Transcription:
Daniel Wolfe: (
My name is Daniel Wolfe. I am content director at American Banker. It's, uh, like fancy made up term for editor. And, uh, previously many of you may know me from my work as editor of Payments Source, which is now part of American Banker and was the host of this event for many years prior. And I wanna say just how great it is to see everyone here, again, especially for the morning session for the most influential women in payments. This has always been just the highlight of the event for me. I, as the conversations that take place here are just some of the most interesting, educational, inspiring of the entire event. So I'm glad all of you made it this early in the morning. Um, the oatmeal was good, so, you know, hope, uh, hope you all got a chance to try that. I huge fan of steel cut oatmeal. Um, before I hand it off to, uh, to my colleague, Kate Fitzgerald, I need to, I want to, I eagerly thank our sponsors, the exhibitors Amplify Loyalty Solutions and Competiscan, bronze sponsors, Infinian Technologies, Kobe Marketing, Network Merchants, Salesforce, and Shufti Pro, silver sponsor, Nova Payment, gold sponsor, MasterCard and platinum sponsor Zada. So thank you all for sponsoring this event. Thank you everyone here for participating. And I believe Kate, it's your turn. Kate Fitzgerald, senior editor for payments at American Banker.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Okay. Our panelists are joining us here on the stage testing. Can everyone hear don't wanna be too loud?
Kate Fitzgerald: (
So we have been doing this for a few years and it's, it feels like our first, this is the first live conference, I think for our, for our company and for a lot of the people I spoke to and really appreciate you guys coming out. We've had a lot of adventures getting this thing going. And, uh, the topics of course, with women in payments are always in the most interesting of the conference. And we're going to be, um, asking for your input and questions toward the end. So I hope that you will, uh, take some notes. We have about 30 minutes. We're gonna talk about probably the most interesting topic of the session with we have on the, um, far end. We have Katherine Albright, executive vice president global payments at Umpqua bank. Katherine, tell us a little bit about your job.
Kathryn Albright: (
Sure. Uh, so switch some microphones morning, everybody. It's so great to great to see everybody. Um, I'm Katherine Albright and I lead our global payments and deposits group at, at AMCO bank. And that includes, um, all things payments. So this is a great place to be, uh, treasury management, commercial card merchant, and international solutions, um, all the way from, uh, product development and management to sales, to support and onboarding. Uh, and I also, uh, am responsible for our consumer and, uh, consumer product teams, as well as our, uh, onboarding platforms.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
And what is unique about Umpqua bank compared with the rank and file bread and butter banks that we might all know? Well,
Kathryn Albright: (
Sure. And, and I I've been with qua for just over three years. I've been in banking for, uh, a little over 30 years. Um, so I've, I've been in a few different banks in between and at qua I really feel like the culture in the Pacific Northwest. Uh, we're, we're headquartered in Portland, Oregon, uh, and we are the largest, uh, bank headquartered in the Pacific Northwest. Uh, we have locations up and down the, the west coast and the culture there. Uh, and I know this sound, everybody's gonna gonna smile and say, wow, that sounds familiar, but it's, it's really a phenomenal culture. We can come and truly make an impact. Um, I, I felt that way with our, with our payments practices and it just, uh, it's been exciting to be able to bring in new solutions, iterate on those solutions and be able to offer those to our clients. So it's, it's, it's a great culture
Kate Fitzgerald: (
And she's downplaying the fact that Umpqua has actually led the way on a lot of innovative digital payment solutions and banking as a service. I think so Kathy, Kathy Beardsley, president and CEO at SEG pay a company that is, as we delved into her background and company and got to know her better through the process of honoring her found out. That's an extremely interesting company that Kathy is the architect of the whole thing. Tell us in your words, Kathy.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, hi everyone. As I was introduced, I'm Kathy Beardsley, I'm the president and SEG president and CEO of spay. Um, I started the company in 2005 and I have about 22 years experience and payments now, um, SEG P's roots were as a payment facilitator. Um, we focused on high risk markets, which is probably a little bit different for a lot of you here. Um, and since that time we've expanded our system to go outside of payment facilitation, we offer, um, gateway technology and merchant services. Um, we also focus on a couple of markets, not only in the us, but we have a big presence in Europe and the UK and Europe in the UK is much more regulated than what we are here in the states. So we're licensed there as a payment institution. Um, and there's a whole series of, Uh, regulatory requirements that we go through every year, um, that makes us better there and also here in the us.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Okay. So you both lead quite a few other people, both managers and employees. And our first, uh, question here is on the, on this topic of these transformative and in many cases, turbulent times that keep changing. In fact, when we had our prep discussion about this, I think times have changed again since, since then. And the question is the journey back to the office or not. We've seen, um, a lot of people, a lot of companies trying to handle that differently and the, the environment and the, the, uh, mood of whether employees want to go back. Do they need to go back, Catherine? You wanna talk a bit about how that's affecting your, your role?
