and things used to beconditional payments coming,
getting closer.
Ernest Rolfson (46:39):
That's right.
It's just natural. I mean, forme, I really think of FinTech
and what you're doing and whatI'm doing as a kind of a rail
and infrastructure provider.
This is all stuff that bankscould and should do. And at the
end of the day, everyone has abank account. You need a bank
(46:59):
account to be accessing thesystem. And so it's incumbent
upon us software players to makethese products and services
available in one package,because they're starting to buy
financial products and servicesfrom software firms like Veem,
where they don't even think tocall up Chase, they don't think
to call up Bank of Americaanymore. So you can make these
(47:20):
banking products available. It'smore natural for them. Because
companies and consumers are usedto now software, and they're
used to their phone andaccessing--Right? You said
earlier, you don't feel thepayment or think about the
payment when you're bookingUber, you're not thinking about
how that's getting paid, right?
You're just pressing a fewbuttons on your app. And it's
happening and a paymentoccurred. So I see that
(47:41):
opportunity for us, bothtogether and on our own journeys
around how you bundle in theseservices and products in a way
that they would never evenunderstand that to have that
conversation with their bank.
And if we can deliver a goodsolution with a good experience,
you're going to get a lot ofadoption.
Marwan Forzley (48:01):
Totally agree.
And I think that's the reasonFintech exists. The reason we
exist is new.
Ernest Rolfson (48:08):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Marwan Forzley (48:11):
That's it. I mean we provide what is not
being served today by theircurrent providers. Thanks for
bringing it up.
Ernest Rolfson (48:25):
Yeah. Look, to get business me and you have to
beat a bank every single time.
100% of the time, we have to bebetter than the bank. Yeah. They
serve the great place, you know,and that's fine. But um, there's
a gap right now. So we'll takeadvantage of it as long as we
can. While keeping friends witheveryone, keeping as many good
(48:48):
relationships as we can alongthe way. It's a very small
industry. So have to be veryfriendly to everybody.
Marwan Forzley (48:58):
Well put.
Ernest Rolfson (49:00):
As you know, I try to only offend one or two, I
try to only offend one or twopeople or companies a year if I
can. I try to really limit it. Idon't know about you. I used to
be about one a quarter. And I'vecut it down to about 50%
reduction.
Marwan Forzley (49:17):
That's a wise thing to do .
Ernest Rolfson (49:22):
I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Be someone
that people like, it's a goodthing. It's a good thing. Well,
look, man, I know you've got torun. Really fun. I really
enjoyed it. I hope I'll see youmaybe in Vegas at a payments
conference at some point. That'swhere we usually interact, but
(49:44):
hopefully not before long in theBay Area as well. The one thing
you can count on is there'salways going to be good weather.
r
Marwan Forzley (49:51):
Weather and good food.
Ernest Rolfson (49:53):
The bad thing about Vegas, we'll have some
cigarette smoke and someonespilling alcohol on our shoes.
In the Bay Area you can havesome nice sun and probably some
nice, you know, some nice day,see some sea lions or something
and no complaints.
Marwan Forzley (50:08):
Well, it'll be good to see you again. Hopefully
so.
Ernest Rolfson (50:11):
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I'm going to
shut us down here but thanksagain and we'll be talking again
soon. All right, thanks a lotMarwan
Marwan Forzley (50:20):
Thank for having me.
Ernest Rolfson (50:21):
Take care of yourself now. No problem..
Give it a second to kind of kick in start the
recording. Great. Okay, so todaywe've got Marwan Forzley, the
CEO and founder of Veem. Marwanis an entrepreneur, disrupter
and visionary in the paymentsindustry. He's made significant
contributions in theimplementation of blockchain
(00:22):
technology and B2B payments.
Definitely one of the movers andshakers in the industry. Veem
actually describes itself as aVenmo for businesses and is
rapidly growing, as no surprise,the B2B payments industry
continues to heat up not justdomestically but really
globally. So without furtherado, Marwan great to be with
(00:46):
you.
Marwan Forzley (00:48):
Thanks for having me. Good to see you
again.
Ernest Rolfson (00:52):
Absolutely, absolutely. Your'e up in Marin?
Or Bay Area?
Marwan Forzley (00:59):
Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Just outside the
city.
Ernest Rolfson (01:02):
That's where you're holed up? Have you been
there the whole time?
Marwan Forzley (01:07):
We've been here holding the fort during the
whole COVID era. So from thestart of COVID until now, we've
been in the same spot. My houseis becoming not only an office
for me, but for me, the kids,and the wife and we're all on
Zoom, maximizing our internetusage all day.
Ernest Rolfson (01:28):
You've got to keep AT&T or Verizon happy. They
don't like it when you're notusing the pipes. You've got to
keep it on.
Marwan Forzley (01:38):
I'm definitely utilizing the pipes.
Ernest Rolfson (01:43):
That's good.
That's good. So well, look,thanks again for being with me
here. You've been a collaboratorfor several years now. I've
enjoyed getting to know you, andwork with you. You've been at
Veem now, what is it eightyears?
