August 28, 2023 • 14 mins
Discover the fascinating journey of Les Matthews, a true visionary and expert in the realm of digital and emerging payments, in our latest episode! Currently, Les serves as the Executive Vice President of Services for North America at Mastercard. Leading a team of skilled professionals, he empowers Mastercard's clients to excel by enhancing consumer experiences, driving innovation, and achieving business growth.
Tune in to hear Les's inspiring story, from his humble beginnings in the foster system to becoming a proud HBCU graduate and eventually taking the reins at Mastercard. Get ready as he delves into the captivating world of digital payments, sharing insights on how the pandemic has accelerated the significance of these innovations. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that reveals the power of digital transformation and the role it plays in shaping our modern economy!
Host IG:@itstanyatime
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Unlike some of the other companies I worked, I felt
really comfortable. They're building a career taking risks, doing lots
of different things, and that's what I've done. I've had
like gay jobs in fourteen years, and I think that's
the hallmark of my career is like the willingness to
take risks.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech, business
and more.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm your host, angel.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Investor, technology enthusiast, and media personality Tanya Sam. Each week,
we talk with guests who are making significant strides in
their fields and learn how they are making their money move.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
If you're someone.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Who's looking to make your money move, you're in the
right place, So open up your notes app and lock
us in, because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media at Greenwood and
(00:58):
me on all Things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked in too new episode. Hey Money Movers, Welcome
back to Money Moves, the podcast designed to give you
the key to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm your host, Tanya Sam and I'm so.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Glad to be back here today because I have the
pleasure of speaking with Les Matthews, a visionary expert in
the field of digital and emerging payments. Less currently serves
as the executive vice president of Services for North America
at MasterCard. He leads a team of sales executives and
product experts that help MasterCards customers win with their consumers.
(01:39):
Hello us in chancing business performance, elevating consumer experiences, and
enabling innovation one of my favorite words, and I really
can't hear it enough. With MasterCards world renowned industry experts
and proprietary data and technology, Less's team helps to enable
smarter decisions with better outcomes. Less that was a law,
(02:00):
But welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to have
you here.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Thanks for having me, Tanya. I'm excited to talk to
you today. Talk a little bit more about my journey.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, this is one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Number One, because I just love stories like this, and
representation matters, and oftentimes, you know, a lot of our
moneymover's audience is looking to make pivots in their careers,
looking to kind of see the railroad tracks about how
people have done that, and I think, especially in the
corporate world, sometimes those tracks and trajectories aren't so obvious.
(02:33):
So I would like to start at the beginning and
tell us about little less you know, did when you
grew up? Were you saying I'm going to work at
a payment processing company? How did you get here? And
so many of our Moneymover's audience tune in to really
understand the trajectories of how you got here, And in particular,
I'm very passionate about representation and how that matters, because
(02:54):
oftentimes people will look at you, a person of color
in the corporate world, and they're like, how did you
get here? So I want you to take us back
to the very beginning. Let's look at young less, and
I want to know were you always dreaming of working
in payment processing and sort of how the steps that
it took to get you here.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, that's a big question. I'm I don't know if
we're gonna have enough time for that, honestly. But listen,
you know, my story is similar to a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Of black folks, right.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I was born on the West Coast and sort of
meager circumstances. My dad was let's just say he was
a hustler, right, He never went to college. He has
spent time in prison. And you know, that was the
circumstances under which I was raised, right, And I didn't
(03:45):
really know my mom growing up, and you know, so
I wouldn't say that, you know, I didn't have supporters,
but you know it was tough, right, spend time in
foster care. So my story is one of you know,
sort of I think self motivation, taking risk.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
And just you know, drive and and and a.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Lot of good people around me as well, and so
so I you know, luckily I made it through high school.
I was an athlete for a couple of years in
college and you know when but I never really dreamed
of being in corporate America, right, this was that that
was not my dream. I dreamed of, you know, playing
sports and doing things like that. And I got hurt
for a couple after a couple of years of playing
(04:26):
college sports, I actually left school, was out for four years.
I was just tramping around the West Coast doing whatever.
And then my sister says to me at one point,
she's like, you need to go back to school.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Right, I'm the first.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know, no one in my family had gone back,
had gone to college, and you know, so I was
kind of the first one. And so I loved my sister,
and I took your advice and I ended up at
Clark Atlanta University. You see, yeah, HBCU for the last
couple of years of my undergrad which was psychology, and
then I went to grad school there. I went right
(05:05):
in the NBA because I had, you know, messed around
for four years, and you know, people were like, well,
how did you get into payments?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
How did you figure this out? I never worked in corporate.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
America, but I interviewed with a CpG company, automotive company,
and American Express, and you know, I was a broke
grad student and I was like, I'm going where.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
The most money And then happened to be American Express.
