June 17, 2025 • 25 mins
What happens when you combine the merchant benefits of pay-by-bank transactions with the consumer rewards typically reserved for credit cards? Matt Brennan, CEO of Spire, reveals how their groundbreaking approach is transforming everyday payments across America.
Brennan walks us through Spire's innovative branded payment solution that powers merchant-specific programs like Shell's "S-Pay." By partnering with Discover Network, Spire issues 16-digit PANs linked to consumers' bank accounts - creating a hybrid payment that works on existing terminals while settling via ACH. This elegant solution eliminates the traditional hurdles that have limited pay-by-bank adoption at physical points of sale.
The beauty of Spire's approach lies in its true win-win nature: merchants dramatically reduce processing costs while offering substantial rewards (like 15-20¢ off per gallon or 5% store discounts), and consumers enjoy immediate benefits without accumulating credit card debt. This value proposition has fueled remarkable growth, with Spire now accepted at 55,000 locations representing 65% of branded fuel retailers nationwide.
With 750,000 bank accounts linked and transaction volumes growing 200% in just seven months, Spire is clearly tapping into unmet consumer needs. Brennan identifies two key adopter groups: tech-savvy younger consumers comfortable with alternative payment methods, and financially-conscious "savvy savers" seeking rewards without additional debt. As consumer debt concerns continue to rise and open banking makes account linking increasingly mainstream, Spire is positioned at the intersection of major financial trends.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, matt Brennan, theCEO of Spire.
So, matt, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thanks, greg, and thanks for having me.
I think it's going to be great.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, absolutely Looking forward to it.
So, if you don't mind, beforewe dive into Spire, tell the
audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you're
from, where you grew up, whereyou went to school, a few things
like that.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I grew up in Sydney, australia, born and bred.
Fantastic place.
I think that you know from aschool perspective and it's
probably not going to be veryrelevant as to you know where I
went, but what I will say isthat, you know, my whole kind of
journey from a careerperspective has been founded on
what I think is really part ofthe culture of Australia, which
is, you know, we're a smalllittle country right at the
(01:04):
bottom of the planet and youjust have to kind of to be seen
and to be relevant.
You've got to craft your career, and so a lot of what I've done
, I think, is really rounded offwith my career.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Okay, and we'll dive into that in a few minutes, but
let's talk about Spire first.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So tell the audience what you do.
Yeah, so Spire is a brandedpay-by-bank solution that really
has made a significant impacton the way in which we're
accepted at the point of sale.
And so, I think you know,traditionally pay-by-bank has,
you know, had some greatapplications, but it's always
been challenging to accept thistype of payment at the point of
(01:45):
sale, and so we've been able tobring two things together the
real advantage of pay by bank,which is dramatically kind of
reducing the cost of processing,being able to brand it for the
merchant, which then allows themto reinvest in driving greater
loyalty, in driving greaterloyalty, and what we've seen is
(02:07):
that also has started to growmeaningful basket size and
repeat visits, which is reallythe key metric that I think most
merchants are driving justgeneral growth by.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So that's really what we are.
Okay, and who are your typicalcustomers?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, we have started our journey in oil and gas and
fuel.
We definitely focus on everydayspend as a category.
I think it fits really nicely.
I mean, so we have about 65% ofbranded fuel today, so 55,000
locations across the UnitedStates take our payment method
and in most cases, if you'regoing to fill up your gas tank,
(02:41):
there's probably an option foryou to use our payment type.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Okay, and are you mostly in the US or global?
What's your footprint?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
We are 100% in the US and as we talk a little bit
about how we differentiateourselves in the marketplace,
you'll understand why.
But we are very focused on theUS today.
At this point in time, we feellike this market for us is big
enough where, if we provide theservice to the merchant and to
the consumer alike, this marketitself is a real strong one for
(03:11):
us.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and how did you sort of overcome like the
chicken and the egg, right,you've got a new payment method,
so you need merchants but youneed consumers, right?
How did you overcome thatchallenge?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well, I think that we've been around for a while.
That's kind of the startingpoint.
We are Spire today, but we usedto be actually BIM Networks, and
a lot of people probablyresonate with that brand more,
and that's where we accumulated,I think, the first phase of our
merchant base, and so we'vebeen in the space for a little
bit of time, and so through thatjourney, we started to see very
(03:44):
clearly that there waslimitations as to how far this
payment method could actually go, and part of that was because
the consumer was not adopting itat a fast enough rate, because
there was a lot of friction inthe payment.
We were reinventing a way to pay, and I don't think the consumer
really wants to change the wayto pay.
So we saw that, and I don'tthink the consumer really wants
(04:04):
to change the way to pay.
So we saw that.
And so we were really thinkingin order for this to be truly a
growth category at the point ofsale for retailers, merchants,
we had to rethink a better wayto do it, and that's really what
(04:25):
we are now in our next phase.
And so, as we build a newproduct and we've had this
partnership that we've nowcemented with Discover we
decided to rebrand ourselvesbecause we are very different in
the way we execute, but we'renot different in what the really
underlying product is at itsfoundation, which is its
pay-by-bank.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And you talked about it being a branded solution.
So what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Okay.
So if you take one of ourmerchants, for example, they
will actually go to theirconsumer base and they've
probably called it somethinglike S-Pay, right?
S-pay is Shell's branded paperbank solution and so it's a
branded solution.
We basically just power thepayment type and so you would go
and enroll in that S-Payproduct.