Kathryn Albright: (
Sure. Uh, thanks Kate. We, uh, at point we, we really, uh, have been able to work remotely, um, for the entire pandemic and, and beyond. So, uh, there were some, uh, pockets within the, the bank, um, that, that needed to stay, you know, at, at the office. Uh, but we've been incredibly successful as I'm sure a lot of your companies have been able to work remotely. Um, we've, we've been, uh, more, um, I think more, uh, productive, uh, um, and we've been even, you know, even remotely, we've been able to stay connected through, uh, multiple, uh, pathways and feel like it's, it's, it's here to stay. Um, a lot of, lot of our, uh, associates have, have indicated that they, they love working remotely. Um, some say I'd like to go back to the office every Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, some have indicated, uh, if, if I never go back, I'll be fine. And, and that's, that seems to be working well, providing lots of optionality
Kate Fitzgerald: (
For our service. Well, are there challenges there in trying to accommodate all those different need for needs?
Kathryn Albright: (
You know, there really had, we haven't seen a lot of challenge, quite honestly, we've, uh, set up an electronic reservation system. That's allowed us to, um, offer associates, uh, reservations online for office space, for, uh, conference rooms, um, everything. So having that HT capability has really allowed us to retain and, and, and attract new talent,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Kathy what's happening at spay.
Cathy Beardsley: (
So we took a very different approach. Um, I think as we all know, every state handled COVID differently. Um, we're headquartered in Florida and we as a state closed down for only two months. Um, so we actually, I came back to the office in May, 2020. We brought everyone from everyone that wasn't high risk. We brought back to the office in July. Um, we made a lot of changes to the office, um, filtering systems. We spaced people out. Uh, we put up kind of plexi class partitions to give people more protection. Um, we kept team members that were high risk at home, and they all came back last July. Um, it was a hard decision at that time and a lot of people were not so comfortable, but in the end we all came back. Um, I think it also helped people kind of socially cuz it got them out and moving and I'm glad we made that decision then because I know, um, if I was to try and pull people back now and I talk to many companies that we work with, they're challenged and most are staying remote or create a saying remote or creating this very flexible, um, work environment.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Well, it, it, it seems really complicated when you're dealing with those are radically different approaches that you described and last year or the year before we had a dynamo presenter here named sun Madani, she was with a company called fat merchant that changed their name during the pandemic to stacks they're in sales, their and their, their organization. When we interviewed her, when we did a live conference with her, I could see people walking around in the background and she said, oh no, we never really shut down at all. She said, we've gotta have people here that are a collaborative organization. And it sounds like it's hard to know the functions that you're you're, you're dealing with high risk mm-hmm Kathy's organization is dealing with things that for some reason, people operate in teams or silos where they're may be more productive, independently, some thoughts on, on what kind of environment it is that would demand people to be in the office, Kathy.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, so, you know, we're our whole system and technology is proprietary. Um, so it's driven by the teams of people in the office, the sales teams. Um, so I think it's a, we're a very collaborative company and we went, also went through a very extreme level of growth. We've almost probably doubled our volume in the last two years. And I think being able to keep up with that growth, we had to hire a lot of people. Um, so it just made it easier to have people in the office that helps keep the culture of who we are and what we wanna be, um, created mentorship. It, it just it's, um, it's just been a better, more collaborative way to work for us.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
And then I'm, I'm thinking CA Catherine, what you're describing, I read in the wall street journal every day, different perspectives where many employees absolutely don't want to come back in. And in some cases, I don't know that that many employees are demanding to come back to the office. Have you seen that?