Marwan Forzley (02:03):
We started Veem in late 2014. I used to run
ecommerce for Western Union andbefore that, I was in a startup
called eBillme, which I foundedand sold to them. And before
that I was another startup thatended up at Nokia so I've been
back and forth between startupsand tech companies. I started
(02:26):
Veem back again in 2014. It is asimple idea really that, you
know, that when you go buycoffee in the morning, you don't
think of how you pay, you justdo it. Whatever you're doing you
have cash, card, or whatever youhave in your wallet and you pay
and you move on. Your mind issomewhere else, you know, your
mind is on emails and calendarsand work and everything else in
(02:46):
life. When you do businesspayments, it's the opposite of
that. It's like an experiencefull of friction for both the
parent and the receiver. And sothe experience just goes from
like really simple when you gobuy coffee to really complex
when you go to businesstransactions. And I thought
(03:08):
that's gonna change--you'regonna make it a simple way to
send money domestic andinternational. Just like paying
for coffee, you don't thinkabout it. In the world of
business payments, it doesn'tfunction like that for a variety
of reasons. It doesn't work likethat. And so that's why we
started Veem so we make itreally simple for businesses to
(03:30):
pay and get paid.
Ernest Rolfson (03:35):
Beyond the kind of personal experience, and I
think that's so right, is thatwhat I think the market could
learn from us is that B2Bpayments are so different than
regular "payments" in terms ofhow much effort and work there
is between buyer and supplier. Iknow that your company was
(03:58):
bought by Western Union orinvolved there. Did you see
something about your experiencethere that also inspired you on
Veem? Or did you learn somethingabout international money
movement that you said, I thinkthere's a better angle here. Was
that part of the inspiration?
Marwan Forzley (04:16):
You know what is interesting is Western Union is
a really good platform to learnabout countries and currencies
all around the world. And sowhen they acquired my company, a
lot of my experience have beendomestic payments in all its
angles from consumer tobusiness, consumer to consumer,
(04:39):
and business to business butit's all domestic. When I got
into Veem, it was interestingand eye opening to learn about
all the various paymentexperiences in Europe and Asia
and different parts of theworld. And the more I learned
about that, the more the moreI'm thinking man, that whole
experience is more difficultwhen you start doing
(05:01):
international. And that's anopportunity to really simplify
it and make it look like it's asimple consumer experience and
it's like a domestic experience.
That's the way we design Veem.
But there's definitelyinspiration from my days of
Western Union. You know globalpayments are complex and full of
friction and there's a lot ofroom to simplify it. It's an
(05:24):
area that that can be simplifiedfor a long period of time. It's
not like, you know, let me makesome quick changes. And we're
done here. There's room foryears and years of
simplification that can befactored in perfectly, because
this industry B2B has not seeninnovation for a long period of
time. You know, I mean, if youlook back to the past few years
(05:51):
FinTech became hot and sexy.
That's because partly it's beenbaking for a while that there
needs to be changes. And partlybecause this is an area where
you can go at it for a long timemaking some dedication, and
there'll be room for all kindsof players to do well.
Ernest Rolfson (06:08):
Right. I mean, it's such an enormous global
market, it's inevitable thatthere'll be multiple winners in
angles based on specific needs.
Marwan Forzley (06:23):
It's a big world. So many countries and
owners.
Ernest Rolfson (06:28):
Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize this, you wrote a
book, Small Business in a BigWorld: A Comprehensive Guide to
Doing International Business.
Was that partly because you'refocused on the SMB market? I
mean, is there a uniquechallenge around SMB and
(06:50):
navigating payments and orinternational payments? And is
there something unique about howyou're approaching to solve for
that? Is there something crucialto understand there or something
that you really got fired upabout? Just, you know, as a
layman that doesn't understandmaybe SMB versus mid versus
(07:12):
large market?
Marwan Forzley (07:15):
Yeah, it's an interesting question. So the
reason we ended up writing thatbook is because we started with
a bunch of blogs about how to dobusiness in, you know, China and
India, and Germany and Franceand different parts of the
world. And it was interesting, Iwas at CES, actually and I
happened to bump into a customerwho was telling me, man, it's
(07:37):
tough to do business with, youknow, country x. I won't mention
the country, but he wascomplaining that.
Ernest Rolfson (07:44):
(Laughter) Yeah, you want to stay safe.
Marwan Forzley (07:50):
It was complaining about doing business
with that country. This businessin particular was in the in the
US. And then, just at the sameevent, I happen to run into
another beam customer that wasfrom Japan, and he was
complaining about how difficultit is to do business with the
US. And so, I got into detailsof like, so why is it difficult
(08:12):
to do business, and then theystart talking about, you know,
all kinds of issues, fromcommunication to expectations to
logistics. And a good chunk ofthat was payment related, like
just basic stuff, like, youknow, do I actually pay you
before you ship the goods, and Itrust you enough to actually
send you my money, before youshowed me the goods. And the
(08:34):
other side of it is that if Iship you the goods, and I don't
have your money, how do I knowthat you actually going to pay
me so like basic stuff. Then itgets even more ingrained into,
like, all kinds of culturalstuff. So for example, if you're
in the US, you would send anemail to some supplier in China,
(08:56):
while the supplier in China isprobably like, a lot more
interested in actuallycommunicating with you all
through WeChat or SMS. And sothere's a lot of nuances to
doing business between thesecountries and I thought it would
be interesting to turn the blogsinto books and that's what we
ended up doing. We kind of turnit into a collection of chapters
on how to do business in variousparts of the world.
Ernest Rolfson (09:19):
The best of. I love it. The best blog posts.