And it was a summer in New York, and I
was off, but.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I never I was way out of my place there, right,
I was way over my head. I didn't know anything
about corporate America. And I do remember a couple of
my mentors who were in Corporate America at the time,
you know, and they said, listen less, you've got to
you've got to keep your head down, You've got to
work harder.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You're a black man, You're.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Going to be judged differently, right, And so I took
that advice for a very long time, and I went
to AMX, and then I left and went to be America,
and then I went to Washington Mutual and they failed
back in two thousand and nine, and that's when I
ended up a master Card.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
And that relationship that.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I built while I was at Washington Mutual, they were
my I was their customer, my account managers. They recommended
me to some folks with the MasterCard. I landed there
fourteen years ago, and you know, I've built a career there.
I mean, the great part about you know, MasterCard is
that they've been really nurturing, even you know, as a
(06:32):
black person in a person of color, and so unlike
some of the other companies I worked, I felt really comfortable.
They're building a career, taking risk, doing lots of different things.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And that's why I.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Had like eight jobs in fourteen years and I think
that's the wholemark of my career, is like the willingness
to take risks. And you know, going back to your
original question, I never really thought this is where I
would end up, but I knew.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
It's where the journey took me.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And you know, thankfully, like I said, a lot of
good people are pushing me, you know, to get here,
and you know, I've learned a lot along the way.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Which is kind of put me in the position of
my currentral.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So long way of answering your question, but it's been,
you know, quite a journey for me to get to
where I'm at.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Cool. I love this well, so many things that came
out of that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But what an incredible story from Foster care to you know,
going through college to getting an MBA. This is really
an incredibly inspiring story. So thank you so much for
sharing that. And you touched a little bit on about
how MasterCard has been really instrumental and you two have
as well in terms of mentorship, and we'll come back
to it. I want to stay on sort of your
(07:41):
journey because I know that's also been really important for
you to give back within the organization as well. But
let's tap into this idea of the world of digital payments,
because I know our moneymover's audience loves a little bit
of both sides, like these inspiring stories, but they also
want to know the tech side beside it. And this
is a world, you know, So I'm sure throughout your
career trajectory that has changed dramatically. I'm not going to
(08:04):
put our ages out here, but you know, I think
we've all seen how we've usured. We've changed from a
cash society to bank cards, debit cards, texts. I have
to laugh because I remember several years ago I had
an intern from Georgia Tech. We were building a technology
accelerator and I asked her to sign a check for
me and she was like, quiet, quiet. Ten minutes later
(08:28):
she came back She's like, I don't know where to
sign and I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
So yeah, all right, you dat youse.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
The world has changed that this young girl who was
at Georgia Tech and had never signed a check.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But let's talk about some of what your role in
compasses right now.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I want to give our sort of audience the
landscape of what digital payments have looked like and how
your team has been really instrumental in sort of pushing
that forward.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So you know, my current role is the head of
Services in North America. So that is kind of two
different things. We have a consulting business, so just think
about it like any consulting company out there, right, and
then we have a cyber and intelligence practice and that's
all about mitigating fraud, uh, mitigating account takeover, identity stuff
(09:20):
like that. So those two businesses I run for North
America and there's a lot that intels that we can
we can come back to that a little bit, but
there's a huge digital component to that as well. But
you know, digital payments is it's it's crazy because when
you know, I started a massacart and fourteen years is
(09:42):
a long time, but it's not that long ago, right.
We were primarily a payment processing company, and and then
you know, we started really thinking about okay, there's other
ways to pay, right. E commerce was really taking off.
We were thinking about payments on advices and phones. Yeah,
(10:03):
and you know, we were thinking about payments and cars
and all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
But you know, and a lot of it though, came
back to how do we make those payments safe? Secure
and fast, right, and so we had to start thinking
about the infrastructure of payments. And so it's been this
slow evolution. And I remember I kind of built.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
This reputation as the digital guy at MasterCard a long
time ago, and in part because I took this job
and it was in sales on our digital wallet team.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
So we were going to issuers and merchants and saying, hey,
mister issuer, you should have a digital wallet, mister merchant,
you should accept digital payments. Do this digital wallet.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And the resistance that I received in that role going
to customers and talking to them and them laughing at
this will never happen, right, and then a lot of that, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And I remember talking to a customer one time. They
were like, oh, Apple will never ever allow you to.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Put payments on the phone, okay, right, never, And so
I was like, I disagree, and so you just kept
away at it.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And then and then.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Apple jumped in the game, right, they said we're gonna
do Apple Pay and we helped.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Develop the infrastructure. Oh wow, and then and and and
then the.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then you know, and that was okay, but then
the pandemic came. Yeah, and the pandemic is what really
accelerated the digital landscape and the and digital payments. And
while all the while there was this, there was all
of these FinTechs and startups and companies building digital infrastructure.