Kathryn Albright: (
I haven't seen a lot of companies demand, um, folks return to the office. And in fact, uh, you know, we, we actually, our clients have enjoyed interacting with us, um, through teams. Um, and instead of saying, well, I can be, you know, in San Francisco I can be in the bay area in two weeks. Um, we can say, I can call you this afternoon, show you the demo. You can have as many of your colleagues on the call as you'd like, uh, and we can, um, be off and running with onboarding by tomorrow. And so our customers love that. And so we're seeing our sales cycle, um, and our customers onboarding cycles being so much more, um, accelerated as a result of being able to have that sort of real time collaboration via teams. Yeah.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
That's not slowed down by
Kathryn Albright: (
Meetings. Right. And we do go visit in person and that's, that's great for dinner and lunch, but I think having that ability to collaborate online, pop the demo up
Kate Fitzgerald: (
It, well, it sounds like a lot of flexibility. Yes. That's what you're dealing with. People that are, that are being, uh, creative about it too. So then I just wanna ask a little bit about travel. This is obviously our first, I think it's our company's first, um, live conference or close to it. And many people are still reluctant to travel or other people have been traveling and yet even as we speak, I think it's the, this is, um, you wanna talk about what, whether Catherine tell us whether the company's policies have changed? Are you getting back and running with travel or is it all gonna be different going forward?
Kathryn Albright: (
Great question. I, our policies have never really changed. So the good news is, uh, there was no need for a policy, a sweeping policy revision. So we, we are still traveling. Um, uh, my teams are still traveling and visiting with clients when they would like to be visited with in person. Some clients are saying, you know what, I I'm good with you being on teams. Um, others are, are, are really liking and wanting that in person approach still, um, the type of sales process that we offer, we get up at a whiteboard and, and have an experience on a whiteboard mapping out processes. So it's, it's better done in person. A lot of times, Kathy,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
You guys travel a lot.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, so we do travel a lot. I travel a lot prior to COVID. I was probably traveling twice a month. Um, and then I had two years of no travel and I just started back up in January and my 15 year old reminded me, he said, mom, I got so used to being you home. I now realize how much I hate when you're gone. ah, so, um, so now I'm trying to find the right balance of, Hey, I don't need to be there in person. We can do a teams meeting. Um, and so I'm probably about once a month on the road right now and we'll try and scale it back a little bit.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
so the next area I wanna talk about is nor the, the, we we've talked about the new normal for so long, but it keeps, I feel like it's a dynamic environment where we're living in operating in. And I don't know that where there's a new normal to go back to. But within that, the challenge that, that I, I understand talking to people about what we're facing is that during the pandemic, there was this huge digital transformation in payments, but not everyone made the leap. So you have here's companies operating virtually or in person, and that's true of your customers and your clients. So now you're dealing with, um, a landscape that has much more diverse people adopting payments at different speeds. How, how do you handle that and how challenging is that in terms of leading and managing to a much more, uh, like you're hurting cats at different that are running at different speeds in this new ever-changing environment, Cathy, you wanna start?
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, sure. So something that's unique about, um, our business as a payment facilitator, um, it's based on the premise that we take dreamers. So, um, what we saw during the pandemic is that there were shops that were traditionally just on, you know, small boutiques or that relied solely on foot traffic that had to figure out a way to sell their goods. So we began to see smaller merchants that typically weren't online, um, putting up a website and needing payments and the payment facilitator model, it's kind of plug and play. We give 'em a link and we do all the work for 'em. So our model suited those types of merchants to help them get up and running.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
And your customers though, did you feel like they're at different stages of digital adoption that you have to, are you bringing them up to speed or were they already leaning into it?
Cathy Beardsley: (
The consumer side of it,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
I guess the business side of
Cathy Beardsley: (
It. So the business side of it, they lean, they were already there. We were tra we're a hundred percent eCommerce. So we were dealing with new merchants that weren't typically in the space. Okay. That came to us.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Um, Katherine, you've got a, a very diverse, uh, what audience out there what's happening in terms of their rate of digital adoption. How do you accommodate all of that?