(05:07):
They're giving you a goodincentive to do it 15, 20 cents
off a gallon.
You might get 5% off in theC-Store If you actually sign up
and you link your bank accountto the payment type and then, as
you use that payment type, youget those extra incentives and
extra rewards whenever you goand fill up a tank, or whether
you go to the grocery store oryou go and fill up a tank, or
whether you go to the grocerystore or you go into the
convenience store and you maybuy a few items, and so that's
(05:30):
why it's branded and we keep itbranded.
We are a closed loop solution,so we keep it branded so that
the merchant can use that toleverage the relationship with
the customer.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, makes a lot of sense.
So you mentioned Discover.
Maybe talk a little bit aboutthat partnership, a little bit
about how the sausage is made.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, it's a fundamental part of kind of the
reinvention, I think, of ourproduct and really the space in
general.
So a couple of years ago we, asI said before, we'd got to that
point where we just weren'tsure how this was going to be
increasingly adopted, and weknew that the point of sale
acceptance was important.
And I'll just take one stepback.
Traditionally, in order to beable to accept this payment,
(06:12):
merchants had to do some veryheavy integration changes to
their points of sale and everypoint of sale is different, so
you can't just do it once.
Everybody had to do it On theother side of it.
They also from the settlementside of things.
They also had to do a very bigchange to the settlement and
reconciliation process.
Because if you take $12.50 outof my account and I put it
(06:35):
directly into Shell's account,what's it for?
Where was the purchase made?
How do I reconcile that?
That was a big lift, okay, sojust park that for a moment.
So we basically started to workon a new product within our
platform that allowed us to beable to send all of the payment
(06:57):
instructions down the creditcard rails.
So we were mirroring a creditcard transaction, but for the
purpose of settling thetransaction, we were doing an
ACH debit out of the consumer'sbank account.
That's the product we actuallycreated, and then we shopped it
and Discover agreed to actuallycreate a product on the other
(07:19):
side that allowed us to do zerointerchange for the transaction.
So that's the fundamentalstarting point of the
relationship.
How does the sausage kind ofwork?
Well, this is where it getsreally interesting.
So when you link your bankaccount to our platform, at that
point we issue you a 16-digitDiscover PAN.
(07:40):
So we basically give you acredit card, a credit card PIN,
and we do that in a bin range,that is, for the merchant.
That's how we keep it closedloop.
So we give you a card, we giveyou basically a credit card,
although to fulfil thesettlement, we're going to go
and debit that out of your bankaccount that you linked, which
means now that card is acceptedat 99% of merchants' points of
(08:05):
sale all across the UnitedStates and you don't have to do
a thing to your point of sale toaccept it, because you know how
the pan is presented and, as aresult, that starts the whole
journey of the transaction.
So we kind of feel like we hadto do two things we had to come
up with the idea, we had to goand build it and then we had to
find a great partner, which iswhat Discover has been.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Okay, and the merchants also get to keep the
loyalty program, the rewardsthat they provide.
That doesn't change with thisright.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
No, it's an integral part of the whole process, right
?
Because that's the part whereyou enroll, right?
You enroll through that loyaltyprogram and then you're getting
rewarded for actually using thepayment type.
So we've got to use the loyaltyprogram for the whole kind of
ecosystem to work.
Look, at the end of the day,there's about 60% of Americans
(08:58):
that love rewards, but theydon't necessarily have or want
to get any more credit and theycertainly don't want to revolve
credit for everyday spend.
Now, who wants to pay off yourtank of gas for the next four
months, right?
So the sweet spot was alwayscan you give me a responsible
payment method, pay by bankmaybe you could call it debit
(09:20):
but at the same time, can youreward me for it?
And can you reward me on thespot?
Give me $0.15 off a gallon.
Give me buy one, get one free.
Give me 5% cash back.
They're the things that we'vebeen able to bring together
right at the point of sale and,as I said, the merchant doesn't
have to do a lot of lift toimplement it and how do you get
(09:42):
more business?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Do you have a direct sales team?
Do you have partnershipchannels?
How do you get more business?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, well, both you know we have 750,000 consumers
today that have linked theirbank account.
We've doubled that in the lastseven months, so we're on a real
kind of growth tear.
In the same period of time,we've grown our transaction
volume by over 200%.
So we're starting to now get alot more usage and participation
(10:09):
on our platform in general.
But how do we actually drivereal growth?
Well, merchants new merchants tothe platform bring to us new
consumers, and so we've got adirect sales team that starts by
going out in a B2B sale andworks with the merchant on
having this part of theirpayment portfolio.
We also have been working withpartners that in general, offer
(10:34):
merchant services, and so theywill have great relationship
with merchants.
They help us as well.
And then the third, which is inthat bucket it's kind of the
third area.
The relationship we have withDiscover also helps that,
because Discover's got greatrelationships.
So, all in all, the phase we'rein right now is sign merchants
up.
They will bring moreparticipating consumers and, at
(10:59):
the end of the day, it allows usto broaden the actual, the pool
of consumers and the differentcategories of everyday spend.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And what would you say, differentiates Spire from
your competitors out there?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
We have a capability to have acceptance at every
point of sale and it's the wayin which everybody's used to it.
You know, we can give you aphysical chip and pin card.
We're the only ones that can dothat in the market.
We're moving very, very rapidlytowards tokenizing that into
digital wallets.
We're the only ones that can dothat, and the only ones that
(11:33):
can do that.