And so it was a perfect sort of uh timy
(11:41):
as well, because not only was there a need, there
was the ability.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
What was it about the pandemic in particular, because I
actually am that's surprising to me.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I would have thought the pandemic slowed it down.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And I don't want to take us off too far off,
But was this anything to do with sort of this
like crypto revolution or is this separate?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I think it's separate than that. I think what really
accelerated digital payments were a couple of things. Inded one.
And when we talked about digital payments, we talked about
paying online, paying through devices, bones, you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I mean. People were home and what were they doing?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And then were shopping right, and they were you know,
packages were showing up. I'm sure no, oh my god, no,
you look fast, I said, I'm sure you had some
stuff showing up.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The event of putting digital payments on my phone meant
that you could wake up in the morning at nine o'clock,
before you even put your feet on the ground. You
could just press two buttons, double click and buy something
like it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Was right, just us and you know. And then the
other part was contactless. Contactless was always going to be
a big part of.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Digital payments, and people, you know, they became germophobes, and
so I remember after you know, I guess this was
twenty twenty, spring of the pandemic.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know, I was one grocery shopping for my house.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
And I was going to Whole Foods and they had
enabled you know, Apple Pay, you know, and so it
was like being able to have that contactless experience while
I'm all glove mastered up because I didn't knew what.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Was going on. So that people it just forced people,
and it forced people. All yeah, right. It wasn't just
young folk. It was middle aged people and old people who.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Wanted this contactless experience. And then it's just coming. So
it's been it's been a lot for our business.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Absolutely absolutely tune in Wednesday to continue our conversation with less.
Matthews of MasterCard, thanks for listening to today's episode. If
we helped you make your money move, please share it
with your community. Subscribe and leave us a review on
iHeartRadio and Apple podcasts. Follow us on social media at
Greenwood and visit us at Gogreenwood dot com for more
(13:53):
financial tips and remember, money Movers. If this were easy,
everyone would do it. So take the lessons you've learned
from this episode and apply it to your life. Money
Moves is an iHeartRadio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced
by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
(14:15):
podcasts from. Make sure to tune in Monday, Wednesday and
Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood,
so that you too can have the keys to financial
freedom you so rightly deserve. Until next time,
Unlike some of the other companies I worked, I felt
really comfortable. They're building a career taking risks, doing lots
of different things, and that's what I've done. I've had
like gay jobs in fourteen years, and I think that's
the hallmark of my career is like the willingness to
take risks.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech, business
and more.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm your host, angel.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Investor, technology enthusiast, and media personality Tanya Sam. Each week,
we talk with guests who are making significant strides in
their fields and learn how they are making their money move.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
If you're someone.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Who's looking to make your money move, you're in the
right place, So open up your notes app and lock
us in, because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media at Greenwood and
(00:58):
me on all Things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked in too new episode. Hey Money Movers, Welcome
back to Money Moves, the podcast designed to give you
the key to the kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm your host, Tanya Sam and I'm so.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Glad to be back here today because I have the
pleasure of speaking with Les Matthews, a visionary expert in
the field of digital and emerging payments. Less currently serves
as the executive vice president of Services for North America
at MasterCard. He leads a team of sales executives and
product experts that help MasterCards customers win with their consumers.
(01:39):
Hello us in chancing business performance, elevating consumer experiences, and
enabling innovation one of my favorite words, and I really
can't hear it enough. With MasterCards world renowned industry experts
and proprietary data and technology, Less's team helps to enable
smarter decisions with better outcomes. Less that was a law,
(02:00):
But welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to have
you here.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Thanks for having me, Tanya. I'm excited to talk to
you today. Talk a little bit more about my journey.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, this is one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Number One, because I just love stories like this, and
representation matters, and oftentimes, you know, a lot of our
moneymover's audience is looking to make pivots in their careers,
looking to kind of see the railroad tracks about how
people have done that, and I think, especially in the
corporate world, sometimes those tracks and trajectories aren't so obvious.
