FinTech Friday | Alternative Payments & The Current State of Traditional Payment Methods | B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast

the mic. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Steve Jobs of merchant services himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about business, fintech, payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today.

Day.

And in today's podcast, we'll be going over, uh, alternative payment methods, uh, what that means, what that means for businesses, what that means for merchant services, uh, in general. Uh, there's a lot of different ways that you could get paid nowadays. Uh, that rhymed. That was pretty cool. Um, anyway, yeah, so alternative payment methods, what is it? How can you get signed up? Where should they go? Why should they use Nationwide Payment Systems?

Well, we're gonna get in, we're gonna dive into all that, but all right, at the end, if you're interested in what we're talking about and you want to delve into, you know, what alternative payment methods you can take at your business, we're going to talk about ones that are safe, you know, for businesses, and ones that businesses probably should steer away from because of issues going on. So let's talk of the, you know, we're going to be given a brief overview of, you know, everybody knows traditional payment methods, credit cards, debit cards, ACH, a paper check if you hardly see one of those, you know, cash, obviously.

Cash is still king.

Yep, cash is still king. And you know what, alternative payment methods, some of them became very popular during the pandemic. Right, only for the government to come in and slap everybody around. So, you know, and then get— say, hey, everybody needs to play by the rules. I mean, so let's get— let's dive into alternative payment methods. So the first one I want to talk about is what types of alternative payment methods are there. So mobile payments, which means things like Apple Wallet, Google Wallet. So you have a wallet on your phone, you either have— you have your credit card in your wallet and you can use your phone to make a payment. That's a mobile payment. Apple Pay. Yeah, an Apple Pay. And you know, some of the, some of the scrutiny around that right now is that Apple and Google are both being sued by multiple banks.

Really?

Yeah, because they take a piece of the action They want something. They want some of the interchange.

Who wants some of these?

Apple and Google. Although I read Google was being flexible with that now, but they want a piece of the interchange. And then the banks don't want to give them any of the interchange. They, they shouldn't make any money off of that.

Who are they already making money on a transaction?

Apple Pay? No, it's just basically just a place to store your credit card. It's just stored there. And now that—

so my question, so then why would they— so the banks are saying that they don't want to give up anything?

Yeah, they don't want to give up a piece of the action. They want Apple to either open up Apple Pay or allow for other apps in the App Store that compete with Apple Pay. And I think that they're right. Because I don't think that—

I mean, I think Apple Pay should be able to charge, charge.

Yeah, but they're having— but now it's— yeah, but now it's considered a monopoly. There's no competition.

So because I can't put a different— but I could use Zelle.

No, no, no, I'm—

I'm— I get what you're saying. Mobile payments though, like, I can't—

I can't go to like some banks. Like, I, like, I use Chase, right? So Chase doesn't participate in Apple Pay because they don't want to give Apple a piece of the action. But I can't put my Chase, uh, Chase can't have a wallet on my phone so I could use my Chase card like that. Oh, so the banks are saying that they should be able to have their own wallet or let— or open up the Apple Wallet, let everybody put stuff in. They don't want to come and they shouldn't charge them to do that. They're saying it's extortion.

Sounds about, about right.

Now Google, on the other hand, I heard has loosened up the reins on that but also won't allow third-party wallets to be installed on the phone. But then I also read another story about how Apple's going to open up for outside apps, but I don't know if that's going to include wallets. But there is a few lawsuits going on from community banks and credit unions that feel that Apple's treating them unfairly. I mean, but whatever. I think if you're a business today, you got to make sure that whatever credit card equipment you have is equipped with Apple Pay, Google Pay, which you need an NFC reader for— not near-field communication.

Yeah.

And you know, like, it's funny, someone was mentioning in another article I read, they were talking about mobile Mobile, or how do you say Mobile, the gas station?

Mobile.

Yeah, they used to have— they were the first one to have like a tap and pay thing. You could get a fob from them, right? This fob.

No shit.

Yeah, and then you could just put it up to the pump and you could charge your gas. But what happened was, is it was using a different type of— it wasn't using near-field communications, using RFID chips.

I was gonna— yeah, I remember we were talking about RFID chips, right?

And then people could steal the the data, your credit card number. So that quickly went down the drain. So, you know, but it's got some other— so the other thing is like tap and pay uses near-field communication. So it's important that you have that.

No, I mean, what are some other different alternative payment methods?

Oh, we're getting— we're going down the list. The next one is digital wallets. This is where a lot of, a lot of merchants got in trouble because they passed a law saying that if you're using these digital wallets and you're a business, you have to declare that income. People weren't declaring the income. People were using them for years and, you know, using PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, right, for years and then not paying taxes. Yeah. So they came down on that. Then they had this $600 rule. I think a little self-regulation came into play, play because Venmo, PayPal, all the, you know, those places all developed a business account and told merchants, no, you're a business.