You sound like a VC orsomething. They have all their
blog posts. They've got enoughblog post they turned them into
a book. You're like a BenHorowitz.
Marwan Forzley (09:31):
I got inspiration from talking to
customer so that that's why weended up doing the doing the
book. Global payments are aninteresting thing because you
touch on, first of all howpayments work in different
countries but also you touch oncultures and ways of doing
things that are maybe okay foryou in the US but are difficult
(09:55):
to do in other parts of theworld. I can give you an
example. In the US, let's sayyou're doing a payment online
and I asked you for your socialsecurity number. That's
something that people do in theUS like I'll give you my last
four digits and it's a commonpractice. That same experience
of getting somebody's socialsecurity number in other parts
(10:16):
of Europe or other parts of theworld may actually be a big
no-no, because I'm giving you alot of information here that,
you know, why do you need thatinformation? And that touches on
privacy concerns and securityconcerns where there's different
tolerance to that type ofinformation and in other parts
(10:37):
of the world. So you assume thatif something works in the US
that's going to work indifferent parts of the world and
that's not true. And it'scomplicated, because every
country has its own nuances andstories, and what they like and
they don't like to do.
Ernest Rolfson (10:52):
Yeah. Now different to that point on
collecting socials, a lot ofit's around regulation. Right?
Around compliance andregulation.
Marwan Forzley (11:01):
Regulation, compliance, safety, and what's
acceptable in different settingsand different countries. You
know, so somebody who was buyinga product, in Germany, for
example, may find that to beoverkill. Why do I have to give
you all this data to dosomething? While it probably is
(11:22):
a common practice in the US andCanada and is something that
people do. So thesesensitivities show up when
you're doing when you'reservicing customers all around
the world.
Ernest Rolfson (11:39):
We'll get back to some of that, I want to talk
about kind of meeting customer'sneeds, especially domestically,
and what you're doing there andhow you think about the B2B
payments space. What I wanted totouch on too, is to congratulate
you on your funding round,recently led by Truist,
(12:01):
something like $31 million.
You've been able to attract someinternational banks to support
you, some very fancy venturefunds. You know, some good
names, I would say. What hasbeen--it can't just be the
technology--I want to mentionyou about blockchain and see
your thoughts there. But whathas been the drivers around
(12:24):
investor interest here? And whatare you guys doing well in
serving this B2B payment needthat is getting some of these
banks to the table to supportyou that they're not able to do
on their own? Because it feelslike a lot of your investors are
more strategic in nature, thatthey really understand this. And
(12:44):
you've smartly taken advantageof that.
Marwan Forzley (12:49):
Yeah, and we did this by design. We were
interested in partners wherethere is an investment and there
is potential commercialrelationship with with a
partner. It's like BB plusmoney. And what we're solving
for is basically something thatthe partner values. So if you
(13:11):
think of the way it works today,we have payment capabilities,
payment infrastructure, we haveKYC infrastructure, we have
customers, and we have created amodel where we see growth with
the customers that we have onthe system. And so what's
valuable to the investor isreally the combination of the
various pieces connect together.
The fact that you can do paymentprocessing with KYC automation,
(13:34):
with integrations intoaccounting systems with
customers that like the productand you can get enough of them
at a faster pace, it attractscapital to help you scale it to
the next space. That's that'sthe way it's it's architected. I
do think, though, that the valuethat strategic spraying is the
ability to have relationshipswith them, where really money as
(13:57):
a way to align interests andgoals and agendas. That said,
it's not necessarily the end allbe all. I mean, you know, we can
do commercial deals with otherinvestments. We can do
investments that just for thepure return on capital. I like
the combination where you'regetting the investment, plus
(14:17):
some commercial relationshipthat you can potentially have an
interaction with with a partnerthat ends up yielding to
something that benefits both ofus.
Ernest Rolfson (14:30):
Is it that a lot of these partners or banks--is
it the untappe need in SMB? Isit hard to bring commercial
payment solutions to smallercompanies? There are some gaps
that you're kind of working toovercome? It's almost like when
(14:53):
you're dealing with an SMB in away--tell me if I'm wrong--isn't
it almost like they havedifferent almost consumer-like
expectations around experienceor usage, right? They need
maybe--an SMB needs somethingsimpler. It still has as to work
and be very effective. Butalmost like form factor is more
important than if you're sellingto some enterprise company. And
(15:15):
they're using older green screentechnology for a lot of their
business. They're not usingcloud, is that some part of it
as well? Or maybe I'm off? MaybeI'm off base. But I'd love to
hear your thoughts.
Marwan Forzley (15:27):
No, you're absolutely right. If you look at
the banks and how they servicetheir customers, you know,
there's a retail business unitthat deals with consumer
customer, and there's corporatethat deal with commercial and
larger accounts. SMB has almostlost this sort of. Some banks
(15:47):
put them in retail, some banksput them in commercial payments.
And the reality is they'reneither consumer, nor
commercial, like nor corporate.
They are their own class.
They're a struggle between thetwo. They need services that
look like a consumer service.
Simple, easy to use, but theyneed sophistication that comes
(16:08):
from corporate-like products,where you can do account
approvals, payment approvals,you can integrate accounting
systems, you can have multipletypes of accounts on the system.
So they need moresophistication, but it needs to
stay like a consumer experience.