And the only ones we can dothat is because when you reverse
back up, we issue a 16-digitPAN and that's the way terminals
accept payment.
That is the number onedifferentiator and then kind of
everything goes from there.
So you know we're a guaranteedproduct.
We guarantee 98.5% oftransactions Industry number one
(11:54):
in the industry by far.
Our risk engine and our riskcapabilities have allowed us to
be able to take 90% of peoplewho actually want to enroll.
We accept those enrollments.
It's number one in the industryas well.
So all of those things that westart to build as
differentiators, they all reallystart at the relationship with
(12:15):
Discover and by using theDiscover network to complete the
transaction is reallyeverything.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Well, when you step back and look at the payments
industry as a whole, sort ofwhere do you see it headed in
the next maybe three to fiveyears?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I think alternate payments are going to be one of
the most rapidly adoptedcategories in general and we sit
in that category.
We're an alternate paymentmethod If you take debit and
credit being the traditionalones.
We're seeing incredible uptakeand also just curiosity from
consumers about different waysto pay, and that can come from
(12:49):
larger tech companies, theVenmos, the PayPals there's
already an established groupthat have been agitating in this
space.
We become part of thatagitation because what we do is
we offer another way to pay,right, coming out of your bank
account.
You're going to get rewardedfor it.
That's a different way to pay,especially when it's branded
(13:12):
with the merchant's brand.
So alternate payment types, inmy mind, is going to be
incredibly fast-growing and then, along those lines, open
banking has really given peoplethe peace of mind to be able to
link their bank account directlyto those alternate payment
types.
I think we've seen an incredibleamount of success from the
(13:33):
likes of Plaid and Validify inbeing able to really give people
that peace of mind.
You know it's interesting thatour payment method is more
secure than even using yourdebit card, because we don't
present all of the details ofyour bank account on the card.
We shield you from that.
But besides that, that trust isbuilding.
(13:54):
So open banking is driving theability to link a bank account.
As we know, the revolving creditnumbers that we've got in the
United States is growing sorapidly that credit is going to
become less and less availableto people.
They're going to have to usedifferent payment methods in
order to do that.
The third piece is that nowthat you're thinking about
(14:16):
alternate payment types andyou're prepared to link it to
your bank account in thissituation but what if it was a
different type of currency?
What if it was a crypto or itwas some kind of digital
currency in the future, thenthat whole starting that we're
going through the startingpieces allow us to be incredibly
flexible down the road, becauseyou've established the two
(14:38):
major pieces the trust and thecuriosity.
Now you've got to just deliveron what else is possible and
that's what's going to come downthe line.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, and are you seeing a certain demographic
from the consumer side adoptthis more than others, or is it
pretty much across the board?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It's across the board , but I will say there's two
kind of buckets that I think wereally see some, I would say,
more motivation tech-savvy,credit-averse group that has, in
some instances, fully grown upwith the likes of the PayPals
(15:18):
and the Venmos and the Zells.
There's a whole group ofsub-25-year-old or maybe even
sub-30-year-olds that has onlyever exchanged money with their
friends through Zell or throughVenmo or through Apple Cash or
whatever right, they justinstantly look for creative ways
and alternate ways to pay.
So that's one group and we feellike we're really starting to
(15:41):
build a great product for them.
The other group is, as Imentioned before, 60% of
Americans are really at theirdebt stress limits and so that
group, which we would kind ofsay is kind of the savvy buyer
or the savvy saver, right,they're looking for ways to get
out of that vicious cycle butstill get those kind of rewards,
(16:04):
kind of coupon clippers, thatkind of group.
They're the two at the momentthat we really see strong
take-up.
We see less strong take-up withthe likes of people that have
credit, get rewards but pay offtheir debt every month.
They're not necessarily lookingfor something, this alternative
yet.
So hopefully that answers thequestion.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, and it's less about age or demographics.
It's more about to your pointkind of motivation and thought
process, as opposed to you know,20-year-olds do this and
40-year-olds do this, right, andit's something it's a trap we
all fall into is saying that youknow all age groups act the
same.
I think you're right inthinking of it, as you know
(16:47):
what's the motivation, why dothey want to do it and why do
they want to do it Exactly?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
exactly.
And we want to just continue tomotivate them to do it, and one
of the great motivators, as Isaid before, is loyalty.
It's a great motivator for themerchant and it actually becomes
even a greater motivator forthe consumer, and so when you
get that right, it's a win-win.
That's what I'm so excitedabout with what we've done in
(17:13):
the last 18 months, because thisis really the unleashing of the
possibilities around PaybarBank at the point of sale.
It had so many limitationsprior to us getting our
technology and Discover'srelationship just right, and I'm
excited about it because forthe first time in a long time,
it's a product that's reallygood for the consumer and it's
really good for the merchant,and sometimes in payments, one
(17:38):
of those constituents loses.
This is not the case, andthat's what motivates me,
because I know that we areactually providing a win for
both, and now the twoconstituents the merchant and
the consumer are sharing therewards together, so it's a
really good place, I think, forus to jump off into making some
change.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk
about you, maybe walk us throughyour background a little bit
and how you got to Spire.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, well, as I said before, born and raised in
Sydney, Australia, and there wasa couple of starting points in
my career I actually started atthe Central Bank of Australia.
Funnily enough, I was thinkingof becoming a long-term central
banker, but technology kind ofwas just starting to get
introduced into the whole space.