This is—

you're obviously running a business, right? Doing 10 transactions a day.

PayPal, I mean, they were, they were on it a couple years ago. They were— I mean, I got mine, right?

I'm just saying, like, they were the first one to self-regulate, but these other ones had to start doing it. But now people are—

Cash App is doing it too, right?

Yeah, Cash App, Venmo, and they added fees. So Used to be no fees, now there's fees if you're a business, and it's more expensive than credit card processing, or about the same. And the difference is with those services, you get a deposit— each transaction is a deposit, whereas if you're using a credit card processor, you get a batch. It's much cleaner from an accounting standpoint to deal with. I mean, if you're doing 20 transactions a day of Cash App, you're getting 20 deposits in your bank account.

If you have it set up that way, right?

Right. Some of them are like Zelle, you get it one by one. That's what I'm saying. So some of them offer where you could send the whole batch to—

well, like Cash App, it just goes to Cash App and then you cash out, right?

Then you cash out. Venmo, I think, also does both ways.

I think Venmo has it that way.

Yeah, where it just stays, or, or you can get the deposit directly automatic. Yeah, for each one. And then another alternative payment method, although I would say it's not very popular today, is cryptocurrency. Now, as of today, right now, I do think that the government is going to come in and clean everything up, hopefully, or there's going to be some— have to be some self-regulation in the industry that they're gonna figure out at some point. And maybe by the middle of this year, 2023, let's see some positive movement, because I do think that there's some application for cryptocurrency to be used, like the USDT stablecoin. Um, there's tons of reasons using other things to purchase NFTs and other international— yeah, international transactions, cross-border transactions, you know, moving money between countries, you know, all of that. I think there's an application for that. You know, and then cryptocurrency also took a hit because they started taxing cryptocurrency on trades, which I think is wrong, and it should only be taxed on profit. It was like last year, I was a little upset when I had to pay the tax on the profit I made in my account. Now my account is negative, so is there like a tax credit for that?

You should be a tax credit, but there isn't.

No. So that's why I think that the The way they wrote that rule up needs to get fixed. Agreed. I mean, it should be treated the same way as stocks. You have stocks and the stock goes up, you don't— unless you sell it, you didn't make a profit, right? The same thing with crypto. Here they made everybody pay taxes last year, enormous amount of taxes. Everybody pulled out of the crypto market after that. That's ridiculous. The next thing, this is pretty interesting. Biometric payments. So payments you could make with a fingerprint or with your face.

I think that's going to get really, really popular now.

I think at some point we're going to see, see that happen, you know, on a very— maybe a very low level, you know, start to get introduced for paying.

I think that it's gonna— like, the government is going to introduce it first.

Well, the thing is, is the government already has this thing called that ID.me. Right? I don't even know who owns that company, but whatever. So when you want to file your taxes, or like, I went on a website to look up treasury bonds to see how that worked, just to investigate it, because you can get a lot of interest, right? So you had to use the ID.me, which I already had set up, to even get in there, to get into the— to get onto these— on a few websites that I went to, they're, they're linking up to that. And I think that other websites, other websites that hold sensitive information should think about using the same product so that everybody doesn't have to go get 29 different products.

Yeah, I think, I think that the, the government is definitely going to hop on to this, uh, the facial and, you know, fingerprint to pay for stuff like tickets, courts. Just, I think in general it's going to become more of a security thing because especially for identity theft. That's what I'm talking about. Like, with the artificial intelligence, the way that it is, it's, you know, like, we use it now for the merchant. Crazy.

We use it now so much with AI for some of the merchant accounts, right? So, uh, we use a little artificial intelligence and biometric. Someone has to upload their driver's license and then do a picture, and then the software checks the driver's license, checks the picture, uses the AI of the database of the world, right, to go see, oh, is that Justin? Is that Allen? Is that what they look like, right? And are they located in an area where they're normally located? They see, oh, this guy's in whatever, Arizona, but Allen lives in Florida, right? Or Justin lives in Milwaukee, right? And they go, oh, well, that doesn't add up. You know, other things that we keep reading about is FedNow and the real-time payments. That's also an alternative payment. I think we, you know, it's going to be interesting to see if we see like that happen in the B2B world. It will, you know. And I think, you know, it's going to be interesting if you guys offer that, you want to sell it to businesses, contact us. We'd love to show that to businesses that we deal with because I think that a lot of businesses are going to want that. Type of payment method.

I do too.

Yeah, they're going to want to— they're going to want to jump on the bandwagon with that. I think what they're worried about with it is the same thing as like with Zelle. Once that money goes, it's gone. And I think that they've got to develop some kind of security around that system so that nothing like that happens, like what happened with Zelle, where it's a major meltdown. Let's—

it's so hard though, man. I mean, someone— I guess you're gonna have to— they're gonna have to figure it out. But it— that, you know, for me, the only way that I see a real solution is, is literally like the biometric thing.

