Payment Trends Of July 2024

You are now watching the Biz to Biz Podcast with Allen and Justin. 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 George Brett payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we'll be discussing payment trends for July 2024. Today is Tuesday, July 30th, 2024, approximately 12:04 PM. How you doing, sir?

I'm doing well. We're doing it busy, busy summertime.

There you go.

Summer is when a lot of people make decisions, make some changes. Time to think about, uh, upgrading your tech. Yeah, well, you have, uh, maybe a little slow period. It's also a good time while people are on vacation and they're not to make some— to, uh, make some moves and fill up your pipeline.

Got it.

How are you doing?

I'm great, man.

All right, the Olympics are going on now.

They are. Shout out to the breakdancing for being in the Olympics this year. That shit is huge for the hip-hop culture, man. As a kid, man, I would have— you would have never— I would have never believed that breakdancing would have made it to the Olympics because, you know, I mean, all the hate that hip-hop gets in general. But then it's always crazy to me too because everything is hip-hop, like Sprite commercials, AT&T commercials, sneakers. Everything. Everything. Everything.

When is, uh, Timberlands? When is that going to be on TV?

Uh, I just, I think it's the August 8th and 9th.

Oh wow, it's gone for a while. Yeah, it's the, the Olympics is definitely going hip-hop because one of the main attractions is, uh, Snoop Dogg going to all the events. He's like a commentator and he got to carry the flame.

I'm just saying, like, in general, like I mean, he's a pop icon. For the hip-hop community, the breakdancing being in the Olympics is just really awesome. And I think that's really cool. Shout out to all the b-boys and b-girls, graffiti writers, DJs, and MCs all across the world, man.

It's going to be interesting to see.

I mean, breaking is dope. I mean, there's no way in hell 90% of the world can do what those guys do.

So, Justin, let's move this out of the way.

I ain't no breakdancer. I ain't no b-boy. I ain't standing there in my b-boy stance. This is all you're going to get from me standing there. Might do a little bit of pop locking, but nothing with my legs. No lower extremities are moving.

You're not going to spin around on the ground for us?

No, that was never my— I was the rapper. We would rap.

I got a video of Rocky breakdancing.

I'm sure you do. Zoomies.

No, he gets on his back and rolls around on the ground. That's his breakdance move.

Yeah, that's cool, man. All right, shout out to hip-hop.

Yeah, it's gonna be exciting. Hip-hop. I was kind of laughing when I see it's like Snoop Dogg everywhere. And everybody's excited to see Snoop Dogg.

I mean, at this point, Snoop is— I mean, yeah, he's made his, you know, he— does he really rap hip-hop like that though? I don't know.

He got to do— he got to carry the flame.

People were making— I mean, Snoop loves sports besides anything. That is— I don't know if that necessarily— I mean, he has been doing like some sports commentating. You know, he did a couple innings with the Brewers. Well, they always do that with like guests they interview.

Right. You know, but I was just saying like he's—

He coaches football.

No, I was watching some of the highlights and he was like, he was at like a whole bunch of different stuff, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball.

Flavor Flav sponsored the United States women's polo team.

Yeah, that was cool.

Shout out to Flavor Flav, man. Hip-hop definitely has definitely made its way. I love seeing like the old heads from my generation, like still, you know, they're not, obviously they're not rapping or whatever, you know, but they figured out a way.

I just don't like it.

I really appreciate that.

One thing I don't like is like our athletes are definitely not compensated compensated as much as other countries. Like, I saw where the US—

I think it's like $35,000.

Yeah, like the US women's gymnastics.

Yeah, they get almost a million dollars. Yeah, China.

Yeah, China is getting like $600,000, $700,000 for a medal.

$735 million— I mean, $735,000. Yeah, what my memory— yeah, it's like, I couldn't believe it. I was like, wow, that's $700,000 more than what this person and the American— it's really messed up when you hear about how the American athletes are treated as opposed to how these other athletes are treated in— not say— I'm saying treated as opposed, like, all of the American athletes have jobs, like 9-to-5 jobs, right? Like a ski instructor or, you know, one guy's like a firefighter. Exactly. Like, that's what I'm saying. So, and to see that in other countries, that's all these people do, right? You know, like if they're the javelin thrower of Berlin, that guy or lady ain't doing shit else 365 days a day, a year. Besides throwing that javelin.