Kathryn Albright: (
Yeah, it, it was, uh, it, during the height of the pan pandemic clients realized that businesses realized they had to digitize overnight, literally. And so we, our challenge was how do we, how do we manage the, the, the, the pace of, of onboarding and getting those clients, getting our businesses, the, the, the services they need. Um, so we really had deflect our implementation, onboarding, um, capabilities to be more automated than ever quicker than ever literally overnight, uh, the next day set up, uh, to be online, be fully digitized. Um, and the, the other piece of that was, you know, really managing through a lot of fraudulent and, and high risk situations where customers are having to combat fraud, um, in, in, in, in a rapid, in rapid fashion. So we, we, um, we saw that digitization overnight, and now we're in phase two. It's really fun. So now to your point, you know, we we've digitized, we've taken them to that next step. Now. They're like, wow, this worked really well. How do I do my, and what do I do next? And so we're looking at things like integrated payments and, um, card solutions to be able to, to, to fully digitize all their payments.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
So that let's go back to your organization. The, we are, we have all been hearing about reading about the so-called great resignation. Again, I remember reading, um, two months ago in the wall street journal that it was in full scale. Everyone had resigned. And then about a month ago, they said, oh, a lot of those people have come back to work. They are, they, they thought they had, they didn't have as much money in the bank as they thought they did, or for some reason, retirement, wasn't what they wanted. In any case, it's been very difficult to recruit people and, and, and get, uh, people to stick around. This is a really important topic who wants to kick it off.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Okay. Go. Um, so hiring is a challenge, um, and hiring during the pandemic was a challenge. We brought a lot of people on board during that time period, but how we keep 'em or how we've tried to retain our employee bases. Um, obviously we're in the office, so it creates a culture of commitment to each other. Um, there's an element of fun. We've, uh, instituted, everyone gets a hundred dollars a week for door dash for lunch. So people like that, we have cookies on Fridays. We do all sorts of mental health, um, weeks, or we have someone come in once a month and do chair massages. Um, so we've tried to do a lot of kind of fun things for people to wanna be at work. Um, and also with the growth came the opportunity for promotion. So we're able to promote from within hire new people. So people kind of get committed to staying and being part of the team and watching the growth. So we've been fortunate,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Catherine.
Kathryn Albright: (
Yeah. We, um, you know, in terms of, uh, you know, retirements, that's, that's been our, our biggest challenge is retirements. And so literally in the last week, we celebrated to, um, long tenured associates that, uh, that are retiring, um, have, have had a number in, in Q4. So really, you know, replacing that kind of, um, organizational intellect has been, has been our challenge. So, um, to Cathy's point, you know, being able to up level a lot of our team members who we're looking for that next step in their career, that's been a great opportunity from, from that regard. And then having the ability to work in a hybrid environment, um, employees have really, you know, uh, talent has really appreciated the fact that, you know, you don't have to be in Portland. Um, you can actually be in, in Idaho, in Boise, Idaho, and, and do the same job from, from that vantage point. So that's been a really great retention tool for us while also continuing to stay connected.
Cathy Beardsley: (
I think that's a good point too, being remote, like you're, um, the world is your oyster right to hire mm-hmm . So I think that probably helped a lot too. Yes. Has
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Still does seem interesting because it's hard to know what the future's gonna bring, cuz things have changed so quickly. Things we assumed were true six months ago have changed. So, uh, speaking of rapidly changing things, you guys are both we're, we're all reading about hearing about every day, the, the, um, the roller coaster of, uh, digital cryptocurrency and blockchain. We've, we're, it's a, it's a subject that everyone feels like they need to get on top of, but then as you watch, we've seen some, some of the biggest hacks and, and fraud examples happening in crypto recently, the Bitcoin price has crashed and this is happening so rapidly. It's another area of anxiety, concern opportunity. And I just wanna ask, we're talking about managing and leading through transformative times, Catherine, how does, how do you guys handle something? You know, how do you feel like maintain sort of a, a feeling of confidence and that people are, um, on top of rapidly changing industry trends like this?
Kathryn Albright: (
Yeah, we, we started ATCO, we started a payments council and, uh, it's a group of leaders within the bank that, um, comes together, you know, once a month or, or, or more, um, more, uh, frequently if, if need be. And we're always talking about things like digital currencies, what's the, um, what's the latest with blockchain real time payments fed now it's, it's a lot to think about. And so really prioritizing ISO 20 0 22 really prioritizing where, where are we gonna place our next bets? Um, and what are we hearing from our clients? We have a client advisory board, uh, that just met in person last week, um, 15 of our largest, um, and most complex relationships who are asking, okay, what are you doing about digital currency? When, when can I have real time payments? Um, and oh, by the way, I'm terrified about fraud. Um, so we, we have seen an increase in fraud, really being able to protect our clients is job number one. Um, but then helping them innovate and create that payments mix that balance is, is, is a, a very high priority for us
Kate Fitzgerald: (
As well. So these, these councils are really important for staying on top of things and pulling in perspectives that you wouldn't necessarily have on your own.