And, greg, I'm sure youremember those days when
(18:25):
computers started popping upeverywhere.
It really changed thetrajectory of my career.
And when I left the ReserveBank I had an opportunity to
decide between going to atechnology company.
One was Dell, who at the timewas just on fire, and the other
one was Apple, which was not onfire.
It's hard to remember, butthere was times when Apple was
(18:47):
having a hard time selling aniPod.
Anyway, those days were gonepretty quickly.
I don't know why.
I decided to go and work atApple and it was the best
decision of my life for so manyreasons Learned a tremendous
amount in business, learned atremendous amount around culture
and obviously was very, veryfortunate to go through three
(19:10):
pretty big phases.
Obviously, as I said before,ipod hit pay dirt.
We thought that was quantumchange to the company.
And then, of course, iphonecame out.
I was lucky enough to be askedto launch iPhone in Asia,
everywhere except Japan, japan.
We had an exclusiverelationship with SoftBank so
there was no work to be donethere, and so I went and
launched it in every countrythrough Asia.
And then, as we got to the endof that cycle, I was asked to
(19:33):
come to the US and put togetherlike a next generation growth
plan for the company, and one ofthose five big bets that the
company made turned out to bethe one that I had suggested,
and so they quickly asked me tocome over and run that
initiative in the United States.
And so I packed up the family,moved to the US and you know I
(19:54):
often joke.
You know it was not hard,because sometimes you had to
squint to see the differencebetween California and Sydney.
But that got me to the US.
And then, obviously, the 16years at Apple was just part of
that whole journey.
As I started to get to towardsthe end of that period of my
career.
Then I spent a little bit oftime consulting Google and
(20:16):
others on different types ofgrowth initiatives, go-to-market
initiatives.
And then I was reached out by acolleague of mine at Accenture
who was alongside me in theApple Accenture deal that we did
a number of years before thatand we started to work together
and one of the projects that wewere brought into was actually
Spire.
(20:36):
And so we were brought inbecause there was a new
investment round put in place inthe beginning of 2024.
And we were helping thatinvestment team in a transition
of leadership and by the time wegot to the summer of 2024, the
board had reached out to me andasked me if I would come and run
the company.
And that was just due to, Ithink, a lot of the change of
(20:59):
direction, of the messaging andthe relationships we were
building and where this companycould go.
And so that's how I got toSpire.
I'm not deeply trenched inpayments although I'm drinking
from the fire hose, that's forsure but definitely a lot of
experience in technology andgo-to-market and that's really
where the company is right now.
(21:21):
And it's definitely helped mealso with relationships that I
had, you know, with Google andwith Apple, to help us get into
kind of the next phase which isinto the digital wallets.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Okay, okay, and what are some things you're
passionate about?
Maybe one work-related passionand one personal passion.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Well, I kind of alluded to this a little bit ago
and I think this is again partof what I really loved and
admired about Tom and Apple.
I'm really passionate aboutoffering win-win situations and
when we've got thismerchant-consumer win-win
situation, I'm really passionateabout that.
It's actually driving, I wouldsay, the next generation of our
(22:02):
culture here at spire.
So I'm very, very passionateabout always providing the best
possible outcomes for theconsumer and for us, the
customer being the merchant.
On the personal side, I couldbe boring and say you know, I
love golf, but I think that thepassion I have I'm a huge Green
Bay Packers fan have been sinceback in the days when I was in
Australia.
(22:22):
It's hard not to have fallen inlove with Brett Favre, and so
my kids are the same and we goto Lambeau Field once a year and
we love Sundays in the winterwhere we can, you know, watch a
great Packers game.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So Australia, California, Green Bay.
I'm not drawing the lines, butthat's cool.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I'm inching my way to the East Coast slowly.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Gotcha, gotcha.
Okay.
Well, if someone came to youand maybe they're just out of
college, they're looking at sortof the payments or fintech or
even broader kind of technologyspace and they want to build a
career there, and they said, hey, matt, what do you suggest I do
?
What advice would you give meto help me be successful in my
career in payments, in fintech,in technology?
What would you tell them to do?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know, just be a constant learner, just learn,
learn, learn.
You know, I could say the basicstuff about work ethic and
stuff like that.
You'd hope that somebody who'sgot aspirations of building a
career has already got that, buttruly I think it's about kind
of learning.
What are all the intricaciesand the nuances, whether it's
technology or whether it'spayments?
(23:31):
You know, I remember, as I waskind of getting into different
phases, I was curious aboutcomputers because they were the
new thing you know.
Then I was curious about, youknow, mobility, when we bring in
the iPhone.
And now you should be curiousabout AI, because AI is the
thing that actually is going tobe the next wave.
And if you look at those threesituations, right, computers
(23:53):
change things, mobility changethings.
Ai is going to change things.
Be curious, be a learner and,as you do that, start to form
your own opinion of what mightbe next and ground it in, always
servicing whoever it is that'sgoing to buy your products.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
It goes back to that passion right.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
My passion is servicing those who are going to
buy our products.
So be curious, be a learner, bea thinker and always sort of
think about what's good for thepeople that you're selling to.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think that's great advice.
So, matt, we've covered a lotof ground, obviously, about you,
about the company, about theindustry.
Is there anything else you'dlike to cover before we wrap up
the show?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well, the only thing I would say is that if you don't
know much about Spire, and ifyou don't know much about Spire
and if you don't know much abouthow we're changing pay-by-bank,
be curious yourself.