Yeah, it's a little bit.

And he's getting paid to do that handsomely, right? And then in America, you got these people, tow truck drivers, you know, joining the lacrosse team, and they ain't getting shit. That is sickening.

Yeah, it's messed up. Definitely messed up.

America is trash. Basura. Well, it's literally— I don't know.

First of all, I don't know who runs the Olympics, if that's the government or that's private. I have no idea. We'd have to do an evaluation.

What do you mean private?

Like who runs that? I don't think it's run by the government. I don't even know.

Lots of officials. There's like—

I know, but I'm just saying in other countries it's run by the government, right? It's not run by— I don't think it's run by the government.

No, it's run by the Olympic—

Yeah, whatever it is.

Team—

Well, they need to go get some sponsors.

Uh, Polo Ralph Lauren sponsored the— That's what the US—

Yeah, but maybe that's not enough. Maybe they need more sponsors like the NBA. I don't know. Did they get— Maybe that's why LeBron James didn't play a bunch of times in the—

Well, no one wants to play for the Olympics because one, they don't make any money, and two, they might get hurt.

Right.

So the stars that are— I can't believe that even Anthony Edwards, you know, LeBron is a dinosaur in considering.

Yeah, the 3 oldest players on the team is LeBron, KD, and Steph Curry. Yeah. And they're older than the previous oldest person was Larry Bird at 35, and they're all over Larry Bird. They're all 45 years old. Well, LeBron's 40. I think both of them are like 36.

KD's only 36. Yeah, he looks like he's older than me.

Yeah, well, he's been injured a lot. That guy, man, got a lot— he had a lot of injuries. He just came off an injury, then he went, he went whatever, 14 for 14. He was— he didn't miss any shots. Yeah, KD made every single— made every single point. LeBron did too. Up until I think at the end. Let's jump into payment trends.

Yeah, man, what you got? So I ain't got nothing.

Okay, so the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, there's just a lot of stuff going on with that right now. And so one of the things that they're talking about, they have a new law goes into effect August 1st. Now this, I'm not So sure, this is— should be done, but they're doing it. They want new rules for buy now, pay later, and they want the buy now, pay later money to be treated like a credit card loan, not like a credit card charge.

Why?

So the difference is, so when you use your credit card, it's a credit card charge, right? But a loan is when you're taking a cash advance We like, you take your credit card, go to the ATM to get money out.

Yeah.

And they want it treated like that. Why? I don't know. So there's a whole argument. That's not right though. I think it's completely wrong. I can see like you want them to check people's credit. Like we deal with a buy now pay later company that we refer to our customers to, uh, and they do check people's credit, you know, so it's, it's It's above, it's above board. They call their product consumer financing, so it's a little different. But now these buy now pay later companies are all freaking out and they don't want it to go into effect August 1st, which is just in a couple of days. And they're all on Capitol Hill now complaining and various fintech associations and blah blah blah blah blah. Now here's another crazy story. Okay, Zelle. So now you got this, this guy, he's a senator, Richard Blumenthal. So there was a law. Yeah, this Reg E is like when you use your ATM card at an ATM machine and you call your bank and you say, I didn't get the money out of the ATM, or you use it at the point of sale. And you say, oh, I didn't get the— I didn't buy that. Those are called a reg E, like a chargeback.

Okay.

So this guy, Richard Blumenthal, he wants that banks— he wants that these people who get scammed by crooks who either hack your bank account, trick you and get your login information, or trick you through a text message saying, like, I text Justin and say, hey, your kid is in jail. You need to get the bail bondsman. Give me $500. Well, you're kidding.

You're— first of all, you're an idiot if you fall for that.

No, no. But do you think that the government should just say to the banks, Well, you have to give people their money back because they were stupid.

No, I don't think that people should get their money back for being stupid.

And I think that all the banks should mandate like that you have 2FA, two-factor authentication on all your accounts, like your credit cards, your bank account.

Don't, don't kill me because it's just like I'm saying that, you know, for older people who get scammed, that shit sucks.

Yes.

Right?

And even young people get scammed too.

Yeah, but like, for instance, the new thing is this one new scam is like getting people to think that they're signing up for a job.

