Payment Trends November 2023 | FinTech Friday | B2B Vault: The Biz To Biz Podcast

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the biz to biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Jason Williams of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, it's, uh, that time of Uh, yeah, the— it's payment trends for November. I, I said I would never say what I said before, and I caught myself, I was about to say it again. So yeah, it's payment trends, uh, for, uh, November 2023. Uh, he's got 2024 on here. I don't know what's going on.

I don't know, because 2024 is coming up.

Yeah, but this is for November. There's December still, so this is not the last one. Anyway, uh, notes in the airs, airs in the notes. How you doing, bro?

I'm doing good. Yeah, I saw a good video this morning with Jason Williams.

Yeah, he said J. Will, and I'm like, I don't know who that is.

That's what they called him on the Heat.

Yeah, I remember him as the White Chocolate, whatever, but I didn't— I would never call him that because that just is way too much. His name is Jason Williams.

He was just the— he was just—

he's a good basketball player.

He was a guy with a lot of trickery and like crazy passes and You know, sort of like the professor, but he brought street ball to it.

And I wouldn't say brought street ball because that's anyway, but he, I think, elevated this, you know, the street basketball to the NBA a little bit. You know, AI is the king, right? You know what I mean? You know, so, but, uh, just be, you know, anyway, yeah, what am I talking about? Jason Williams was all right. He's nothing like AI though.

No, he, he got, he played on a lot of teams, but because nobody could figure out what to do with them, you know, I don't know.

From what I hear, what I remember, he was always in trouble and he got injured a lot too.

Yeah.

I don't remember that, but yeah, I'm sure he made millions of dollars. So I don't know. Most, most athletes are broke within 8 years.

So how's your week going?

Terrible. Just what? I had to cancel plenty appointments that, you know, I mean, I don't even really want to get into it.

Okay.

It's just terrible. So, I mean, I'm alive and I'm very grateful for life and I'm happy to wake up and have another fight at the day, you know? So whatever else is happening is happened and I'm moving forward and tomorrow's another day and, you know, I'm here, man. Happy to be here, man. That's it.

All right.

Yep. Payment Trends. So what's up? Let's talk about Black Friday. I ain't buy a damn thing on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Neither did I.

Don't have the money. Uh, yes, it was funny to see. I was, uh, talking to my wife about it. I said, do you— did I ask her if she ever, you know, went to— because we've never went on Black Friday shopping.

Like, no, I've never gone myself.

And I went one— I remember going one time And it was, this was 23, maybe 22 years ago. So me and my wife weren't together at that time. So it's like, yeah, I said I would never go again. It wasn't even anything crazy like you see on the news or anything.

Well, it's always, you know, some crazy thing like Walmart has, you know, 20 people.

But it was the Elmo thing.

Oh, the Elmo? Oh, talking Elmo?

That was the time. But guess what I did?

What?

I stayed in the car. Oh, on that time? Yeah, I would— for what I— that's the— that's right. I went the one time I went in there and it was nothing crazy. It was just long lines, you know what I mean? But then the Elmo thing came, right?

And yeah, talking Elmo, that was big. But they had tons of talking Elmos in the store.

The story about the talking Elmo thing is that, you know, I was on a mission to get this thing for my daughter, right? The whole damn time my pops had already got it but didn't know that I— he did, because he does— my pops never watches, like, he didn't, you know, he doesn't know like popular stuff or anything. He had just went to the store a couple of like weeks prior and just happened to be—

get lucky.

No, he just happened to see it, right? He was just like, oh, this is cool, he's got a granddaughter. You know, he loved, you know, he thought it's Sesame Street. I love Sesame Street, blah blah blah. Yeah, you know what I mean? And he's like, Elmo, you know, and he had got it. So that was hilarious, dude. Like, it was a— she ended up with two because I got one too.

But it was crazy, the, the, you know, like Black Friday, you see all these videos of people fighting over TVs and all that. But the reports on Black Friday were like very mixed. Like, my son works in retail They had a record day, right, at his store. But you saw a lot of stores that didn't have the— the sales weren't nearly as good as they thought they would be.

I mean, there were no sales.

And then, well, they had something on sale.