And they also have differentpricing needs compared to
(16:29):
corporate when compared toretail. So they usually are like
the most restructuring group ata bank. They could keep moving
them around. And it's a hardergroup to service. They don't
have enough balance to put themin a, you know, in corporate
accounts, you have accountmanagers on them. The pricing
(16:52):
that they need is very differentthan consumers. So they can't be
in the retail group. So they endup being this lost, under
serviced market. And that's themarket we go after. And the
reason we teamed up withpartners, because they know that
that's a market that'sunderserved, and they're looking
for tools and services to helpfor that market to go after that
(17:12):
market more efficiently. Andthat's what we bring to the
table. We aggregate that marketin a self-serve, simple to use
structure that appeals to thepartner we're working with.
Ernest Rolfson (17:25):
Right now, in your mind, is it right to say
that you're helping these SMBsthink like big companies in a
way? Or are you democratizingaccess to payment products in a
way that maybe bigger companieswould? Or is it is there
something else that may be theirunique needs are different?
Marwan Forzley (17:43):
I'd say in an unlevel playing field, we're
leveling the playing field. Imean, like some of this that we
typically see for big corp. Youdon't have access, and usually
the banks don't offer it forSMB. And so what we do, because
we're developing if you know,self serve fans, you go simple
(18:05):
product, you make a lot offunctionality that's only
available for corporateaccounts, you take it and you
make it available for the large,small number of customers that
want a product like this. Sothat's that's the way you know
Veem works. And, you know,leveling the playing field is a
good way of describing it.
Ernest Rolfson (18:33):
Touching back on the technology side, I mentioned
earlier blockchain. I don'tthink we have to go so deep
here, but I understood you wereone of the first or the first
company to do something like$300 million worth of payments
through blockchain. It had beenhot, it was cold. Blockchains
hot again, we're seeing ElonMusk on SNL talking down
(18:54):
Dogecoin. Now, I mean, what doyou think? You know, what do you
see a future for this? And whatdo you think the biggest benefit
of blockchain technology is orwill be around payments? Or like
why do you think it's importantthat you've made some investment
there? And is this somethingthat will maybe be more behind
the scenes going forward and ismore just really infrastructure
(19:17):
and folks don't need to reallyknow how this is happening? But
that there's a better way,perhaps? Is that is that the way
to think about it? How have youthought about how to use that
for SMB? Because it seems that'sa newer, bright piece of the pie
here.
Marwan Forzley (19:33):
Yeah, as you mentioned, you know, we've done
this like really early, back in2014 and 2015. We were doing,
you know, payments on crypto andblockchain. And the reason we do
it is because it gives us theability to service markets that
are harder to get to usingtraditional methods. So for
(19:58):
example, If I want to move moneyto Mexico, traditionally, what I
would do is I would have my ownbank account in Mexico. I have
pesos in it and whenever I havea transaction or payment that's
going to Mexico, I use my pesosposition to essentially disperse
pesos to the recipient inMexico. What the blockchain
does, is it gives me the abilityto service that customer using a
(20:21):
very different infrastructurewhere I use crypto as a way to
synthetically cross from onefiat to another. So I go fiat
crypto crypto fiat. And I also,one of the key things here is
going in and out of cryptoefficiently because you know,
the price changes all the time.
So you got to do it in anefficient manner. It allows me
to service that market withouthaving essentially all the
(20:43):
infrastructure required to dopayment processing in that
market. It's kinda like a way toget going using alternative
technology, where the technologygives you an edge compared to
traditional methods. Thetraditional methods here being
either bank wire, or you set upyour own bank account
(21:04):
infrastructure. What's niceabout crypto also is that you
can do transactions in themiddle of the night. There's no
banking hours and you can trackpayments because of all of the
payments process a note on theblockchain, you can basically
Google map your payment. So itmakes it really simple to
operate the payment flows. Andthat's why we took advantage of
(21:26):
it. It is behind the scenes forus. The customers don't see it,
don't know it. They're notreally aware. They're not aware.
It is by design. And they don'tcare. They don't care.
Customers, you know, if you'reselling clothes or books or
furniture, do you really carehow the payment actually got
(21:48):
there? What you care about ishow much am I paying to get this
payment delivered to mysupplier, or the person that's
helping me out on this project?
I win. That's all they careabout--cost and timing. And
that's the way we think aboutit.
Ernest Rolfson (22:16):
It has to be less about products going
forward and more about theexperience overall. Right? And
more about what can you deliverfor buyer and supplier. And to
your point, they--especiallywith an SMB--they know even less
about payments and moneymovement than a big corporate.
(22:37):
Right? They're small mom and popand to your point they just want
to know the service is going tobe provided. And that's fine.
And if you can do it in abetter, more efficient way, it
allows you to expand yourbusiness more rapidly and serve
your customers better. Andthat's where I see payments
moving. Not to say there's goingto be a black box, but I think
(22:59):
the payments industry and thebanks are struggling with around
thinking about, you know,product product product pushing
card, pushing a CH, pushingwire, instead of more talking
about what are the outcomes?
What is the experience you canexpect? I think you've spoken a
lot of time on the experienceand about a comprehensive
solution.