Look us up, look it up.
I think we're going to be thefirst of many, and so hopefully
we will become part of the nextwave of an alternate payment
type that I think thateverybody's been looking for
(24:54):
success around for a long time.
So if you want to be curious,look us up.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Okay Well, matt, thank you so much for being on
the show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so thank you so much
for being here.
Thanks, greg, I appreciate thetime, and to all you listeners
out there, I thank you for yourtime as well, and until the next
story.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
This week on the Leaders inPayments podcast, make sure you
visit our website atleadersinpaymentscom, where you
can subscribe to the show andwhere you'll find our show notes
.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
(25:33):
channels as well.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, matt Brennan, theCEO of Spire.
So, matt, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thanks, greg, and thanks for having me.
I think it's going to be great.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, absolutely Looking forward to it.
So, if you don't mind, beforewe dive into Spire, tell the
audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you're
from, where you grew up, whereyou went to school, a few things
like that.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I grew up in Sydney, australia, born and bred.
Fantastic place.
I think that you know from aschool perspective and it's
probably not going to be veryrelevant as to you know where I
went, but what I will say isthat, you know, my whole kind of
journey from a careerperspective has been founded on
what I think is really part ofthe culture of Australia, which
is, you know, we're a smalllittle country right at the
(01:04):
bottom of the planet and youjust have to kind of to be seen
and to be relevant.
You've got to craft your career, and so a lot of what I've done
, I think, is really rounded offwith my career.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Okay, and we'll dive into that in a few minutes, but
let's talk about Spire first.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So tell the audience what you do.
Yeah, so Spire is a brandedpay-by-bank solution that really
has made a significant impacton the way in which we're
accepted at the point of sale.
And so, I think you know,traditionally pay-by-bank has,
you know, had some greatapplications, but it's always
been challenging to accept thistype of payment at the point of
(01:45):
sale, and so we've been able tobring two things together the
real advantage of pay by bank,which is dramatically kind of
reducing the cost of processing,being able to brand it for the
merchant, which then allows themto reinvest in driving greater
loyalty, in driving greaterloyalty, and what we've seen is
(02:07):
that also has started to growmeaningful basket size and
repeat visits, which is reallythe key metric that I think most
merchants are driving justgeneral growth by.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So that's really what we are.
Okay, and who are your typicalcustomers?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, we have started our journey in oil and gas and
fuel.
We definitely focus on everydayspend as a category.
I think it fits really nicely.
I mean, so we have about 65% ofbranded fuel today, so 55,000
locations across the UnitedStates take our payment method
and in most cases, if you'regoing to fill up your gas tank,
(02:41):
there's probably an option foryou to use our payment type.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Okay, and are you mostly in the US or global?
What's your footprint?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
We are 100% in the US and as we talk a little bit
about how we differentiateourselves in the marketplace,
you'll understand why.
But we are very focused on theUS today.
At this point in time, we feellike this market for us is big
enough where, if we provide theservice to the merchant and to
the consumer alike, this marketitself is a real strong one for
(03:11):
us.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, and how did you sort of overcome like the
chicken and the egg, right,you've got a new payment method,
so you need merchants but youneed consumers, right?
How did you overcome thatchallenge?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Well, I think that we've been around for a while.
That's kind of the startingpoint.
We are Spire today, but we usedto be actually BIM Networks, and
a lot of people probablyresonate with that brand more,
and that's where we accumulated,I think, the first phase of our
merchant base, and so we'vebeen in the space for a little
bit of time, and so through thatjourney, we started to see very
(03:44):
clearly that there waslimitations as to how far this
payment method could actually go, and part of that was because
the consumer was not adopting itat a fast enough rate, because
there was a lot of friction inthe payment.
We were reinventing a way to pay, and I don't think the consumer
really wants to change the wayto pay.
So we saw that, and I don'tthink the consumer really wants
(04:04):
to change the way to pay.
So we saw that.
And so we were really thinkingin order for this to be truly a
growth category at the point ofsale for retailers, merchants,
we had to rethink a better wayto do it, and that's really what
(04:25):
we are now in our next phase.
And so, as we build a newproduct and we've had this
partnership that we've nowcemented with Discover we
decided to rebrand ourselvesbecause we are very different in
the way we execute, but we'renot different in what the really
underlying product is at itsfoundation, which is its
pay-by-bank.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And you talked about it being a branded solution.
So what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Okay.
So if you take one of ourmerchants, for example, they
will actually go to theirconsumer base and they've
probably called it somethinglike S-Pay, right?
S-pay is Shell's branded paperbank solution and so it's a
branded solution.
We basically just power thepayment type and so you would go
and enroll in that S-Payproduct.
(05:07):
They're giving you a goodincentive to do it 15, 20 cents
off a gallon.
You might get 5% off in theC-Store If you actually sign up
and you link your bank accountto the payment type and then, as
you use that payment type, youget those extra incentives and
extra rewards whenever you goand fill up a tank, or whether
you go to the grocery store oryou go and fill up a tank, or
whether you go to the grocerystore or you go into the
convenience store and you maybuy a few items, and so that's
(05:30):
why it's branded and we keep itbranded.
We are a closed loop solution,so we keep it branded so that
the merchant can use that toleverage the relationship with
the customer.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, makes a lot of sense.
So you mentioned Discover.