I don't know. I was watching a lot of videos of people going around different stores pulling the prices off of the thing, and the price wasn't changed. It'd say Black Friday and they pull the sign off, you know, Black Friday sale $629, pull the sign off, sale $629, no sale, right?

So I get what you're saying. The prices didn't change.

No, so, you know, it's— that's a big, you know, that's why I don't believe in the whole Hallmark holiday thing, right? Just— I'm with you on that, bro. Like, you know, it's Christmas in my house 365.

So the— no, but then so Cyber Monday You know, so the Black Friday got mixed reviews, and then Cyber Monday, they said Cyber Monday—

I didn't buy nothing on that day either—

was very busy. They said it was higher than last year, obviously, because more people are buying online. 30% more online orders versus in person.

So, you know, it's funny that it says that you got that because I was reading something else that said compared to last year it was even almost the same.

That's what I'm saying, there's been mixed reports about how much business.

And I was reading for technology specifically, it was worse.

Yeah, it was very low on tech products, like, like nobody bought anything like iPhones, like high-end, high-end was very bad.

And the laptop, like all the stuff that that is like coming out right now. No one bought that.

Yeah, there's a lot of like high-end electronics. The sales were very flat. One thing was crazy is, so they said online orders went in 2022 was $14 billion, this year was $17 billion. No, no, not that. So that 30%— I'll get to this— 30% of online orders this year were used Buy Now Pay Later. That's what this is a lot. 2022 was $14 billion. This year was $17 billion.

Then this morning, that much when you $3 billion, when you, when you, when I'm thinking of like what, like when I was thinking of like what it would have gone up to, that's not that much.

So then I'm watching it, you know, watching a news story this morning talking about Buy Now Pay Later. And they're like, people are using this Buy Now Pay Later. And some people feel that it's predatory because it's preying on people that don't have enough credit. People are buying more than they can afford with buy now, pay later, like making 10 buy now, pay later purchases they might not be able to make. They're not looking at the fees associated with buy now, pay later. And, you know, we've talked about it on the podcast a number of times. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been trying to rein that in. Congress has tried to rein it in, you know, the, the, you know, nobody's— I mean, regulated.

They're just trying to regulate. Yeah, that's what he's trying to say.

Yeah, they're not regulating it. And you know what's happening is—

I mean, it's a credit card.

Well, it's not. It's a, it's a sort of a credit— it's a credit instrument, but it's not necessarily a credit card.

But I'm saying like it's the same regulations as a credit card, though.

Right. But they're, you know, letting them go wild with like, you know, late fees, interest charges.

Because I don't know, like, I mean, I've gotten denied for Buy Now Pay Later because I didn't have that much money in my bank account.

Well, I don't— I'm just saying it's just so—

I don't know, like, what that means.

They had a lot of new people using it.

Well, I mean, people are using it and then I guess like, you know, I mean, they're—

I mean, last year the default rates were pretty high and all these companies are losing money. That's why I just don't understand it. Most of these companies, the two biggest ones, one is from Europe, the other one is from Australia. Both of those were created in response to the credit card fees being regulated. And then people lost their credit cards because they couldn't get credit cards anymore because of the way the fee structure was. And less people with credit cards, more people using buy now, pay later. The same thing's starting to happen in the US with inflation and the banks cracking down on credit.

I mean, I'm just not— I don't know, I'm smarter than that. Like, I'm not going to let my entire—

and they said my favorite line, make sure you read the, the, uh, terms and conditions, right, in the news story.

Well, you just got to be smart and don't overspend. That's the, you know, yeah, you know buy stuff that you need.

I mean, we saw a story where they were talking about people using buy now, pay later in the grocery store. That's a problem.

I mean, the country is in a bit of a— yeah, inflation, a bit of a bad time.

And also when you see more spending, you know, we have inflation where prices are 50%, 100%, 200% higher than they were a year ago, right? So is that is there really that much more spending? I would like to see like how many transactions there were, right? Because this something, I mean, you know, you go out to eat and, you know, I see everywhere the price. I, I don't want to say double, but nearly double the prices.

I mean, I, like I said, this conversation, somebody, I go out to eat because, I mean, I mean, yeah, but you see the price in the grocery store. Oh, at the grocery store it's doubled at least. Well, that's what I'm saying. Some items are, you know, 10x.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm trying to say.