That's what I'm talking about. They're gonna have to figure out like a biometric thing or a dual authentication method or something, or a combination of two. Yeah, of those things. So someone could send 50 grand You don't want 50, you know, somebody to— you don't want, you know, somebody—

there should be like a 24-hour holding period.

Well, the whole idea, I don't know, is to send it in real time, so—

right, exactly.

Otherwise you could just use ACH.

True.

So that's the whole idea, but I think that they've got to figure out like the authentication methods of what they're gonna do.

Yeah, that's, that's sketchy. I'm just thinking about like how, you know, there's so many new ways of, you know, fraud and hacking going on. Like people are able to intercept text messages. So if they're sending you an email with that link and then you're paying it through there, you know, it's just really— I, I don't know. There's a—

well, no, I think that's scary stuff. I think they just got to develop like some kind of like, oh, it's sent through some kind of encrypted email, right?

Yes.

And some— something like that. Yeah, some— whatever it is, they got to figure it out. And then the other thing they talk about is, you know, online banking, offline banking, open banking, you know, and how that— and, you know, are there— are there going to be ways for people to do other P2P payments?

You know, there's enough, why do you need more?

Who knows? That's what they're talking about, more P2P payment things to work for.

I don't want any more apps on my phone.

I'm good. Yeah, there's a lot now, but a lot of them are under scrutiny. So I don't hear much about Cash App. Uh, Cash App is great. Um, they're having— I don't know, there was some issue with Cash App the other day, an article that I read about the government wants to know what they do with all the data. And that's what they're after all of them for, that what are they— what are they doing with the day— all the data they're collecting. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Google Wallet, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle. They want to know what they're doing with all the data they collect. The government's asking them, like, what do you do with it?

Probably nothing.

They probably sell it.

Well, that too. I mean, they— but they— the company itself, they're probably not doing much with it. Well, they're retargeting.

Well, they're, they're just talking about what are they— what are they—

I'm sure they're running ads, you know. They're targeting who the users are. They're using, you know, who— how old they are, the demographic.

But what did they do with that information? Did they sell it? The people know, of course they sell it, right?

I know that you sell it to anyone and everyone, just like every Yellow Pages and your bank, you know.

And then there's other forms of, of, um, alternative payment methods that are coming from other countries. So let's say you're a business and you're in Hawaii, right, as an example, or you're in Miami or you're in New York and you get a lot of customers and they're coming from Japan and China. Right.

Okay.

So businesses, are they interested in being able to take Alipay, WeChat from those clients so that they can pay them with their native payment, uh, methods? And that, that start gonna be— that looks like it's going to become available pretty quickly in 2023.

Really?

Yeah. Where you'd be able to get set up with a terminal and somebody says comes in, let's say you give a lot of tour Asian tourists or to— and even there's other wallets too, wallets from Mexico, different South American countries, and you would be able to take those payments.

Nice.

Because it's interesting because Visa and MasterCard dominates in the U.S., Canada dominate, you know, although Canada does a lot of debt, like their debit network is pretty active, but you know, Visa and MasterCard's dominant there.

Europe So people in Canada don't put stuff on credit, is what you're saying?

They don't use credit as much as the US. They use a lot of debit.

Why?

That's just how their banking is set up over there. They don't give out—

well, they don't have credit like that.

They don't have— they don't have— they don't give out unsecured credit the way they do, right?

They're not going to let you go into poverty in Canada, but down here in the US, go ahead, get as many loans as you want.

Yeah, which I don't agree with. Me neither. And, um, so, you know, and then you have like Australia is a big Visa, MasterCard country, but then outside of that, once you get, you know, like into South America, Mexico, the Asian countries, they're all into this whole wallet scene. And again, they don't give out credit, unsecured credit, as much as the US. So people have to— they could stay— have credit, but it's very limited, right, right, right, right. It's limited. Meaning for like certain items and like, well, no, like, yeah, the amount, and then, you know, the payback method and how you're going to pay it back is all already predetermined. Like, oh, you have a $5,000 credit line. They don't just give out $100,000 credit line. It's crazy. And then another thing of alternative payments, and I was reading an article this morning which actually blew my mind, that said that some businesses that are suffering in the U.S. have turned to buy now pay later because otherwise they wouldn't be able to make sales. What do you think about that?

I think that—

I mean, let's say you sell furniture and you don't have Buy Now Pay Later.

Well, that's dumb if you don't have that.

No, no, but I'm just saying you need that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I think for big ticket items, the— so for Buy Now Pay Later, it's like a gift and a curse, right? I think that it can be really beneficial for people who are like in poverty or who don't necessarily— who are living like paycheck to paycheck, right?

Right.

But then also, I think those same people are getting— it's not even I think, it's statistically showing that they're getting in trouble, right?

And there's a lot of defaults.

Yeah.

Buy Now Pay Later.