Kathryn Albright: (
Yes, exactly. And getting everybody else to the table, right. Getting our it team, our risk folks, our regulatory folks to the table, everybody saying, and we take minutes, you said you would support this when I go to the, the investment committee, uh, you are at the table and I've got it right here. So it's helpful to
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Have that. Has any of this changed, did you have to adopt some of these practices more recently with the acceleration of, of everything changing?
Kathryn Albright: (
Absolutely. It's we, faster payments, immediate payments are absolutely, uh, when our clients are desiring and, and to be able to do that, we've constantly gotta be in an agile, um, iterative process
Kate Fitzgerald: (
To Kathy. How are you guys coping with the, uh, roller coaster of it all?
Cathy Beardsley: (
So we do something very similar. Um, as a senior leadership team, we'll take a look at what's important and what's gonna drive revenue for the company as we move forward. Um, and we'll have risks there. Find it, it, the whole group sits in debates. Um, if we talk specifically about crypto, that's probably the number one request I get from merchants. Um, I really don't know how much volume crypto is gonna do, but it's intriguing and it feels like we need to be, um, in front of it. So we've had a lot of debate on crypto, um, our compliance, regulatory risk team. Um, their hair stands up every time I mention crypto, um, um, primarily due to the non miss nature of it and not knowing source of wealth and so on and so forth. So that's a big uphill that we're gonna try and tackle, but, um, we mostly debate, we put it on the table, what are we gonna work on? And what's gonna have the most value to the company
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Because you don't have the answers. Right. And so speaking of that, you just described, uh, your company's coping through a combination of onsite, remote, constantly changing traveling when needed adapting, establishing these, these, uh, these councils. And at the same time you mentioned the re retention and the need to have people be, uh, motivated. All of that sounds exhausting at some point, and then you're gonna confront this. I mean, once people have made it through the pandemic, if they didn't already drop dead, how are you, how do, how do you keep people, you know, managing and how do you manage through the potential of burnout at all these different levels? And does it, is it something you worry about that it, that even you might hit the wall at some point , I'm sure. How do you handle it? I know Catherine is very, very calm at all times. So tell us how you managed to do that and avoid burnout.
Kathryn Albright: (
Uh, if you ask some of my, my, so my team members, they may not say I'm always calm, but, uh, thank you. Uh, it it's, it, it definitely is. It's something that you have to constantly be watching for. Um, one thing I I've tried to do, and it's hard to make time for this, but it's critical is reaching out to, to, um, key employees from time to time and just saying, Hey, how are you doing what's going on? And, and you've, I find out more through a 15 minute call than I would in, in large meetings. Um, you know, that take place all the time, just taking that 15 minute 20 minute that sometimes turns into an hour, uh, phone call just to say, how are you doing, I, I saw you on the call today. Um, everything okay, what can I do to help you? How do I support you better? And having those conversations, lets me understand the, the, the tenor, the, how, how people are feeling about, um, things and, and making changes before they become a, a, a problem. Yeah. Um, for everybody.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Okay. Kathy, you've gotta have a strategy on that.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, so we, you know, I think being in the office helps keep your pulse on what's going on with, um, all of your team members, our HR directors does something very similar. She's constantly checking in with everyone. Um, you know, once, once or twice a month, um, we're try, we track vacation mostly to make sure people are taking 'em taking vacation. I think, um, when we were remote, people were remote and didn't really mm-hmm they were, I think that drove more burnout so having people come in the office, leave their work at, at the office to go home has helped, um, and just kind of and just kind of watching who's here late. Who's in early, do we need to hire a resource? Um, and then backing making sure everyone has a backup, right? The no one person knows what the job, uh, so that someone can leave and actually forget work for a while and, um, take a break.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
That seems critical. Well, there's a lot there to unpack. We can discuss more, but I wanted to see if anybody had from the audience, had it as any questions they wanna ask the panelists or any comments on these subjects. Anybody. Here we go. Yeah. Can you just shout out your question? I bet we can hear you.
Audience Member 1: (
Okay.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Here we go. Thank you.