(02:33):
So I would like to start at the beginning and
tell us about little less you know, did when you
grew up? Were you saying I'm going to work at
a payment processing company? How did you get here? And
so many of our Moneymover's audience tune in to really
understand the trajectories of how you got here, And in particular,
I'm very passionate about representation and how that matters, because
(02:54):
oftentimes people will look at you, a person of color
in the corporate world, and they're like, how did you
get here? So I want you to take us back
to the very beginning. Let's look at young less, and
I want to know were you always dreaming of working
in payment processing and sort of how the steps that
it took to get you here.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, that's a big question. I'm I don't know if
we're gonna have enough time for that, honestly. But listen,
you know, my story is similar to a lot.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Of black folks, right.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I was born on the West Coast and sort of
meager circumstances. My dad was let's just say he was
a hustler, right, He never went to college. He has
spent time in prison. And you know, that was the
circumstances under which I was raised, right, And I didn't
(03:45):
really know my mom growing up, and you know, so
I wouldn't say that, you know, I didn't have supporters,
but you know it was tough, right, spend time in
foster care. So my story is one of you know,
sort of I think self motivation, taking risk.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
And just you know, drive and and and a.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Lot of good people around me as well, and so
so I you know, luckily I made it through high school.
I was an athlete for a couple of years in
college and you know when but I never really dreamed
of being in corporate America, right, this was that that
was not my dream. I dreamed of, you know, playing
sports and doing things like that. And I got hurt
for a couple after a couple of years of playing
(04:26):
college sports, I actually left school, was out for four years.
I was just tramping around the West Coast doing whatever.
And then my sister says to me at one point,
she's like, you need to go back to school.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Right, I'm the first.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
You know, no one in my family had gone back,
had gone to college, and you know, so I was
kind of the first one. And so I loved my sister,
and I took your advice and I ended up at
Clark Atlanta University. You see, yeah, HBCU for the last
couple of years of my undergrad which was psychology, and
then I went to grad school there. I went right
(05:05):
in the NBA because I had, you know, messed around
for four years, and you know, people were like, well,
how did you get into payments?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
How did you figure this out? I never worked in corporate.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
America, but I interviewed with a CpG company, automotive company,
and American Express, and you know, I was a broke
grad student and I was like, I'm going where.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
The most money And then happened to be American Express.
And it was a summer in New York, and I
was off, but.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I never I was way out of my place there, right,
I was way over my head. I didn't know anything
about corporate America. And I do remember a couple of
my mentors who were in Corporate America at the time,
you know, and they said, listen less, you've got to
you've got to keep your head down, You've got to
work harder.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
You're a black man, You're.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Going to be judged differently, right, And so I took
that advice for a very long time, and I went
to AMX, and then I left and went to be America,
and then I went to Washington Mutual and they failed
back in two thousand and nine, and that's when I
ended up a master Card.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
And that relationship that.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I built while I was at Washington Mutual, they were
my I was their customer, my account managers. They recommended
me to some folks with the MasterCard. I landed there
fourteen years ago, and you know, I've built a career there.
I mean, the great part about you know, MasterCard is
that they've been really nurturing, even you know, as a
(06:32):
black person in a person of color, and so unlike
some of the other companies I worked, I felt really comfortable.
They're building a career, taking risk, doing lots of different things.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And that's why I.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Had like eight jobs in fourteen years and I think
that's the wholemark of my career, is like the willingness
to take risks. And you know, going back to your
original question, I never really thought this is where I
would end up, but I knew.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
It's where the journey took me.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And you know, thankfully, like I said, a lot of
good people are pushing me, you know, to get here,
and you know, I've learned a lot along the way.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Which is kind of put me in the position of
my currentral.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So long way of answering your question, but it's been,
you know, quite a journey for me to get to
where I'm at.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Cool. I love this well, so many things that came
out of that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But what an incredible story from Foster care to you know,
going through college to getting an MBA. This is really
an incredibly inspiring story. So thank you so much for
sharing that. And you touched a little bit on about
how MasterCard has been really instrumental and you two have
as well in terms of mentorship, and we'll come back
to it. I want to stay on sort of your
(07:41):
journey because I know that's also been really important for
you to give back within the organization as well. But
let's tap into this idea of the world of digital payments,
because I know our moneymover's audience loves a little bit
of both sides, like these inspiring stories, but they also
want to know the tech side beside it. And this
is a world, you know, So I'm sure throughout your
career trajectory that has changed dramatically. I'm not going to
(08:04):
put our ages out here, but you know, I think
we've all seen how we've usured. We've changed from a
cash society to bank cards, debit cards, texts. I have
to laugh because I remember several years ago I had
an intern from Georgia Tech. We were building a technology
accelerator and I asked her to sign a check for
me and she was like, quiet, quiet. Ten minutes later
(08:28):
she came back She's like, I don't know where to
sign and I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
So yeah, all right, you dat youse.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
The world has changed that this young girl who was
at Georgia Tech and had never signed a check.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
But let's talk about some of what your role in
compasses right now.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I want to give our sort of audience the
landscape of what digital payments have looked like and how
your team has been really instrumental in sort of pushing
that forward.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
So you know, my current role is the head of
Services in North America. So that is kind of two
different things. We have a consulting business, so just think
about it like any consulting company out there, right, and
then we have a cyber and intelligence practice and that's
all about mitigating fraud, uh, mitigating account takeover, identity stuff
(09:20):
like that. So those two businesses I run for North
America and there's a lot that intels that we can
we can come back to that a little bit, but
there's a huge digital component to that as well. But
you know, digital payments is it's it's crazy because when
you know, I started a massacart and fourteen years is
(09:42):
a long time, but it's not that long ago, right.