On top of that, they're not making those payments. They're screwing their credit up even worse than it already is. And they don't know that, right? Because they're not really paying attention to the fine print. They just think, oh, this is a great thing.

Right?

So the buy now pay later, I, I'm a fan of it. I think that there's a lot of kinks that need to be worked out, uh, the way that Amazon has it set up. I accidentally— I didn't accidentally, I'm gonna say it, I told my kids I accidentally, but I just— it was 2 items in my cart and I clicked the pay in 4. Yeah, it was only $30.

It's weird because it comes—

I'm saying my, my order was only $36.

I know, but it's weird because it comes up in a pop-up And then if you're not paying attention, you can click—

no, exactly, because it's— there's two little radio buttons that you got to click, either pay for in full now or pay in four.

Right, but they also have a popup.

That's what I'm— that's the next window, right? Right. So you click the checkout, boom, this thing shows up, and you got to pay attention. And then I was reading about how Amazon is like leaking funds like this last quarter, and I'm saying to myself, it's got to be because Buy Now Pay Later.

Exactly.

Because there, there's not— the system isn't set up right. There's not that $100.

The whole thing is they're not— they don't check people's credit on Buy Now Pay Later, so they don't really know. And the other thing is, is people are putting in stuff like—

well, the Buy Now Pay Later goes off the balance in your checking account.

They don't have a way to check that. They can only check whatever card you're using. So whatever card you're putting— that's what I'm saying. Yeah, but if it's a credit card or a debit card, but this goes off the available balance, they— that's what they're doing. But that doesn't mean that you're— just because you got $500 today in your account doesn't mean there's $500 tomorrow. Maybe you've heard a check for rent for $484, $499, right? There's gonna be a dollar there in 2 days. That's what I'm saying. Like, they're not doing that. And also, the credit cards are fighting back. Every credit card I have now, when I log in to back end, it says, oh, if you have a purchase over $100 and you would like to break it up into 4 interest-free payments, do this, blah blah blah. Then there's just a small monthly charge later. Yeah, it's pretty high when you think about it. Take $100, I think it's like a $5 monthly fee.

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

I'm not doing that either, but some people are gonna do it.

I just— I got 2 more art orders out on like the buy north from Christmas and all that other stuff. I think I got 2 payments left on And I'm, I'm not— I, I'm— it's so— it's fine because I can, you know, the payments are affordable, very affordable. It's like $22 every 2 weeks, right? But it's just still also like, I don't like it. I just— I should have— I would have just— I should have just—

I should have just bought it, just paid for it. Yeah, well, next lesson learned. Yeah. And the other kind of alternative payment that's getting really popular are— it, it's been around consumer financing, but now there's several consumer finance companies that have morphed themselves into a fintech. So businesses will be able to sign up online, get approved, get a QR code, then take that QR code, put it in their business, put it on their website, and say, oh, this for things that are like expensive— furniture store, auto repair, different things like that. And then you want to do, you know, where Buy Now Pay Later's not really going to work for payments for furniture, you know.

I mean, it's still like for a $1,000 payment, right?

I'm just saying like that's not really, you know, some stores already have that like 90 days same as cash and they do it themselves, you know. They kind of like check your— check you out you know, themselves, and they go, oh, we'll approve you for a 90-day buy now, pay in, you know, you know, 90 days no interest. And, um, but like alternatives to the Synchronicity are coming out. There's, there's a few companies we're talking to, they're coming out, they're going to offer it for a variety of business categories. You'd be able to scan a QR code then fill out that, you know, consumer fill out the application. Then they would approve. They send you like a text message and everything. You're going back and forth with the software a little bit because they want to, okay, you know, verify your who you are, right? And all that. And then let's say your, your car, it's going to cost $1,200 to fix your car and you don't have $1,200. So you tell them, oh, I need $1,000. So then they would tell you, oh, the $1,000, here's the 6 offers we have, right? And then they would tell you what those 6 offers are. You pick the one you want. Then they sent— they would actually text you a virtual credit card. You show the virtual credit card to the business owner, they key enter it, and they get paid right away.

That's cool.

So much faster than the traditional one is go to the website, fill everything out. Sometimes it takes a day. 2 days. Sometimes they want documents from you, right? With this, it's going to be much faster because they have like a Plaid interface. So you're logging into your bank account, they can see what's going on real fast and get you approved within like 5-10 minutes.

Nice.

So a lot of different, you know, that's an alternative payment method for a business. Businesses got to have it, these kind of things. No, they do.

I agree.

And it's important. And I think that the consumer demand for these things. Like, we're opening up, you know, like Hawaii is opening up where people from— a limited amount of people from Asian countries can start coming to Hawaii. It's very popular for them to travel to Hawaii.

Why can't people? Well, that—

because whatever, there was some deal with COVID you know. That was— oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're open, they're raising the number of people that can travel in now, right? They're raising the limit.