Marwan Forzley (23:20):
Yeah, I don't think this small businesses
actually care about how paymentshappen. You know, I don't think
they want to learn. I guessanother thing at one point, this
is early on, we kind of startedexposing the logic of having,
you know, customers choose therail they want to work with, and
(23:42):
nobody cared. Customers want tosend money to a location and
they need to understand thesetwo things: cost and time.
That's it. How it gets there islike, you know, you do it for
me. That's the reason I'mworking with you.
Ernest Rolfson (24:00):
Yeah, yeah, you're the expert. You're the
expert. Is it fair to say mostof your business's international
today? Is that an accuratestatement in terms of the flows
and the types of customerproblems you're solving is
international?
Marwan Forzley (24:21):
We do both international and domestic.
International is the biggerpiece of the business.
Ernest Rolfson (24:29):
That's right.
Marwan Forzley (24:29):
Domestic US, domestic Canada.
Ernest Rolfson (24:33):
Canada, right.
Domestic Canada, that's growingfor you?
Marwan Forzley (24:36):
And US as well.
Yeah, both are growing segments.
Ernest Rolfson (24:42):
Can you share, I guess why the domestic piece is
important? And the expansionyou're doing there? The SMB
space has been heating up. Therewas a very big, build up comm
acquisition this past week andexpense management, very high
valuations. There's really beenseveral different entrance, only
(25:08):
a few bigger players, you'rereally one of them doing
something interesting. But itseems to me that you sense
there's a big opportunity atdomestic here. So help us
understand what some of yourcustomers--please.
Marwan Forzley (25:24):
I'm a little bit different in my approach in that
I don't think of, you know, Veemas a domestic service or
international service or crossborder, I think customer. So
what do you need to do payments,let me help you do it. Some of
its going to be domestic, someis going to be international,
some of it requires foreignexchange so if it stays in US
(25:44):
dollar. And I don't really pushone way or another, it's like
whatever the customer wants todo. So we think I've had more
coming at it from a customerperspective, what is it that
they want to do? Rather than areyou doing, or are you playing
here or playing cross border. Wehave a different approach.
Ernest Rolfson (26:06):
Understood. Is there, I guess in terms of the
typical US based customer, whatare the, the kind of typical
problems you're solving forthem?
Marwan Forzley (26:21):
Generally?
Ernest Rolfson (26:23):
Is it unique?
Like and it's the CFO, is thatwho you're speaking to the CFO?
Or the business owner?
Marwan Forzley (26:31):
Business owner, CFO, controller, sometimes their
accountant depending on the sizeof the business, and generally,
they're looking for a simple wayto move money around, either to
pay or get paid. In domesticmarkets, what they like, is
generally the ability to paywith email, like, that's what
they were looking for. I'm abusiness in California, I have
(26:53):
this supplier that I'm workingwith in New York, I want to send
them some money. And here's asimple way I don't, I don't
really have their bank accountinformation on me, it's taking
some time to go figure it out.
So let me just log in and sendan email out. And here's money
for you. Kind of similar to youknow, Venmo, or Square cash or
Zelle its like that, but forbusinesses and people like that.
Ernest Rolfson (27:23):
Okay, so it's almost like you've removed a lot
of that friction and if theydon't have the data available,
they can still pay and still letpeople know that they're trying
to pay them.
Marwan Forzley (27:34):
Yes, that's a key.
Ernest Rolfson (27:36):
Is that a fair summary?
Marwan Forzley (27:37):
That's a key value proposition is simplicity
of experience. Because when youare doing domestic payments you
generally are doing ACH, check,card. These are like the main,
you know, instruments. Oh, an orwire. Wire tends to be the sort
of bigger instrument for largertransactions. Generally, when
(28:01):
you're doing you know, smallpayments, they end up happening
on the station cards, and largepayments they happen on wire. So
what we're doing is we'rebasically giving the ability for
you to do larger payments in asimple way by email, pulling
money on one side and depositingon the other side. And that
experience essentially ends upbeing a wire replacement type
(28:23):
experience for domestic workers.
Ernest Rolfson (28:30):
Understood, understood. You know, our
companies partner together andwork with you on some domestic
payment products, specificallyin the check space. I guess tell
me why was rolling out a newpayment modality important to
you and your customers? Youknow, why do you see this as
(28:52):
being necessary? And do youforesee that kind of... Have you
seen that in other markets oryou see that customer demand is
saying, "Hey Veem, we want toneed you to do more for us?"
Help us understand kind ofwhat--I think you're calling
this Veem local--Is that theright kind of your
comprehensive, you know, kind ofpayment solution. I'd love to
(29:16):
learn more about kind of howyour thinking about this.
Marwan Forzley (29:18):
Yeah, being local is really the concept of
having businesses in localmarkets, pay locally and have
choice in their payments. Theycan choose one, you know, check
card, ACH, whatever they want.
We teamed up because eitherthere's something interesting
that happened during COVID. Wegot feedback from the customer
(29:41):
that they want to spend check,which is kind of odd during
COVID because, you know, youassume that because of this
situation were in people want togo and do electronic payments.
What was interesting about that,though, is we have this tracker
with Veem where you can trackwhat happens the payment, kind
of think of it like a FedEx forpayments where you can give to
(30:03):
people.
Ernest Rolfson (30:06):
Right. Yep, yep.
Marwan Forzley (30:08):
And so when the sender sends the check, it sends
a notification to the receiverwith an expected delivery time.