Maybe talk a little bit aboutthat partnership, a little bit
about how the sausage is made.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, it's a fundamental part of kind of the
reinvention, I think, of ourproduct and really the space in
general.
So a couple of years ago we, asI said before, we'd got to that
point where we just weren'tsure how this was going to be
increasingly adopted, and weknew that the point of sale
acceptance was important.
And I'll just take one stepback.
Traditionally, in order to beable to accept this payment,
(06:12):
merchants had to do some veryheavy integration changes to
their points of sale and everypoint of sale is different, so
you can't just do it once.
Everybody had to do it On theother side of it.
They also from the settlementside of things.
They also had to do a very bigchange to the settlement and
reconciliation process.
Because if you take $12.50 outof my account and I put it
(06:35):
directly into Shell's account,what's it for?
Where was the purchase made?
How do I reconcile that?
That was a big lift, okay, sojust park that for a moment.
So we basically started to workon a new product within our
platform that allowed us to beable to send all of the payment
(06:57):
instructions down the creditcard rails.
So we were mirroring a creditcard transaction, but for the
purpose of settling thetransaction, we were doing an
ACH debit out of the consumer'sbank account.
That's the product we actuallycreated, and then we shopped it
and Discover agreed to actuallycreate a product on the other
(07:19):
side that allowed us to do zerointerchange for the transaction.
So that's the fundamentalstarting point of the
relationship.
How does the sausage kind ofwork?
Well, this is where it getsreally interesting.
So when you link your bankaccount to our platform, at that
point we issue you a 16-digitDiscover PAN.
(07:40):
So we basically give you acredit card, a credit card PIN,
and we do that in a bin range,that is, for the merchant.
That's how we keep it closedloop.
So we give you a card, we giveyou basically a credit card,
although to fulfil thesettlement, we're going to go
and debit that out of your bankaccount that you linked, which
means now that card is acceptedat 99% of merchants' points of
(08:05):
sale all across the UnitedStates and you don't have to do
a thing to your point of sale toaccept it, because you know how
the pan is presented and, as aresult, that starts the whole
journey of the transaction.
So we kind of feel like we hadto do two things we had to come
up with the idea, we had to goand build it and then we had to
find a great partner, which iswhat Discover has been.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Okay, and the merchants also get to keep the
loyalty program, the rewardsthat they provide.
That doesn't change with thisright.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
No, it's an integral part of the whole process, right
?
Because that's the part whereyou enroll, right?
You enroll through that loyaltyprogram and then you're getting
rewarded for actually using thepayment type.
So we've got to use the loyaltyprogram for the whole kind of
ecosystem to work.
Look, at the end of the day,there's about 60% of Americans
(08:58):
that love rewards, but theydon't necessarily have or want
to get any more credit and theycertainly don't want to revolve
credit for everyday spend.
Now, who wants to pay off yourtank of gas for the next four
months, right?
So the sweet spot was alwayscan you give me a responsible
payment method, pay by bankmaybe you could call it debit
(09:20):
but at the same time, can youreward me for it?
And can you reward me on thespot?
Give me $0.15 off a gallon.
Give me buy one, get one free.
Give me 5% cash back.
They're the things that we'vebeen able to bring together
right at the point of sale and,as I said, the merchant doesn't
have to do a lot of lift toimplement it and how do you get
(09:42):
more business?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Do you have a direct sales team?
Do you have partnershipchannels?
How do you get more business?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, well, both you know we have 750,000 consumers
today that have linked theirbank account.
We've doubled that in the lastseven months, so we're on a real
kind of growth tear.
In the same period of time,we've grown our transaction
volume by over 200%.
So we're starting to now get alot more usage and participation
(10:09):
on our platform in general.
But how do we actually drivereal growth?
Well, merchants new merchants tothe platform bring to us new
consumers, and so we've got adirect sales team that starts by
going out in a B2B sale andworks with the merchant on
having this part of theirpayment portfolio.
We also have been working withpartners that in general, offer
(10:34):
merchant services, and so theywill have great relationship
with merchants.
They help us as well.
And then the third, which is inthat bucket it's kind of the
third area.
The relationship we have withDiscover also helps that,
because Discover's got greatrelationships.
So, all in all, the phase we'rein right now is sign merchants
up.
They will bring moreparticipating consumers and, at
(10:59):
the end of the day, it allows usto broaden the actual, the pool
of consumers and the differentcategories of everyday spend.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And what would you say, differentiates Spire from
your competitors out there?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
We have a capability to have acceptance at every
point of sale and it's the wayin which everybody's used to it.
You know, we can give you aphysical chip and pin card.
We're the only ones that can dothat in the market.
We're moving very, very rapidlytowards tokenizing that into
digital wallets.
We're the only ones that can dothat, and the only ones that
(11:33):
can do that.
And the only ones we can dothat is because when you reverse
back up, we issue a 16-digitPAN and that's the way terminals
accept payment.
That is the number onedifferentiator and then kind of
everything goes from there.
So you know we're a guaranteedproduct.
We guarantee 98.5% oftransactions Industry number one
(11:54):
in the industry by far.
Our risk engine and our riskcapabilities have allowed us to
be able to take 90% of peoplewho actually want to enroll.
We accept those enrollments.
It's number one in the industryas well.
So all of those things that westart to build as
differentiators, they all reallystart at the relationship with
(12:15):
Discover and by using theDiscover network to complete the
transaction is reallyeverything.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Well, when you step back and look at the payments
industry as a whole, sort ofwhere do you see it headed in
the next maybe three to fiveyears?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I think alternate payments are going to be one of
the most rapidly adoptedcategories in general and we sit
in that category.