Oh yeah, I get that. Dude, I'm getting like texts, WhatsApps, Telegrams, emails for that all day.

Justina almost fell for it. I said, what the fuck?

What are you doing right now? Don't be filming any of that.

I was like, this isn't— this is fake. Yes, it's like, this is not real. They just want your part. You're giving them a lot of information.

Yeah, they ask for your social, social, and your bank information. No way. Oh yeah, everything.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah, they want to know everything. No way.

Shit is crazy.

Yeah, that's going nuts right now. That scam is like It's everywhere.

I just had a call yesterday. I was like, well, don't give no information over the phone, meaning, you know, nothing more than your name. And, you know, I guess just be mindful, like, if it's a guy from the Philippines or, you know, India or somewhere.

They're recruiting people like here to do it. They recruit people to like— oh yeah, no, I know, to go find people.

I know, I was just warning her. I'm just like, well, you If it sounds like a telemarketer or some shit, or if you can hear people in the background.

Yeah.

I would, I would stay, stand clear from that.

Yeah, it's definitely a problem. I don't agree with this guy, the senator, because—

That makes zero sense, bro. Like, as a company, that means like, so then every time— they don't make the banks pay them back, people back?

No, they want to make the banks pay people back. Now I can see like somebody hacked into the bank and hacked your bank account.

That's a totally different situation.

That's a situation.

But if you sent somebody, you know, oh, I sent a bail bondsman $500 because I thought Johnny was locked up, you trippin'.

No, but a lot of times what the scam is, you'll get a text that'll say, oh, your car payment is late. Make your car payment now. Use Zelle and they give you a link, right? And then you click the link and it's a fake link to Zelle and you're putting in— yeah, and you're putting in your credentials. Once you put in your credentials, the scammer on the other side, they have your username and your password. Then they go to your bank and they log in and they take out your money.

I mean, depending on the scheme, right?

What I'm just saying, like, this is a lot of the stuff that's happening. I think that now I want to know, and we both—

they download malware to your computer and then—

and still that's happening less and less because you have two-factor authentication, so you're getting a text.

No, I'm talking about it downloads a keystroke encryptor into your— so then it, it just— all it does is it— I just watched a whole series about this shit. Literally, they, uh, it installs malware on your computer. Yeah, but it doesn't know that it's malware. It thinks Keyboard, right?

Yeah, keyboard program.

And, and then it copies all of your passwords, it copies this, you know, like the strokes that are your keys that you're doing, everything. It's the— yeah, man, I don't be downloading shit from the internet.

Yeah, the thing is all wrong. It's totally wrong what's going on. But I don't think that the banks should help be held liable for all this stuff. I think they need to put more security, have two-factor authentication, and then a lot of this stuff won't happen. But what I want to know is what is the government doing to stop like these scammers? Like, what are they doing? Like, you know, they know where these people are. There's that guy that's on— there's that guy that's on YouTube who's calling the scammers and he's— he tells you where they are in India and Pakistan and all that, even in the United States. Okay, well, they know where they're at, so why isn't the government doing something to shut all this down? Because it's in a different country. Whatever. What? We're giving those countries money most of the time, all kinds of economic aid.

I don't know, man, that turns into a very political—

I understand that topic.

You would think that we would be able to shut it down.

It's my point.

We can't shut shit down in India. We are not India. We're the United States.

Well, we could make sure they can't make a phone call. How? I don't know how they need to go hire like Elon Musk or whatever, or Mark Zuckerberg and people, the guys at Google to figure it out. Somebody needs to shut it down.

Look at that movie. CIA just do it right.

We watch that movie Beekeeper, whatever. Those guys were just scamming everybody. They're right here in the United States. We need Jason Statham to go send him out. Sylvester Stallone, blow all these places up. Okay, so then here's another thing I want to know why this is not in the news. Okay, you have this bank, Evolve Bank. Now, they're— most people probably never heard of Evolve.

Never heard of it.

So they're one of the largest sponsors of all these like Challenger/neo banks/internet banks.

Okay.

Okay. And they had a partner called Synapse, and Synapse was like a connector between like fintech companies and this Evolve Bank. And currently, right now, guess how much money is missing in this debacle? A billion?