I mean, there— I don't know, it's a random-ass question, but why is Hawaii so popular to—

to close— closer to them?

No, I get that, but that's it? Yeah, it's close, and they could say they were in the United States.

Cool, it's in Hawaii. There's Hawaii.

I went to the United States. I went to Hawaii, right?

But I'm saying Hawaii is cool when you want to go see— I've seen Hawaii.

I've never been. I want to go very bad.

Yeah, it's insane. Like, it's like, it's a cool spot.

I always, you know, this is one of those things where I probably—

it'd be really hard to get me back on the plane. You'd be stuck there with my friend Jay. You'd be at Jay's house.

Jay and Jay, we can make a tag team championship of the world. You go sell the merchant accounts and I'll do everything digitally, and we'll partner with Allen and we'll be a happy little family. I'll send little boats of letters to my family back in the United States. I don't know, whatever.

Jay can take you down to the Molokini Crater and the Waipio Valley and all that good stuff.

I need to see that.

Yes, it's pretty cool. So, you know, the, the adoption, you know, so, so that's what I mean. Businesses like that have those international travelers need to have these alternative payment methods. If they don't have them now, I can tell you that very few people have it.

Right?

And they need to start getting it, and it needs— we're working on it. We're working with a couple companies to get it going.

Nice.

To bring it— to be able to bring it to merchants.

Hello everyone, we'd like to take this time to thank our sponsors Nationwide Payment Systems and NPS Printer. We'd also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you'd like to reach Allen or myself, head over to B2BVault.info, where you'll find two forms, one to contact us and another if you're interested in becoming a sponsor. If you'd like to sign up for a merchant account, click the Apply Now button located at the top of the page of B2BVault.info, where you'll answer a few questions, and you'll be on your way to processing payments in no time. The podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and other popular streaming networks. Thanks again for listening.

So there is a big— well, there's a, you know, there's a big demand for secure payment methods. Everybody wants the, you know, security, you know, and especially like all the wallet stuff, right? Who's going to adopt that? The millennials, the Gen Z, right? The younger generation. They want, they want your business to have cool technology.

Yeah, the newest and truest.

Yeah, they want to be able to tap their card, they want to be able to scan a QR code and make a payment, they want to tap their phone, whatever the newest and coolest way is that they're doing. Right, that's how they want to pay, you know. And oh, so let me just go back, you know, that's how they want to pay. One thing, you know, I recommend with businesses is Be careful with, with, with, with the, with the PayPal, the Venmo, this, the, the, the Zelle, you know, Cash App, using those in your business. Make sure you get a business account if you're going to use those, and, and make sure what you're doing, because you can have a lot, you know, there's fraud. You don't want to deal with any of this stuff going on with that. Yeah, no, but the, the, you know, because— and the reason that some of these payment methods are becoming more popular is for, you know, cost reasons, right? But I don't think we're going to see the cost of credit card processing go down. I think we're going to see more businesses passing the fee or raising their prices. I mean, prices already are through the roof, and, uh businesses need to, uh, deal with. It's, it's, it's kind of crazy, but they have to deal with things like, you know, the cost of goods. I mean, I was reading today— I, I didn't look though. I have to go to the grocery store this weekend, but everybody's posting that eggs are some insane price.

Eggs are like $7 a carton.

That's nuts. At $7, go to Costco. I don't know how much—

they're going to be more expensive at Costco.

Really? I'm going to check the price of eggs.

What kind of eggs do you buy? Brown?

No, I buy organic eggs.

But organic brown eggs? Yeah, the only egg that you should eat.

Yes, exactly right.

But yeah, man, a carton dozen, uh, it was like $6.70.

That's insane, dude. So nuts.

Groceries are—

yo, it's killing—

everything is $5. If the next time you go to the— when you go to the grocery store, to a Publix, okay?

Yeah.

Just look at the prices. Oh yeah, there is nothing under $5.

Yeah, everything— the price of everything has gone up tremendously. Like, even Rocky's treats, dude, a pound of apples. Yeah, is like $16.

Oh, you know the other weird organic Honeycrisp apples, bro? Man, please, if there is a farmer that's listening to this and you have an organic farm of apples that grows Honeycrisps, please call me, man. I will come and do whatever you need to be done on the farm for lifetime supplies.

I swear to God, Justin will help you with your website if you send them like a box of apples a month.

Dude, send me a box of apples a week, bro, and I'll do whatever you— I will sell those apples for you for sure.

Justin will build you a nice website. Yes, for apples, please. No, but it's crazy, like the prices of everything is through the roof, you know. But I think that, you know, I think we're going to see like some of these alternative payment methods, you know, really, really dig in. I just don't, you know, but we'll see, we'll see what that— we'll see what happens. I think, you know, out of all the things that are popular, I think the buy now pay later is going to have to get revamped because they're not doing the following truth in lending laws.