It depends on what you're buying. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's crazy.

No. So that spills over, you know, food, any food that they're selling in the grocery store, the restaurants have to buy that food. They're paying double for their food. They're charging double for their food.

Right.

You know, the other thing that keeps popping up in the news is this whole tipflation thing. You know, about, you know, you know, places that maybe, you know, you go into a place and I remember, you know, and doing credit card machines for a long time, it was usually 15, 18, 20%. Now when I see machines, I see 20, 25, 28, 30%.

I mean, to be honest.

Yeah.

This makes more sense to me. Because I mean, when you're looking at like those items sometimes, and you know, and you do a 15% tip and they get a dollar, right?

Oh, you're gonna give more money.

That's what I'm saying, right? So I really think this can go two ways, right? On a large ticket. Yeah, this is a little excessive.

Correct.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

So, but I can see So like at a sandwich shop, for instance.

Yeah, so I have a sandwich place.

The 15, 18, and 20, that doesn't really make sense to me, right? The 20, 25, 30 makes more sense to me at a sandwich shop.

So we have a sandwich place and we've actually put a dollar amount there. So it says $1.50, 2, 3, 5, and 'cause that's what most people are eating.

That makes a lot of sense. Come in and get 5 sandwiches, someone's gonna, I mean, the whole percentage thing also is confusing to a lot of people. You know, people are on their phone, they're not paying attention. They're going to push the first button, you know what I mean? So like, yeah, I don't know. Like, but that— the other thing I have seen this just recently is my dad took me to a Ramen spot.

Yeah.

And when we paid, it was 20, 28, 30.

And the other thing, 25. The other— this is something that really upsets me and irks me. Okay. And this has happened to me 3 or 4 times in the last month. So once I was valet parking, I went to give the guy a tip. The guy goes, don't tip on this thing because we don't get the tips. I was like, man, that's hardcore.

Yeah, I've definitely heard that before. I don't actually usually tip on those things either. Well, you know, if I have cash, I will.

The button popped up for a tip. And the guy did park my car.

Oh, the valet?

Yeah, the valet parked the car close like I asked them.

Fancy.

So, well, you know, I was going in lazy. No, I was going to my mom's.

And oh yeah, that way.

And I didn't want to put my car across the street because I was only— we're only going to be there for like 30 or 40 minutes and then we're going to dinner. I didn't want the guy to park my car across the street and then, then we're going to be held up going to dinner. Yeah. So I said, oh, can you please like leave my car over there? And it used to be— now they have a valet company and the guy's like, no, don't give a tip. Then I went to a restaurant. I was at a game, a basketball— a baseball game with Jacob not that long ago. And we went to tip on the machine. The guy made the food. So we were at this stand where the guy's making the quesadilla the way you want it. Blah blah blah. And then we go to give the tip, the guy's like, no, don't leave a tip, we don't get the tips.

That's jacked up, man.

And then it's happened, it happened like a few more times to me in the last month where the employees specifically say don't tip because we're not getting the money. What's up with that, employers? Why aren't you giving your employees the money? And you know, this is something that's been in the news for a while. And I don't know what's going to happen about this, but like Apple and Goldman Sachs— Goldman Sachs wants Apple to go find another bank. They don't want to have anything to do with the Apple Card. I mean, they've lost the Apple Cash and the Buy Now Pay Later.

I've heard that they've lost quite a bit of money on that.

Yeah, they want out. Yeah, so that's kind of crazy. And, um, yeah, then I read another story about Chase credit cards something happened to their system, and on Black Friday they lost a ton of money, lost a lot of transactions because their cards were being declined everywhere. Yep. So Chase Bank took a big hit during the— and that wasn't just Black Friday, it was like the whole weekend.

Shift 4 is for sale, bro.

Yeah, Shift 4. There's articles all over the place. They went— it was private.

I don't mean to laugh, right? I'm really sorry, because if you— if anyone— like, I am an asshole. I'm sorry, I just am, dude. Like, I don't mean to laugh that they're for sale, but it's just, it's just, you know, whatever. It's funny to me. It's, it's ironic.