We're an alternate paymentmethod If you take debit and
credit being the traditionalones.
We're seeing incredible uptakeand also just curiosity from
consumers about different waysto pay, and that can come from
(12:49):
larger tech companies, theVenmos, the PayPals there's
already an established groupthat have been agitating in this
space.
We become part of thatagitation because what we do is
we offer another way to pay,right, coming out of your bank
account.
You're going to get rewardedfor it.
That's a different way to pay,especially when it's branded
(13:12):
with the merchant's brand.
So alternate payment types, inmy mind, is going to be
incredibly fast-growing and then, along those lines, open
banking has really given peoplethe peace of mind to be able to
link their bank account directlyto those alternate payment
types.
I think we've seen an incredibleamount of success from the
(13:33):
likes of Plaid and Validify inbeing able to really give people
that peace of mind.
You know it's interesting thatour payment method is more
secure than even using yourdebit card, because we don't
present all of the details ofyour bank account on the card.
We shield you from that.
But besides that, that trust isbuilding.
(13:54):
So open banking is driving theability to link a bank account.
As we know, the revolving creditnumbers that we've got in the
United States is growing sorapidly that credit is going to
become less and less availableto people.
They're going to have to usedifferent payment methods in
order to do that.
The third piece is that nowthat you're thinking about
(14:16):
alternate payment types andyou're prepared to link it to
your bank account in thissituation but what if it was a
different type of currency?
What if it was a crypto or itwas some kind of digital
currency in the future, thenthat whole starting that we're
going through the startingpieces allow us to be incredibly
flexible down the road, becauseyou've established the two
(14:38):
major pieces the trust and thecuriosity.
Now you've got to just deliveron what else is possible and
that's what's going to come downthe line.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Okay, and are you seeing a certain demographic
from the consumer side adoptthis more than others, or is it
pretty much across the board?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
It's across the board , but I will say there's two
kind of buckets that I think wereally see some, I would say,
more motivation tech-savvy,credit-averse group that has, in
some instances, fully grown upwith the likes of the PayPals
(15:18):
and the Venmos and the Zells.
There's a whole group ofsub-25-year-old or maybe even
sub-30-year-olds that has onlyever exchanged money with their
friends through Zell or throughVenmo or through Apple Cash or
whatever right, they justinstantly look for creative ways
and alternate ways to pay.
So that's one group and we feellike we're really starting to
(15:41):
build a great product for them.
The other group is, as Imentioned before, 60% of
Americans are really at theirdebt stress limits and so that
group, which we would kind ofsay is kind of the savvy buyer
or the savvy saver, right,they're looking for ways to get
out of that vicious cycle butstill get those kind of rewards,
(16:04):
kind of coupon clippers, thatkind of group.
They're the two at the momentthat we really see strong
take-up.
We see less strong take-up withthe likes of people that have
credit, get rewards but pay offtheir debt every month.
They're not necessarily lookingfor something, this alternative
yet.
So hopefully that answers thequestion.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, and it's less about age or demographics.
It's more about to your pointkind of motivation and thought
process, as opposed to you know,20-year-olds do this and
40-year-olds do this, right, andit's something it's a trap we
all fall into is saying that youknow all age groups act the
same.
I think you're right inthinking of it, as you know
(16:47):
what's the motivation, why dothey want to do it and why do
they want to do it Exactly?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
exactly.
And we want to just continue tomotivate them to do it, and one
of the great motivators, as Isaid before, is loyalty.
It's a great motivator for themerchant and it actually becomes
even a greater motivator forthe consumer, and so when you
get that right, it's a win-win.
That's what I'm so excitedabout with what we've done in
(17:13):
the last 18 months, because thisis really the unleashing of the
possibilities around PaybarBank at the point of sale.
It had so many limitationsprior to us getting our
technology and Discover'srelationship just right, and I'm
excited about it because forthe first time in a long time,
it's a product that's reallygood for the consumer and it's
really good for the merchant,and sometimes in payments, one
(17:38):
of those constituents loses.
This is not the case, andthat's what motivates me,
because I know that we areactually providing a win for
both, and now the twoconstituents the merchant and
the consumer are sharing therewards together, so it's a
really good place, I think, forus to jump off into making some
change.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk
about you, maybe walk us throughyour background a little bit
and how you got to Spire.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, well, as I said before, born and raised in
Sydney, Australia, and there wasa couple of starting points in
my career I actually started atthe Central Bank of Australia.
Funnily enough, I was thinkingof becoming a long-term central
banker, but technology kind ofwas just starting to get
introduced into the whole space.
And, greg, I'm sure youremember those days when
(18:25):
computers started popping upeverywhere.
It really changed thetrajectory of my career.
And when I left the ReserveBank I had an opportunity to
decide between going to atechnology company.
One was Dell, who at the timewas just on fire, and the other
one was Apple, which was not onfire.
It's hard to remember, butthere was times when Apple was
(18:47):
having a hard time selling aniPod.
Anyway, those days were gonepretty quickly.
I don't know why.
I decided to go and work atApple and it was the best
decision of my life for so manyreasons Learned a tremendous
amount in business, learned atremendous amount around culture
and obviously was very, veryfortunate to go through three
(19:10):
pretty big phases.