It's got to be a better, like, you know, what is the word, education, so people know what they're getting. Prescreening process, right? There's got to be a better way of, you know, you got to ask a question, are you employed or something? I don't know, one of those types of things, you know, what's your monthly income? I don't know.

So there's got to be those companies, in order for you to use it, maybe you have to fill out an application with them one time. Yeah, one time, and then you're approved by Klarna or you're approved by Afterpay.

And then that's because in that way it'll also— it will help your credit score for sure.

Then it'll help your credit.

At this point you're paying it off. I know there's one that reports it to the credit, like your on-time payments. I think it's Sizzle.

Oh, maybe.

Or is it Afterpay?

I don't know. I don't know.

One of those two, they actually report your on-time payments, but the rest of them They're not, and but they will report if you don't make a payment, right?

Uh-oh, that's not good. Yeah, and I think, you know, like, I'll give some examples of people who are successfully using like alternative payment methods. So like we have a law office and I've been calling it ACH. So instead of taking pay, you know, the checks in the mail, yes, we set them up with a payment portal. They give a choice, pay by credit card, click here, pay by ACH, click here, and then people can do an electronic check, and then it's much smoother for them to deal with from, from that standpoint.

Yeah, I like that option.

And, you know, other methods of using—

the only thing I don't like about the option is sometimes it takes a really long time to post on your, on, on like your end, with the customer's end. Yeah, to be deducted.

Well, usually it's like, it usually takes 24 to 48 hours and And if it's on the weekend, it's obviously going to take longer, right? Or if there's a holiday, right? Right. Monday's a holiday, right?

Monday is a holiday, everyone. Banks are closed. You will not get paid.

You will not get a deposit because the bank's closed. So a lot of businesses— and then like alternative payments, businesses just have like a smart terminal in their business and people can do a tap and pay. When you see the little symbol, tap and pay. Use their wallet. That's another, you know, and it moves the line faster too.

Can I just want a little one more? I'm complaining a lot about in this podcast, but I, I do not like that this— yeah, is back here.

Yeah, but you don't— you don't have to see—

no, but a lot of times if you—

oh, they turn the machine around?

No, but I'm saying like it's so that you can see the—

use the amounts here. Well, then you can get— if you want your customer to see the amount, you can use this one and with the customer-facing.

See, that's a very— that's a nice machine. This is not a customer-facing machine, is it?

No, but merchants have a choice.

No, so I wouldn't see the total would just be on the register.

Yeah, like they use— that's more like used in like a restaurant or a bar because this is—

because it's almost mobile, right?

Right, it's mobile. This is mobile too, but it's a little heavy to carry this thing.

Yeah, this is perfect for on the go, right?

So like the bartender has it.

Yeah, they ring it up, then they put it in front of you, ding dong, you out of there. Right, but like, I'm talking about like if it's at the store and it's— and they still have these types of machines. Oh yeah, but then you see the screen and it's like you put your chip in here, but then to tap you got to go like, like some of them.

Yeah, some of them are—

I cannot— it hurts. It just hurts.

Actually, you don't have to be that close, about 2 or 3 inches. There's— it's set for like 2. I know, I'm just, I'm just saying most people just tap the card on there. I mean, I like it at the gas station. I don't have to do all that sticking get in. I just tap it on the thing and go. So, you know, like gas stations put that in. Like I was telling the story a couple times, I'm in my car, I forgot my wallet one day and I had no gas, and I was like, oh man. So I pulled into the gas station, I was like, oh, I got my phone, I don't need my wallet. I paid with the Apple Pay. Boom, done. That's great examples of how it works. Like we just, we just did these little— these also, these little machines for a festival So somebody had an event, they needed like 4 of these, so we sent them out 4 of these, and then they have them at the events. Got 4G, 5G in it. So people came to pay at the event, they just—

it's our new ones, or is that—

yeah, they use these. You saw this like at the parking lot? Yeah, I don't know if it was this model, but it was something close to that, you know, at a parking lot instead of handling cash and just doing it.

Genius for all the people in Detroit and Milwaukee and Chicago who are still operating, uh, parking lots on cash and getting robbed every Saturday night, might want to reach out to nationwidepaymentsystems.com, fill out the form, and get yourself a mobile card reader.

And then, you know, challenges and considerations, you know, that merchants have to take and business owners need to think about with alternative payment methods is, you know, if you're using like a consumer finance company or a buy now pay pay later company, make sure that you know like what the consumer is going to have to deal with because you don't want them calling you on the phone going, oh, I did this buy now pay later and you didn't tell me. Make sure you got signage up, right, and all that. And, and go through the process yourself maybe so you know exactly how the process works. Nice. So it's important, important to do that. And the other thing is, is You know, other things like using those wallets, just be aware you're going to get a 1099.

So not this year, but next year for sure.

Yeah, but also it could be that you get audited by the IRS or something and they see gazillion transactions going into your bank account.