What was interesting about thatis the receiver actually never
showed up to the office to pickany mail. It's just that when
they got on that notificationthat there's going to be, you
(30:29):
know, a check, they will showup, pick up the rest of the
mail, pick up the check and go.
And it was, you know, it's likemarrying a new and old together.
Like the new stuff was like thetracking and the ability to
refine delivery times on things,and then the oldest actually
sending a check. And so we putthem together, which was
(30:50):
valuable for the payers and thepayees in a in a situation where
still the payer had thesepolicies to send the check, and
they wanted to do it. And thereceiver wanted a way to notify
them that, hey, maybe theyshould show up to the office to
pick up whatever mail they have,including the check. And so it
ended up appealing to bothparties--the payer and the
(31:10):
payee--so we ended up teaming upwith you to do it. And, you
know, a lot of that is just backto customer feedback, you know,
customers want to pay this wayso like who am I to tell him to
choose the other way or youknow, maybe there's other ways
to do things. I would just gowith whatever the customer
(31:30):
wants, we do for them.
Ernest Rolfson (31:36):
Do you see this though, as a way to expand your
share of wallet with eachcustomer and be more valuable to
them? Right. And because you'redoing more?
Marwan Forzley (31:45):
We think of it primarily, we come out of, first
of all, the experience--like isthis a delightful, simple
experience? And this, whathappens is as an outcome of
that, is you end up getting moreshare of wallet from the
customer. Share of wallet is abyproduct of a simpler
thing--that I am giving you adifferent experience and what
(32:07):
you get today and thisexperience is lifelong.
Ernest Rolfson (32:14):
Prior, they would be doing this outside of
Veem on their own, maybe bywallet. Right. And is there
something about COVID that wasunique? And you probably don't
see this slowing down, but inthe past, you described that the
customers cared less about howthings went out the door. It
(32:36):
seems around the checks andCOVID, and your customers
wanting to do more with you andget more out of your platform.
Was there anything that youcould tell that seemed to drive
that? Just as a point ofcuriosity, it's kind of
interesting. Cash Flow may be anidea. I don't, I don't know. I'm
just curious if you have anyinsights?
(32:57):
Cash flow is definitely one ofthe variables, especially during
COVID. Because everybody watchesyour numbers, and especially in
a situation where, you know,demand, and sales might be more
powerful than usual. So you wantto keep an eye on where your
cash position is and when you'regoing to get paid and what
happens to payments whetherthey're in or out of your
(33:20):
balance sheet. I think what'sinteresting during COVID, is
that, you know, we have a lot ofonline businesses, you know,
combination of ecommerce, emailstartups, online business
services, and they did very wellduring COVID compared to more
traditional segment like retailand travel. And because their
(33:42):
business expanded, they ended upexpanding both domestically, as
well as cross border. And sothat was interesting in that we
see an uptick in volume on bothsides of it. And that's a good
sign, usually businesses good,you're servicing more customers,
you're getting more revenue,you're getting more sales, and
you're expanding on both ends.
And that's why when I go backtody, you know, organizing
principles around this, I don'treally think of it as like I'm
(34:05):
just going to do your domesticpayments or your cross border
payments. I don't think of itlike that. I think of it as like
you have your payment needs,it's growing, let me help you
get there and we'll simplify itas much as we can for you.
Whatever you want to do. If youwant to pay with check, with
(34:26):
card, with bank, whatever youwant. We support that. That's
sort of how we think of it.
Given that they do have choiceelsewhere, is it the
experiential factor that peopleare choosing you over others?
Marwan Forzley (34:47):
Yeah, I mean, the reference point--
Ernest Rolfson (34:49):
Is that the big the big selling point there?
Marwan Forzley (34:51):
Yes, the reference point is backfire. I
mean, most of these customers,they go to Chase, Wells (Fargo),
BOA, smaller banks they workwith, and they send wires. And
they're looking for, you know, adifferent experience-- something
simpler, less fees. Yeah, that'sanother thing fees. Like so you
said domestic wire that's like,you know, 20 bucks, for example,
(35:15):
to send the wire. Yeah, withVeem you're sending local
payments for free. So just asimpler, free pay as you go, you
don't have to worry about sellerfees, monthly fees. You have
payments, we support you and agood chunk of it is free. We
make money on cars and foreignexchange.
Ernest Rolfson (35:37):
Understood, understood. So coming out of
this, and actually before COVID,small business was up like 15%.
In terms of your volume, I'msure you've seen a big snap back
so far, especially in some ofthe verticals you said that have
been strong during COVID. Yousaid you have a lot of smaller
businesses that are ecommerceand others that probably were
(35:59):
just, you know, COVID was a blipin many respects. But with
everything that's happened inthe world since, do you think
that these other SMBs are goingto continue driving growth? Do
you think there's going to be alonger recovery? What kind of
trends you're seeing crossborder and domestic, but maybe
(36:21):
have a favorable mix. But it'sinteresting to just kind of hear
your trends about thesebusinesses needs going forward
based on just what's happening.
Marwan Forzley (36:29):
I actually think something super interesting is
developing. And these arestructural changes that are
going to stay for a long time.
And I described them into twodifferent pockets.
You know, the rise of ecommerce.