Obviously, as I said before,ipod hit pay dirt.
We thought that was quantumchange to the company.
And then, of course, iphonecame out.
I was lucky enough to be askedto launch iPhone in Asia,
everywhere except Japan, japan.
We had an exclusiverelationship with SoftBank so
there was no work to be donethere, and so I went and
launched it in every countrythrough Asia.
And then, as we got to the endof that cycle, I was asked to
(19:33):
come to the US and put togetherlike a next generation growth
plan for the company, and one ofthose five big bets that the
company made turned out to bethe one that I had suggested,
and so they quickly asked me tocome over and run that
initiative in the United States.
And so I packed up the family,moved to the US and you know I
(19:54):
often joke.
You know it was not hard,because sometimes you had to
squint to see the differencebetween California and Sydney.
But that got me to the US.
And then, obviously, the 16years at Apple was just part of
that whole journey.
As I started to get to towardsthe end of that period of my
career.
Then I spent a little bit oftime consulting Google and
(20:16):
others on different types ofgrowth initiatives, go-to-market
initiatives.
And then I was reached out by acolleague of mine at Accenture
who was alongside me in theApple Accenture deal that we did
a number of years before thatand we started to work together
and one of the projects that wewere brought into was actually
Spire.
(20:36):
And so we were brought inbecause there was a new
investment round put in place inthe beginning of 2024.
And we were helping thatinvestment team in a transition
of leadership and by the time wegot to the summer of 2024, the
board had reached out to me andasked me if I would come and run
the company.
And that was just due to, Ithink, a lot of the change of
(20:59):
direction, of the messaging andthe relationships we were
building and where this companycould go.
And so that's how I got toSpire.
I'm not deeply trenched inpayments although I'm drinking
from the fire hose, that's forsure but definitely a lot of
experience in technology andgo-to-market and that's really
where the company is right now.
(21:21):
And it's definitely helped mealso with relationships that I
had, you know, with Google andwith Apple, to help us get into
kind of the next phase which isinto the digital wallets.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Okay, okay, and what are some things you're
passionate about?
Maybe one work-related passionand one personal passion.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Well, I kind of alluded to this a little bit ago
and I think this is again partof what I really loved and
admired about Tom and Apple.
I'm really passionate aboutoffering win-win situations and
when we've got thismerchant-consumer win-win
situation, I'm really passionateabout that.
It's actually driving, I wouldsay, the next generation of our
(22:02):
culture here at spire.
So I'm very, very passionateabout always providing the best
possible outcomes for theconsumer and for us, the
customer being the merchant.
On the personal side, I couldbe boring and say you know, I
love golf, but I think that thepassion I have I'm a huge Green
Bay Packers fan have been sinceback in the days when I was in
Australia.
(22:22):
It's hard not to have fallen inlove with Brett Favre, and so
my kids are the same and we goto Lambeau Field once a year and
we love Sundays in the winterwhere we can, you know, watch a
great Packers game.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So Australia, California, Green Bay.
I'm not drawing the lines, butthat's cool.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Well, I'm inching my way to the East Coast slowly.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Gotcha, gotcha.
Okay.
Well, if someone came to youand maybe they're just out of
college, they're looking at sortof the payments or fintech or
even broader kind of technologyspace and they want to build a
career there, and they said, hey, matt, what do you suggest I do
?
What advice would you give meto help me be successful in my
career in payments, in fintech,in technology?
What would you tell them to do?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
You know, just be a constant learner, just learn,
learn, learn.
You know, I could say the basicstuff about work ethic and
stuff like that.
You'd hope that somebody who'sgot aspirations of building a
career has already got that, buttruly I think it's about kind
of learning.
What are all the intricaciesand the nuances, whether it's
technology or whether it'spayments?
(23:31):
You know, I remember, as I waskind of getting into different
phases, I was curious aboutcomputers because they were the
new thing you know.
Then I was curious about, youknow, mobility, when we bring in
the iPhone.
And now you should be curiousabout AI, because AI is the
thing that actually is going tobe the next wave.
And if you look at those threesituations, right, computers
(23:53):
change things, mobility changethings.
Ai is going to change things.
Be curious, be a learner and,as you do that, start to form
your own opinion of what mightbe next and ground it in, always
servicing whoever it is that'sgoing to buy your products.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
It goes back to that passion right.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
My passion is servicing those who are going to
buy our products.
So be curious, be a learner, bea thinker and always sort of
think about what's good for thepeople that you're selling to.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I think that's great advice.
So, matt, we've covered a lotof ground, obviously, about you,
about the company, about theindustry.
Is there anything else you'dlike to cover before we wrap up
the show?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Well, the only thing I would say is that if you don't
know much about Spire, and ifyou don't know much about Spire
and if you don't know much abouthow we're changing pay-by-bank,
be curious yourself.
Look us up, look it up.
I think we're going to be thefirst of many, and so hopefully
we will become part of the nextwave of an alternate payment
type that I think thateverybody's been looking for
(24:54):
success around for a long time.
So if you want to be curious,look us up.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Okay Well, matt, thank you so much for being on
the show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so thank you so much
for being here.
Thanks, greg, I appreciate thetime, and to all you listeners
out there, I thank you for yourtime as well, and until the next
story.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
This week on the Leaders inPayments podcast, make sure you
visit our website atleadersinpaymentscom, where you
can subscribe to the show andwhere you'll find our show notes
.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
(25:33):
channels as well.
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