80—

over $85 million. How is that not on the news?

That ain't a lot of money.

$85 million. It's some people's all their money. It's like some are— some people lost like all their money and that out of their bank account. $85 million gone. I don't even know, like FDIC, are they covering it? I don't know. They don't do that.

I'm just saying, internet banking, there's so much gray area involved in that. Like, it's just like when people tell me they got their entire business account stashed on PayPal, right? Like, what in the entire fuck?

That's not even a bank.

It's nothing, right? It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a medium.

I mean, some banks are banks, like Betterment. Your money's in a bank account. And other things, it's in a bank account. A lot of these companies that were the people lost their money, those, they weren't even bank accounts. They were fintech companies. So they didn't have like, it wasn't like sponsored, although this bank Evolve is connected to it. I'm not sure how much of this is covered by the FDIC laws where it's covered up.

I mean, if they're under the same laws as a bank, then this shit ain't covered.

Well, we'll see what happens.

I mean, I'm sure that there's a percentage that they have to pay back, right? Yeah, but if they got it written in their little terms and conditions of that, it's not in case of foreclosure, whatever, you know, bankruptcy, you— we are only liable up to 10% of your money or some shit. Who knows? You know what I mean?

So I'm just surprised it's not in the news.

But $85 million isn't a lot of money. Okay, not in 2024. I'm just saying it's not. Well, I would love to have $85 million, but what I'm saying in the scheme, yeah, $85 million ain't shit.

Okay, well, there's a lot of people saying they're missing their money, $50 grand, $100 grand, their savings.

That's terrible.

Yeah, it's horrible. The other big thing is, so there's a lot—

other big thing is I didn't win the Powerball last night.

How much was it?

$144 million.

Wow. Is it still on? Did anyone win? No. Oh, well, it'll go up then. Yeah, it went up. Thank you. The other big buzz I see a lot of articles about is B2B transactions and FedNow. And, you know, what's this?

Uh, I'm sorry, but what is the Fed doing this week? Are they raising taxes or lowering taxes? This week?

Well, they said they're— they've been saying they're going to lower the rates, but they haven't lowered— that's what I meant, but they've never lowered the rates. They haven't lowered it.

They said that they're going to make a decision this week, right?

But I'm saying they've said they were going to make a decision a few months ago that they were going to—

a few months ago before that, right?

And they still haven't lowered the rate.

No, shit was going up, right? Oh, we're lowering it. No, you— how are you lowering anything when the numbers are going this way?

Right.

And that's not lowering.

So the other problem I have is when they're on the news that they're talking about— was watching this, this guy, he talked— who's like this grocery shopping guy, and he talks about where to go buy your groceries. So he's like the whole thing where they're saying, oh, I can't stand those people, huh?

Spend $100 and eat for a month. At Aldi's. What?

I don't know about this guy wasn't doing that. What this guy was doing was he actually has like his grocery bill from like 2000.

Oh, I seen that shit and shit is quadruple.

And he's like 3.4% inflation because it's impossible because the guy's showing his grocery bill that it was like $88 and now the same bill for $88, like $180.

So he's like, you're, you're, you're making that number smaller than what I watched the same video.

Okay.

And it was a Walmart. He comparing his Walmart receipt. Shit was like a month's work. He said he was curious because he wondered if he could see if he could buy the same items, right, from what he bought from 2 years ago. And he put it in the checkout cart for 2024. And it was literally $300 more expensive than it was 2 years ago. So his— the grocery bill was like $120-something. And when he put the same exact items into the cart and went to checkout, the shit was almost $400.

Oh, yeah. It's crazy.

Like, I have 2 kids at home.

Yeah.

I literally want to rob the grocery store. I just want to keep walking out. I just want to walk out with my groceries. Like, I feel all the people who are stealing at Walmart. I'm this close. Like, shit is bad out here, Allen.

It is bad. The prices. This— no, I'm just saying, the guy was just going, he was saying like there's no 3.4% inflation. He says grocery prices are 3 to 4 times higher than what they were in 2020.

I hear economists talking about, oh, it's the— it's because of the COVID people, you know, the transportation is still all messed up, this— there's nobody who can work, so the cost of the actual production of things are so much higher.

What? No, it doesn't make any sense.

That makes zero sense to me.