We were primarily a payment processing company, and and then
you know, we started really thinking about okay, there's other
ways to pay, right. E commerce was really taking off.
We were thinking about payments on advices and phones. Yeah,
(10:03):
and you know, we were thinking about payments and cars
and all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
But you know, and a lot of it though, came
back to how do we make those payments safe? Secure
and fast, right, and so we had to start thinking
about the infrastructure of payments. And so it's been this
slow evolution. And I remember I kind of built.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
This reputation as the digital guy at MasterCard a long
time ago, and in part because I took this job
and it was in sales on our digital wallet team.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
So we were going to issuers and merchants and saying, hey,
mister issuer, you should have a digital wallet, mister merchant,
you should accept digital payments. Do this digital wallet.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And the resistance that I received in that role going
to customers and talking to them and them laughing at
this will never happen, right, and then a lot of that, yeah,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And I remember talking to a customer one time. They
were like, oh, Apple will never ever allow you to.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Put payments on the phone, okay, right, never, And so
I was like, I disagree, and so you just kept
away at it.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And then and then.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Apple jumped in the game, right, they said we're gonna
do Apple Pay and we helped.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Develop the infrastructure. Oh wow, and then and and and
then the.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And then you know, and that was okay, but then
the pandemic came. Yeah, and the pandemic is what really
accelerated the digital landscape and the and digital payments. And
while all the while there was this, there was all
of these FinTechs and startups and companies building digital infrastructure.
And so it was a perfect sort of uh timy
(11:41):
as well, because not only was there a need, there
was the ability.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
What was it about the pandemic in particular, because I
actually am that's surprising to me.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I would have thought the pandemic slowed it down.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And I don't want to take us off too far off,
But was this anything to do with sort of this
like crypto revolution or is this separate?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I think it's separate than that. I think what really
accelerated digital payments were a couple of things. Inded one.
And when we talked about digital payments, we talked about
paying online, paying through devices, bones, you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
I mean. People were home and what were they doing?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And then were shopping right, and they were you know,
packages were showing up. I'm sure no, oh my god, no,
you look fast, I said, I'm sure you had some
stuff showing up.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The event of putting digital payments on my phone meant
that you could wake up in the morning at nine o'clock,
before you even put your feet on the ground. You
could just press two buttons, double click and buy something
like it.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Was right, just us and you know. And then the
other part was contactless. Contactless was always going to be
a big part of.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Digital payments, and people, you know, they became germophobes, and
so I remember after you know, I guess this was
twenty twenty, spring of the pandemic.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know, I was one grocery shopping for my house.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
And I was going to Whole Foods and they had
enabled you know, Apple Pay, you know, and so it
was like being able to have that contactless experience while
I'm all glove mastered up because I didn't knew what.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Was going on. So that people it just forced people,
and it forced people. All yeah, right. It wasn't just
young folk. It was middle aged people and old people who.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Wanted this contactless experience. And then it's just coming. So
it's been it's been a lot for our business.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Absolutely absolutely tune in Wednesday to continue our conversation with less.
Matthews of MasterCard, thanks for listening to today's episode. If
we helped you make your money move, please share it
with your community. Subscribe and leave us a review on
iHeartRadio and Apple podcasts. Follow us on social media at
Greenwood and visit us at Gogreenwood dot com for more
(13:53):
financial tips and remember, money Movers. If this were easy,
everyone would do it. So take the lessons you've learned
from this episode and apply it to your life. Money
Moves is an iHeartRadio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced
by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
(14:15):
podcasts from. Make sure to tune in Monday, Wednesday and
Friday and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood,
so that you too can have the keys to financial
freedom you so rightly deserve. Until next time,
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