Audience Member 2: (
Hi, I'm Bob from SIS. Uh, my question is for you, Catherine, right? You mentioned about multiple initiatives in discussion from a forum post that you have got, right. Which has got, you know, CBDC Bitcoin, you know, multiple real time, faster payment, all coming up, right. The key is right. There are building blocks that comes from all of them, which are very common that you to take or take it forward, right? From what we call no grid decisions. How do you arrive at Don those no grid thing that has to be done irrespective right. Could be real time and all which builds a building blocks, which can now help out as we go forward. Right. As things come up from fed now ISO 202 and all.
Kathryn Albright: (
Um, so, so your question is kind of how do, how do we prioritize those initiatives? Great, great question. Thank you for, thank you for the question. So, uh, it really is a, um, you know, bringing those solutions to our payments council and in, in a way, educating the rest of the bank on this is where we are with crypto. Here's the environment, um, bringing, uh, someone to talk about open banking and API connectivity. Um, and, and the first step is just educating the rest of the bank about what is this and why, why is it important to the bank? Um, and then the next step is then prioritizing and saying, where are we? What's our roadmap look like we just announced a merger with a, a similar sized bank so that we have, have to prioritize obviously quickly. Um, but then also continuing to, to innovate and, and release new solutions. So we also bring feedback in, so we have a continuous feedback loop with our clients, our client advisory board, um, customer meeting sales feedback, um, to help us inform those bets as well.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
We've yeah. We've got another question here. We've got one more minute or two, couple questions she's on her way.
Audience Member 3: (
Hi there. Just wondering, um, can you hear me? Yes, mm-hmm okay. Um, how do you both use artificial intelligence in anything you're doing within your, your business? I mean, there's lots of areas, lots of functions, but I think especially with fraud and risk, there's some great solutions, you know, by leveraging areas of artificial intelligence. So just wondering how you, uh, if you use it and how you do that in your day to day business.
Cathy Beardsley: (
Um, so let's see. So from a, a risk standpoint, we're, we're using third party tools, and then we also have our own proprietary, um, system, which I would say is AI or machine learning as to how we're detecting fraud. Um, so it becomes a combination of both and the internal processes are really coming from the insight that the, the fraud or risk team, um, is seeing every single day. And then from there we're, we're, uh, modifying the system to meet those challenges,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Catherine. Great, thanks.
Kathryn Albright: (
And, and, and from our perspective, we have a couple of ways to look at it. So from a risk perspective, we do have an artificial intelligence, um, threat monitoring system that we put in place, really working with our customers to see, uh, you know, take a look at their domains, um, their environment, and see if there is some sort of pattern that we we're detecting, um, in terms of what what's hitting their, their domain and, and then sharing with them the results of that analysis so that they can stay ahead of the, the threats through that threat monitoring service. Um, the other, uh, thing we're doing is we're we're offer, we, we're creating predictive analytics on our, um, customer's payments to see if they're making a lot of deposits in a branch or writing a lot of checks. Um, they could be a good candidate for, um, something to automate those solutions or to, to, um, prevent fraud.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
I think we had, there was one more question right there when then we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you.
Audience Member 4: (
Uh, my question's more about, um, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies. So cryptocurrencies in general have been infamous some good and some bad connotations in the pop culture, but what about blockchain? There is a lot more application than cryptocurrencies for blockchain, right before pandemic, that was supposed to be the transformative, uh, thing that was supposed to go through the banking system and financial institutions. So setting aside cryptocurrencies, how do you both of you see the role of blockchains in the near future?
Cathy Beardsley: (
Oh God,
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Maybe just maybe
Cathy Beardsley: (
Next. No. Um, I don't have a good answer for you. um, the only other element that we see that's on the blockchain, I guess, is NFTs. So we're getting merchants wanting us to process for NFTs NIFT. It took me a few months to even figure out what that was. Um, and from there each acquire that we work with views it differently, some see it as an investment. Um, so they're not so interested in processing for it and others are, are fine with it. So that would be one other element of the blockchain that we've been dealing with. Um, but outside of that, it's that in crypto
Kate Fitzgerald: (
Catherine,
Kathryn Albright: (
I would agree, Kathy, I, I not a allowed to add, but we are looking at, you know, blockchain as being the foundation for, for a lot of things that we're doing around crypto currencies.
Kate Fitzgerald: (
So that's a big topic and I think we're gonna hear more about it at this conference. This has been great. We do, we really realized before we did this, we had Catherine, Kathy and Kate. Yeah. But we, you guys hung in there and, uh, really an excellent session and, uh, thanks very much.