Yeah, something's got to be done about it. And it's not just there, it's affecting restaurants.

That's why can't nobody afford to go out to eat.

Yeah, that's why.

If a head of lettuce costs $4.29, right?

Yeah.

How in the hell can you— I mean, come on, man. Like, imagine like a small taco.

No, even here, like, we buy— I buy lunch for everybody every day.

That shit, right? Sometimes I'm looking at the menu like, all right, what am I— I— because I'm just frugal.

I get it, but I don't care buying everybody lunch. It's part of the office. So, but I'm just saying, that shit's went up from like at least twice. Oh yeah, it's double what it used to be. So it used to be I would spend $30 or $40. Now it's $70, $80 or more. For everybody.

Oh, absolutely. The last time when it was us 4 that day, I was like, it was almost $80. I was like, damn, this is crazy.

Yeah, it was $20-something per person.

Excuse me, it's not like you're getting this huge— we're not ordering from freaking sushi.

Yeah, you're not getting anything in lobster tails. So here's my last—

talking about a chef salad here.

Yeah, so my last thing is I did a poll on LinkedIn So it's like, how, how do you prefer to pay your bills for B2B companies?

Right.

I'm going to do another one and say, like, how do you— how are you collecting your money? So the people that answered, 80% said they prefer to get a link and pay through the link. So give their credit, you know, where they get a link on their computer and they put in their payment information themselves.

Or—

and then 10% said they wanted to mail a check. 10% said they would send an ACH from their bank to the business, which I had somebody tell me they stopped taking credit cards and I had to ACH them money or mail a paper check.

So makes sense. Not everybody saving money, right?

So not everybody had, but I'm just—

well, they probably got a sweet deal with their bank though then too. If they're taking nothing but ACH?

No, no, they're getting incoming ACH, so I have to send it from my bank account to them.

So they don't care.

Or I have to mail them a paper check, which they're just going to sit and wait for.

But on ACH, doesn't the bank still take a processing fee?

Uh, maybe a few pennies. Maybe, maybe they take 10 or 20 cents.

On a dollar?

No, on the whole thing. Receiving it. They just treat it like another item. Okay. Yeah, like if I send that 2 bucks, like if I send that in ACH, it costs me a buck.

Yeah, right, right, right, right.

When somebody receive one, there's no fee.

Yeah, right.

But if I send one, it costs me a dollar. And then I don't want to sit there and deal with a paper check, and then I gotta address that envelope, and then I gotta get a stamp.

I'm not paying you if you're using checks, I'm finding a different service.

Yeah.

Uh, the ACH is okay. It really depends on the bank that you have, right? Or wherever your merchant account is set up through.

No, but I'm just saying I'm lucky that I have outgoing ACH. Not everybody has that on their bank account.

I'm just talking about— and then, and then third, as far as the pay by link, I'm okay with that, If it's an official website. Now, if you just send me some random ass URL—

no, they're sending you like from their payment company as secure.

So I understand that, but I still don't like those per se. Like, if it just says secure.sso.1456789101112 and then it has something, I'm not necessarily—

yeah, usually you can see that it's from like a payment gateway and and all that.

If it's official as a whistle.

But so, yes, you know, so I'm gonna do another poll and see how the businesses taking their money. But it's, it's kind of like, kind of like I wasn't too happy when this one company said, oh yeah, you have to mail us a paper check or send us an ACH. And I had to send them a copy of the ACH and all that, but I did it because I didn't want to spend it It's taking me too much time to print a check out, then put it in an envelope. Oh, do I have a stamp? Then I got to go buy stamps.

What if you don't get the check?

Yeah, and check fraud is up now big time. They're busting people for it.

Because it's old school.

Right. But people are still getting checks out of mailboxes and then using acetone and changing the checks. And we get people that send us fake checks for merchant accounts all the time. They look fake. They look really fake. So that's payment trends.

Payment trends July 2024.

Tell us what you think about paying your bills. How would you want to pay? Through a link? Write a check? Send an ACH? Gotta get it, gotta get modern. That's for sure.

Yes, we do.

Tell us what you think about grocery prices.

Smash the subscribe button for me.

That's all I'm asking.

But y'all, peace out.

Eat to evolve. Carpe diem. Seize the day.