Ecommerce is going to stay for along, long time, I think habits
have changed. In pre-COVID, youused to go to the store. And if
(36:49):
you're stuck, you needsomething, you can't find a
store, you go online. WithCOVID, you start online, if
you're really stuck, and there'ssomething you need immediately,
and you can't wait for it to gethome, you know, to get shipped
to you, then you go to thestore. So these habits have been
like this for like almost a yearand a quarter. And so these
(37:13):
habits are set now. Now, mygrandma can do shopping online,
and she finds it actually quiteenjoyable and simple. And so
that's going to keep going. Theother thing that I think is a
structural change is labor. Youknow, in the past you used to
employ people around you. Solike you have an office in
(37:35):
Boston, I go find people inBoston, I get them to come to
the office, and I pay themdeposits on one of the payroll
processors. That also ischanging and changing quite a
bit. We're seeing volume to allkinds of places around the world
because if I'm in Zoom all day,it doesn't matter if I'm in San
Francisco, you're in Boston. Imean, if we're both on Zoom,
(37:59):
well might as well also haveemployees or labor join in from
Canada, from Mexico, fromPhilippines, from Germany. And
so you're seeing this rise ofremote labor, and payments to
labor all around the world.
That's a big trend. And that'salso supplemented by the gig
(38:23):
economy and the rise of, youknow, payouts to that
environment. So I think theseare like, you know, large
structural use cases that haveshifted. And I think it's gonna
be like this for a while, Imean, you know, sure, we're all
going to go back to an office,and we're all going to find it
enjoyable to go to a restaurantand have real meetings in
(38:43):
person. But I think it's all thehabits that have developed
during COVID are going to stayfor a while and going to be the
predominant use case.
Ernest Rolfson (38:58):
Seems like that's where things are going,
what you're saying. We'veexperienced that here and any
business now your understandingremote is at least going to be I
think the majority, or at least50% of the way people work. And
companies I believe are gettingmore flexible about who they do
business with and where andwhere they hire. So you seem to
be spot on the money. Unlessyou're running a factory,
(39:21):
there's really no other reason.
Marwan Forzley (39:23):
Even when you're running a factory, it's
surprising how many of the folksin the factory are now remote,
you know, joining in on Zoom. Imean unless you're operating the
machine itself, just themanagement, the HR parts, I mean
good chunk of that is like emailthese days. So I think the
(39:46):
interesting piece here is thatthis has gone on for awhile, but
if this was a couple of months,people would go back to their
old ways and life moves on. Butthis is now a habit. And the
thing is because we've beendoing this for a long time,
having assumed that this is theway it's going to go forward,
we're being in an office orgoing to the restaurant or
(40:10):
shopping offline are going to bemore like things you just enjoy
doing, but not your defaultcase.
Ernest Rolfson (40:23):
I feel you. What are you excited about next,
whether you know B2B payments,anything you're excited about?
Anything, you know, maybeupcoming for Veem, that you're
either planning that you cantalk about or involved in? What
are you looking forward to inany kind of big, bigger
(40:45):
trends--maybe industry wise orotherwise--that you think you're
either in a good position totake advantage of or that you
see yourself working on here?
Marwan Forzley (40:54):
Yeah, I think there's interesting trends that
are developing for B2B ingeneral. I think you're going to
see a lot more rise of wallets,domestic and global wallets as a
form of payments and exchange ofreal time, funds between
(41:16):
parties. I think the crypto ishere to stay despite
dismissiveness for all kinds ofindividuals that say, maybe this
is something that has nointrinsic value. It is not going
anywhere, anytime soon.
Ernest Rolfson (41:33):
Now, that I think that's one of the biggest
takeaways that most people don'tunderstand is that crypto is not
going anywhere. It is veryserious and very real.
Marwan Forzley (41:46):
Yeah. And I think there is appetite,
stronger appetite these days forreal time payments. That's
across the board, domestic andinternational. So the rise of
systems that enable real time isgoing to be something that's
demanded by the industry,whether it's RTP, or cousins of
(42:06):
RTP. And same thing in othermarkets outside the US. I think
some of the whys of neobanks isinteresting, where some of the
services offered and experiencesare very different than
traditional banks, I think we'regoing to see a rise of players
in that market starting withconsumer neobanks. But, you
(42:28):
know, over time, also emergingto business neobanks. So that's
an that's a trend that we'regoing to see. Right, more more
players in that in that segment.
I think anything that is crossborder in any form, like whether
it's consumer business, payoffspans, I mean, that market is so
complicated. That just requiresmassive simplifications for a
(42:51):
long period of time, there'sthere's going to be emergence of
a number of players that coverthat market as well.
Ernest Rolfson (43:02):
So sounds like you're in the right spot. One
thing I want to mention on-
Marwan Forzley (43:09):
We're trying to be.
Ernest Rolfson (43:14):
That's right, well, try your best. That's
right. That's all you can do.
But I want to say when RTP--this comes up, it's come up
actually in a lot of myconversations with other CEOs
and leaders in the industry, doyou think RTP is negative for
card and card volume? Or is itvery situational? And do you see
(43:37):
this being more important forSMB, or where they're like, Hey,
we really need to make a paymenturgently and so now we can do
this and pay a fee. Because Isee it being net very negative
for wires, which are cumbersomeand manual and are doing that
same day and you mentionedearlier $20 a transaction. You
know, is there a loser in RTP?
(44:04):
Or is it really a new? Is itsituational?