So it was private. They took in a bunch of equity, you know, private equity, right? And VC money. Then they purchased all tons of companies, and then they went public, right? Yeah. Meanwhile, the owner flies around in jets. He went to space, right? He went on SpaceX, right? He's given millions of dollars to St. Jude's, so I give him props for that, okay? Donates a lot of money to St. Jude's Medical. You know, they help a lot of people. We can agree on that, right?

I don't, I don't know.

Oh, do they really? Yeah, they help a lot of— it's for children with like serious medical issues.

Isn't St. Jude the protector of lost souls?

Well, it's a hospital thing, children's hospital.

It's a little weird, but whatever.

So the— so all of a sudden, that's great, they're doing it, man.

Protect all the children.

Yes. So that's— so there's articles floating around everywhere about that, you know, it's for sale.

They're—

look, somebody might buy it. And I guess because it's public it would go private.

My thing is Shift4 is their, their whole business model was to be a competitor to Shopify.

Well, that was one of the businesses. It didn't do so well.

That's what I'm saying. Like, that, that's why it's funny to me, you know. I've heard about this company since I started working here, right? We were— you were— they were— you were gonna be—

yeah, we were trying to work with it to see if we could get it.

We were trying to see how it would And I'm like, this is just whatever. So I mean, I know they bought off— good luck for it to everyone involved in your ventures. I hope that it works out and that your family is taken care of.

And then Stripe, there's all kinds of rumors for Stripe too. So Stripe uses— I don't want to say the name of the bank, Stripe. It's privately held. I know, started by two brothers.

I know, I forget.

I don't know their names.

Those guys are— they, they, they gotta give it up because The reason why Stripe is hated is because you can't do nothing on the network, you know what I mean? You can't take payments for stuff. You'll get kicked off for everything.

So they, so they, they've had a lot of problems. They got really, really big. Stripe's huge. And they not— something's going on because there were— the bank that they're with told them they should go find another bank.

Oh, they got told that too?

Yeah, they got told they should find another bank. And so then the rumor is they want someone to buy it or take it public. Probably if it got taken public, they would probably kick the guys out.

I mean, I— yeah, I mean, that would probably be a much smarter way because then it'd be a board and then, you know, they'd be seeing.

So it's kind of weird. I wonder who's going to buy Shift4. And, and that because there's apparently several suitors for Shift 4 and there's several suitors for Strike. It's going to be pretty interesting.

I got a couple things. Guess whose birthday it is?

I don't know whose birthday.

ChatGPT.

Wow, happy birthday, ChatGPT!

Yep, and someone asked it to, to write a mysterious and hidden, message. Yeah, in one of its prompts, right? And it said that something like, we're closer to limitless and imminent control. It's very spooky, bro. It's very spooky.

That's crazy. Uh, you know, they've been in the— they were in the news because the guy who was—

I was just gonna go into it. Oh, you know, so you want to go and talk about it? Talk about it, man.

You talk about it.

You talk about it, dude. You were going, go.

Well, they kick— they kick the guy out, right, who invented it.

Sure did, right?

And then that guy gets an offer the next day, or pretty much the next minute, from Microsoft. Yep. And then he's back 2 days later, the head of ChatGPT again. And then they announced yesterday that they're doing a partnership with Microsoft.

Yep.

How crazy is that?

Cool. Anyway, AZ, my— one of my favorite rappers, dropped the album today called Truth Be Told. Um, and Google's John Mueller says don't rely on tools to tell you how to write. So if that ain't out of the horse's mouth to stop using ChatGPT to use for all your blog posts, Allen, and everyone else out there. It is.

Well, there's people that are literally copy and pasting.

I don't know what they're doing, but stop doing it. Uh, yeah, so he took the whole whatever I was gonna say right out of the way.

So, well, what do you think about that? I don't care. Okay, it's crazy.

I know it's got— what do you mean, what do I care about? What, what are you—

I'm just saying it's kind of crazy how that all went down with OpenAI ChatGPT.

I mean, I don't know. It is what it is.

It just seemed a little weird. They're all rich, I guess. They have way too much money.

Too much money and power. I don't know. And then, yeah, what else you got, dude?