I mean, that's, that's like an inside joke between me and Allen. It's like they took, you know, they were talking about doing that at the end of the year, right? Right. And I'm like, yeah, they took it away. Remember everyone was sitting in, you know, the entrepreneurs were celebrating around the United States like, yeah, we, we're good, you know, we got a little—

well, the IRS said they're delaying it, right?

And then I said to Allen, I was like, yeah, they're delaying it just so that they can just, right, come and attack us when they figure it all out. They're gonna come and beat us up.

Well, the one thing is they did the— we can thank the House of Representatives. They nixed the funding for 87,000 IRS agents that were going to monitor that. So that was a good thing for the small business. I personally believe that was going to target small business owners for sure, because one thing I always hear from them is, oh, pass-through income, you know, everybody, they want to double tax. They basically trying to double tax the small business owner. You need to run your business and declare your business income on a, you know, whatever— there's a separate form for that on the tax return— and declare your business income and then your expenses, document them, and then that's it. And then that way you won't get caught with them coming to say, oh, well, what's all, all this? But, you know, my brother's an accountant and he was telling me, he goes, You know, some people that, you know, don't carry any cash and then they're selling money to their friends and stuff, especially young people, they could get audited and then all of a sudden have to start explaining. Hey, you need to explain, you know, start explaining what all these transactions are. So it's probably a good idea. I don't— and I don't even know if the note part like goes anywhere. Who does the bank keep a record of that? Like I don't know. That's interesting, you know. So yeah, I'm just telling you, it's a, you know, people, some people are going to get caught and then have to pay a bunch of taxes. So I would be very careful with those payment methods and making sure how you're accounting for that. And if you have a business account, then you don't have to worry. But if you're trying to do it the, you know, the, the back door— what?

Yeah, all you drug dealers out there, you guys are SOL, buddy. Yeah, better get it together.

Yeah, they could get audited. What, what if they get audited?

That's what I'm saying.

They're gonna go, where'd this money come from? Yeah, yeah, got a lot.

I just gotta get it together, man. It's 2023. Yeah, smart, not hard. I'm just joking.

So, you know, you have to make sure you're in compliance with rules, regulations, laws. Make sure you understand the costs that are involved with offering these new payment methods and that you figure it into your pricing, you know. Indeed, some of them are the same as credit card processing, but they might be more advantageous to be offering in your business. Uh, fraud and security with those, that's something to consider. And what do you know, they always discuss, you know, are alternative payments gonna impact and take us more closer to a cashless society. What do you think about that?

I mean, this whole cashless society thing is just dumb. Uh, maybe in 1,000 years we'll be there. Uh, but I mean, since the time of whatever, I, I don't know. I, as a, like a, as a, as far as it goes as a people thing, right?

Yeah.

Commerce and state, I don't see that having a of, you know, going anywhere.

Yeah, it's gonna take a couple of generations to get rid of businesses not accepting cash.

I get it, I don't like it, but I get it because of COVID right?

Ever since COVID And yeah, but I think a lot of businesses use that as the kind of like the catalyst to not take cash.

Oh, for sure.

But I think the real thing was they probably had like a lot— some places have like a lot of theft. Like we went to the stadium, right? What do you got, 500 employees handling cash?

Exactly.

I mean, a lot of cash can disappear. Oh yeah, you know, just think somebody takes $5 or $10 every time they work and 500 people do that, that adds up. Yeah, so just put everything on a credit card.

I mean, yeah, I— so like I said, businesses, buying stuff at a business not— it's just not going to happen overnight, man. I mean, even at the end of the day, it's still— cash is still going to rule.

Yeah, cash rules. I mean, ATMs are still out there, they're active. People take money out of ATMs. We have ATMs, they're, they're very popular.

Cash rules everything around me. Cream, get the money.

Dollar, dollar bill, y'all. And So let's see, you know, so as a summary, I think that, I think that we're going to see some exciting things this year with, you know, alternative payments, crypto, international, maybe see the comeback of crypto.

It's early, man. How old is crypto, honestly? How old is it?

A few years, that's it. 10, 10 years. Yeah, but it wasn't really used as like a business.

I know, like, so what, 5?

No, but 3 years old, I'm saying as a business activity, like 2 or 3 years, right? That's it.

That's, that's a toddler. That's an infant. I mean, right, that's not even a toddler.

So we might see the comeback of that. And then, you know, but I think we're going to see also, as one would say, I guess you could call it an alternative payment method. I think we're just going to continue to see the increased use of kiosks and self-checkout. Yes, I think we're going to see an increase.

I think the kiosk thing is going to explode. You're gonna see kiosks for everything, Nike stores, uh, it's just gonna be—

they're just gonna have less employees.

That's the whole point, right? Yeah.

I mean, it just depends on the type of store it is and what they do.

And because what do you really need an employee at a shoe store for?