Marwan Forzley (44:06):
I totally think it's more situational. I think
it's it's RTP will do well insituations where you're looking
to move large amounts of moneyinto real time selling without
fees. RTP does that. So itdoesn't really, I mean, it might
pick up some volume from card,some volume from checks, or
volume from ACH but in general,it probably will pick up the
(44:29):
bigger volume from from wire.
More from wire than the othersystems. There's just situations
where you have a larger amountof money you need to move at
real time. And you know, you'relooking for a cheaper way to do
it real time. I think RTP willfill a gap there.
Ernest Rolfson (44:48):
Yeah, that makes sense. One thing you didn't
mention, where our Finexioteam's made a big bet investment
around the timing of payment andspeed of payment. We launched
something called Finexio Cash,which is about getting the
suppliers paid upon invoiceapproval. So realizing there's a
(45:09):
time value of money and gettingfunds to the suppliers early,
where maybe they're stillreceiving a check, and they
realize that slow and slow todeposit or the buyers are just
paying them slower and you know,some some pressures due to COVID
and otherwersie. Is speed andthe time value something that is
critical? Are you doing anythingin this area? Or is it really
(45:32):
not been for these SMB's? It'smuch more about the banks can't
give them a great turnkeysolution. And so that's maybe
next wave and you're reallytackling, you know, an
experiential component first?
I'm just curious, do you see anyconvergence around this kind of
credit and lending and payments?
Marwan Forzley (45:54):
This is a good topic. Thanks for bringing it
up. And then I think the workyou guys are doing in this area
is quite valuable for customers.
And I think capital and paymentsare cost cousins. If you ask
customer what else can I do foryou, besides payments, usually
they bring up lending. So, youknow, they're very close to each
(46:14):
other. So I think I think thereis a lot of room in this market
as well, you know. And thanksfor bringing that up, it reminds
me that that's an area that is akey area in the future as well.
You're going to see moreconvergence between what used to
be typical and things used to beconditional payments coming,
getting closer.
Ernest Rolfson (46:39):
That's right.
It's just natural. I mean, forme, I really think of FinTech
and what you're doing and whatI'm doing as a kind of a rail
and infrastructure provider.
This is all stuff that bankscould and should do. And at the
end of the day, everyone has abank account. You need a bank
(46:59):
account to be accessing thesystem. And so it's incumbent
upon us software players to makethese products and services
available in one package,because they're starting to buy
financial products and servicesfrom software firms like Veem,
where they don't even think tocall up Chase, they don't think
to call up Bank of Americaanymore. So you can make these
(47:20):
banking products available. It'smore natural for them. Because
companies and consumers are usedto now software, and they're
used to their phone andaccessing--Right? You said
earlier, you don't feel thepayment or think about the
payment when you're bookingUber, you're not thinking about
how that's getting paid, right?
You're just pressing a fewbuttons on your app. And it's
happening and a paymentoccurred. So I see that
(47:41):
opportunity for us, bothtogether and on our own journeys
around how you bundle in theseservices and products in a way
that they would never evenunderstand that to have that
conversation with their bank.
And if we can deliver a goodsolution with a good experience,
you're going to get a lot ofadoption.
Marwan Forzley (48:01):
Totally agree.
And I think that's the reasonFintech exists. The reason we
exist is new.
Ernest Rolfson (48:08):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Marwan Forzley (48:11):
That's it. I mean we provide what is not
being served today by theircurrent providers. Thanks for
bringing it up.
Ernest Rolfson (48:25):
Yeah. Look, to get business me and you have to
beat a bank every single time.
100% of the time, we have to bebetter than the bank. Yeah. They
serve the great place, you know,and that's fine. But um, there's
a gap right now. So we'll takeadvantage of it as long as we
can. While keeping friends witheveryone, keeping as many good
(48:48):
relationships as we can alongthe way. It's a very small
industry. So have to be veryfriendly to everybody.
Marwan Forzley (48:58):
Well put.
Ernest Rolfson (49:00):
As you know, I try to only offend one or two, I
try to only offend one or twopeople or companies a year if I
can. I try to really limit it. Idon't know about you. I used to
be about one a quarter. And I'vecut it down to about 50%
reduction.
Marwan Forzley (49:17):
That's a wise thing to do .
Ernest Rolfson (49:22):
I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Be someone
that people like, it's a goodthing. It's a good thing. Well,
look, man, I know you've got torun. Really fun. I really
enjoyed it. I hope I'll see youmaybe in Vegas at a payments
conference at some point. That'swhere we usually interact, but
(49:44):
hopefully not before long in theBay Area as well. The one thing
you can count on is there'salways going to be good weather.
r
Marwan Forzley (49:51):
Weather and good food.
Ernest Rolfson (49:53):
The bad thing about Vegas, we'll have some
cigarette smoke and someonespilling alcohol on our shoes.
In the Bay Area you can havesome nice sun and probably some
nice, you know, some nice day,see some sea lions or something
and no complaints.
Marwan Forzley (50:08):
Well, it'll be good to see you again. Hopefully
so.
Ernest Rolfson (50:11):
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I'm going to
shut us down here but thanksagain and we'll be talking again
soon. All right, thanks a lotMarwan
Marwan Forzley (50:20):
Thank for having me.
Ernest Rolfson (50:21):
Take care of yourself now. No problem..
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