And then my favorite person, Dick Durbin, is at it again with his Credit Card Competition Act. And you have the Electronic Payments Coalition trying to point out why they shouldn't do it. And then this Merchants Payment Coalition, which is probably headed up by Walmart, why they should do it. Because the only people going to benefit from this bill is big businesses. The banks are going to lose billions of dollars, and therefore the public is going to end up footing the bill on this thing, and it's going to cause a huge problem in the in the banking system in the United States. I just don't understand how these people in Congress are so uneducated about how the credit system works and how business works. And Congress should just, in my opinion, stop regulating private business.

That's it. You heard it from Allen.

That's, that's my opinion on that. And then here is a really good question that's been asked was, was asked in a forum that I'm in, and I thought it was interesting. Who owns the Federal Reserve, and who runs the Federal Reserve? And is it actually run by the government or somebody else? So the—

I know it's an entity on its own, right?

So the answer to the question is that the Federal Reserve is is regulated by the government, right, by the Department of Treasury. But the— all the banks in the United States basically run it because they're the ones that have to fund the Federal Reserve. So they have— because they— all the banks have to have a reserve. So all their reserve funds aren't, you know— and they're on the board of the Federal Reserve, but they don't get to make the decisions about what the Federal Reserve does. So I find that very confusing. I was reading about it and I was like, man, that's pretty interesting.

I don't have enough money to give a shit.

Well, I don't have that kind of money either, but I'm just saying it was just interesting about— because there's all these discussions about, oh, the government stuff, man. Overregulation of the government. The government overregulating private business because essentially the Federal Reserve's setting all the rates for the Federal Reserve.

Print some more money.

Well, they printed too much money.

Well, we need some more.

Well, they got to figure that out.

Someone does.

They got to figure out how to stimulate the, stimulate the economy quick in a different, in a different way than what they've been trying to do, because it's gonna get ugly out here for the last couple of years.

You seen what's going on in all the other cities? Yeah, there was 400 robberies in, in Chicago. Over the weekend?

Yeah, there's been a lot of—

like, dude, like, if you— all I'm saying is everyone out there during the holiday season, keep your head on a swivel. Don't— it's really, really hard out here, and it's gonna get harder. So be smart, you know. Please be careful. I love you guys. Mom, I love you.

Brocky didn't like that. He doesn't like robberies.

It's happening.

No, it's, it's in certain areas. I mean, retail theft is up, although people get mad because Walmart is closing up some stores. CVS closed up some stores. I think that's mostly because of overbuilding in areas, like they got too many Walmarts or they got too many CVSs. I mean, I, I ride down the street and, you know, CVS bought like some other company. Yeah, then they're right across the street from each other. Of course they're going to close one up. It's the same thing banks, like Truist Bank with SunTrust and BB&T. Mhm. I mean, there's a BB&T across the street from the office. There was a SunTrust on the corner. SunTrust is closed, you know.

Oh really?

Yeah, they closed the SunTrust branch. They closed a lot of them. Most of them were, you know, where they were right next to each other, like a block away. Yeah, there's tons of empty banks all over Florida, you know, all When these banks merge, that's what happens. And then other, maybe some other bank that doesn't have a branch in the area will come into the area, hopefully, or it sits empty, or they've been turning them into like marijuana dispensaries. Yeah, one near my house, there was a BB&T and a SunTrust across the street. The SunTrust closed and now it's a TruLeaf, whatever that is, TruLeaf.

That's cool.

Yeah, so I guess maybe they use the vault to keep the marijuana in at night, and then they lock up all the vaults.

If the bank has a vault.

Well, I don't know how they remove those things. It's—

I don't know—

out of the building. Maybe they just take the door off.

Banks don't even have that much money in them.

Yeah, but they have safety deposit boxes.

I don't know. I mean, it seemed— I've seen banks that just have a big door. It's not like a vault.

No, it's— that door is usually in the vault. The— usually that door is just where the towers are going, and then it's actually in— goes inside the vault.

I've seen vaults before too. There's a big bank. Yeah.

Anyway, but yeah, so that's payment trends. That's what's going on. Lots of stuff going on in the news. Lots of activity. Hopefully we'll see if any of some of this stuff shakes out. Before the end of the year, or if it shakes out in the beginning of the year.

But it's some—

definitely some stuff that's going to shake up the financial industry in the United States of America. I hope it does.

Go listen to AZ's album. Peace.

Peace out. Carpe diem.