Well, unless you have all the shoes out there.

That's what I'm saying.

Well, they don't all put them all out there. They don't have— they just show the style at the Nike Outlet. Oh, the outlet. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like different— I think that there's, there's— I think you'll see different things. Like, I mean, even these pizza places have like—

that's amazing. Jay-Z invested in that. Yeah, shout out to Jay-Z.

No, I saw one pizza place now where you walk in, no waiters. You have to, or you have to make your pie on the— yeah, the order on the computer, make the pie. Whatever you want. Pick the crust, pick the toppings. Oh, half pepperoni, half mushroom, whatever you want to do. And then that's it. And then you— oh, I need 4 drinks, I need this for a salad, I need this, I need that.

So the people who order pepperoni and half mushroom is always funny to me. Like, where do you think the oil from that pepperoni goes?

Well, maybe the other person doesn't just like, you know I don't know, I was— I mean, definitely, like, dude, they're not gonna cut it in half.

All the pepperoni oil is still over everywhere.

Well, maybe they're not a strict vegetarian.

Okay, that's fine.

No, but I'm just saying, and like, I think that you're gonna see like things like that in like restaurants that have like limited menus, and maybe some restaurants are going to change and go, okay, well, let's have a limited You know, let's have a more limiting menu.

I mean, McDonald's already opened their first robot-operated store, right? Yeah, no humans.

No, no, there's humans.

Well, there's one or two humans.

Oh, they're cooking the food. How do you think they make the burgers? Not a robot making the—

Oh, yeah, that's right. It's just a checkout and taking an order, ordering and the checkout.

Like when you come in, like if you have a to-go order and it's sitting in there, they'll run it out to your car.

The robot.

Yeah, robot takes it to your car, or you come through the drive-through window and they just hand you the bag.

It's trippy, man.

Yeah. And, uh, you know, also like kiosks, like, and a lot of restaurants— I see another trend with restaurants where like you order online, you know, and then you go pick it up and that's it. And even if you're going to eat there, that's how you do it.

Nice.

Yeah, like the Adam and Joe's, you can do that. You're gonna order it and then you just go sit down and eat at the— oh right, yeah, a few tables.

Did you see McDonald's had the artificial intelligence commercial with the artist?

Really?

That was really cool. It's like a Chinese New Year celebration.

Okay.

Commercial had like this one of their dragons. It was awesome. You should check it out. I'll share it to you.

Okay.

Really cool.

That's cool. Yeah. And you know, the artificial intelligence is being used, and how's that going to be used in the future? I mean, we were talking about like a robot delivering the food to your table. My friends were on a cruise ship and the pizza came out to them.

Yeah, they're doing that in California already too.

Yeah, Domino's. Yeah, places are doing that.

They're messing those things.

They have the car that drives by.

There's another little thing too. They got a little thing like a little robot, like downtown. Yeah, they said people are kicking it over trying to take the pizzas.

That's not good. No, but the other thing is, is you know, I think we're just going to see technology really develop. I was telling Justin, I said it would be really funny, we'd have to figure out how to do it, that we would sit down, do the podcast, and bring in here a laptop and ask the, the OpenAI chat thing.

ChatGPT.

Yeah, ChatGPT. And ask it some questions and then read the answers, what, what they answer, see if we agree or disagree. Come up with, come up with like 5 or 6 questions to ask the, the, the AI tool.

Let me set the computer right here, be on it, you know, type in there.

Yeah, well, we could sell— it would come up because we could caption the video.

True.

Then people could see the video. I think it would be pretty cool.

I think it's interesting.

Could come up with, you know, 5 to 10 questions to ask it. So that's today's podcast, alternative payment methods. Is this something you want to talk about, give us a call. Visit the website b2bvault.info, fill out a form or click the button, apply now.

If you want to find out more about alternative payment methods, let us know.

We'll set up an appointment, explain it all to you.

Yes, sir. And we'll be back to our regular, regular, regular, as my granddaughter would say, regular schedule, scheduled podcast next week, next week, starting next week, every Tuesday, I mean, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So yeah, we're looking forward to that. Been cool to try to get, you know, some episodes in the stash and just not so under pressure, the pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure cooker.

Yeah, we're gonna change up the format a little bit for 2023.

Looking out for a new studio setup here, trying to figure out how that's gonna look. For those that watch the YouTube videos and the lives, for you, those that listen on Spotify and, you know, the streaming networks, thank you. Doesn't really affect you at all.

Well, no, because we're going to try to get a little better quality audio.

So, and the audio will be better.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Other than that, follow us on all the social medias, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, you name it, we're there. B2B Vault. Yeah, subscribe to the channel on YouTube. Please turn on the post notifications so you never miss a beat. Shout out to everyone who listens. Thank you. Have a great weekend.

Carpe diem. Peace. Your mom didn't come visit us.

My mama is not feeling well.