Money doesn’t just move; it travels across rules, rails, and risk decisions that either create trust or destroy it. In the first of three episodes, we sit down with Sal Karakaplan, Chief Strategy Officer at The Clearing House, to explore how a century-old operator keeps reinventing the core of U.S. payments while shipping modern capabilities at scale. From instant settlement to tokenized data, this is a close look at what it takes to wire an economy for speed without sacrificing safety.
We start with the foundation: what TCH runs under the hood - RTP, CHIPS, EPN, and check image exchange - and why reliability and advocacy both matter when you’re operating the plumbing. Sal opens the strategy playbook: scan market trends, pick where to build, buy, or partner, and relentlessly prioritize use cases that create measurable customer value. That lens frames a practical take on open banking, where market innovation and regulation advance in parallel. Expect straight talk on security, DDA tokenization, liability clarity, and user consent that’s simple for people and robust for compliance.
RTP steps into focus with concrete momentum: growing daily volumes, expanding bank enablement, and use cases that resonate; account-to-account funding, B2C disbursements, merchant settlement, insurance payouts, and early wage access. We get real about adoption hurdles in a fragmented banking market and how to make the business case stack up. Beyond speed, the conversation highlights ISO 20022 and data-rich messages that reduce reconciliation friction and sharpen risk controls - critical for CFOs, treasurers, and operations leaders chasing working capital gains.
Then we tackle stablecoins with a bottom-up filter: where do they outperform existing rails? Cross-border stands out, from remittances to marketplace payouts, alongside emerging hypotheses in tokenized settlement. Sal lays out the next 3–5 years: push RTP to ubiquity, evaluate DLT and tokenized deposits with discipline, lean into AI for commerce and fraud defense, and elevate security and data as first-class features. It’s a pragmatic roadmap for banks, fintechs, and enterprises that want real outcomes, not buzzwords.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to the Future of Modern Payments, a
special podcast series sponsoredby the Clearinghouse, the U.S.
payments operator that providessafe, reliable, and efficient
clearing and settlementnetworks.
In this series, we'll explorehow innovation, collaboration,
and client insights are shapingthe future of payments.
From real-world use cases toforward-looking strategies and
(00:24):
the evolving voice of thecustomer.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Sal
Kerakaplan, the Chief StrategyOfficer at the Clearinghouse.
So, Sal, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:40):
Thank you, Greg, and thanks for having me.
Looking forward to a niceconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, me too.
So before we dive into theclearinghouse and the meat of
the show, can you give us aquick snapshot of your personal
background, maybe where you grewup, where you call home today, a
few things like that?
SPEAKER_03 (00:54):
Yeah, sure.
So I'm born and raised Turkish.
So I have left Turkey, came tocollege in the US, and since
then I've been here.
I have lived in places likeHouston, Texas, as well as
central Pennsylvania andPittsburgh.
But for the last 20 plus years,I call New York City my home.
I'm married with two teenagerboys, and we love being here and
(01:15):
uh you know being in the city.
SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
Okay.
Can you walk us through yourprofessional journey and how you
got to the clearinghouse?
SPEAKER_03 (01:21):
Yeah, how does one how does one land in a
clearinghouse is always a goodquestion.
So look, I have been in uhpayments for now two decades,
and that kind of at the macrolevel answers why YTCH.
I've been at Card Network for adecade and doing jobs like
product and strategy andcorporate development and
(01:42):
partnerships and so on and soforth.
And then I've been uh in twolarge banks for a decade
together as well, doing verysimilar work around payment
strategy.
So know this space very well,and so therefore, especially
being part of a bank as well,know clearinghouse well as well.
As part of my last role with thebank that I was with, I actually
(02:02):
represented that bank at theclearinghouses PayCo board.
And I have also kind ofrepresented that bank in other
bank consortiums in the paymentspace.
So I know kind of the land ofthe consortiums very well, why
they exist, how they exist, andhow they're governed.
My work with a car networkalways was my favorite because I
(02:24):
kind of liked the network aspectof payments a lot more.
And when the opportunity kind ofpresented itself to do that uh
again on a network basis, I wasable to do that with the
clearinghouse.
So I've been here nowapproaching two years and just
kind of having a lot of fun, youknow, solving some payment
problems from the center.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Okay, great.
So for those that may not know,can you tell us what the
clearinghouse does?
SPEAKER_03 (02:48):
So Clearinghouse, you know, is basically a
privately owned paymentsinfrastructure company for
really safer, reliable, andefficient payments.
That's what we do every day, andkind of as expected, you know,
it's there every day, everymoment, every second.
But TCH also shapes thelandscape of payments.
In addition to kind of being anoperator, it also shapes the
(03:09):
landscape.
And it really shapes thelandscape in two ways.
TCH also has an associationwhere you have a voice in
payments advocacy, which alsohelps shape the landscape of
payments.
But also, you know, with uh kindof new stuff that we look at and
ultimately end up doingsometimes, that also shapes the
you know landscape.
One of those examples of newdevelopments is the real-time
(03:32):
payment network, which we havelaunched in 2017.
That's a major development inthe payments landscapes in the
US in the last uh in the firstrail in the last four years or
so.
But that's not the only rail wererun.
We obviously do have an ACHproduct called EPN and a wire
product called Chips, and we docheck clearing.
Last year, TCH clear and settledmore than$520 trillion.
(03:57):
World GDP is, I think, about$120.
So it is the payment railsunderneath everything else,
underneath the economy.
And you know, we clear andsettle about$2 trillion each
day.
And it's been around for like107 years, right?
It started with checks, and overthe years, it added new rails,
more electronic in nature.
Over the years, it you knowimproved its collaboration
(04:18):
around industry and was able toinvent itself, reinvent itself
over and over and over, and it'shere again and kind of shaping
the payments landscape.
Just think of us as uh you knowa payment rail that sits on
everything that you do as an enduser around financial services
and payments.
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Okay, great.
Thanks for sharing that.
So you lead the strategy team.
So, what does that mean byleading the strategy team at the
clearinghouse?
SPEAKER_03 (04:42):
So the strategy team basically has four subfunctions.
So, one is obviously kind ofhelp the company work on its
strategy and on strategicprojects around the company.
The strategy is about the trendsand the externalities that
impacts a certain industry and amarket.
So we, you know, we understandwhat the market is doing and
understand the trends that areimpacted that market and making
(05:04):
sure that the clearinghouse ispositioned properly.
So that's kind of task numberone.
Task number two is out of that,you end up a strategy work
almost always ends up with adecision to invest or not to
invest.
And if you decide to invest,there are usually three choices
of how to go about doing that.
You can build something to meetthat customer and the client
(05:25):
demand and the market demand.
You can partner with somebody tomeet that demand, or you can go
and buy a company to meet thatdemand.
And those are the three otheraspects of strategy team.
So we have partnerships that wetalk to many companies to see
what we can do better to meetour clients' demands via
partnership.
We have an MA thinking where wewill look at stuff and see if
(05:46):
that's appropriate for a companylike us to do something there.
And then we have what we callexploration and experimentation,
which is really uh kind of newstuff and building.
Those are the four aspects ofstrategy.
We work on those and they'realways kind of interwoven
together.
But that's the kind of thingthat the team works on and try
to answer those questions.
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Okay, great.
So let's talk about a few hottopics in the industry, open
banking being the first.
What are some recentdevelopments in the open banking
space?
SPEAKER_03 (06:15):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a fascinating space.
It's a very dynamic little pieceof payments.
It's almost one could argue thatadjacent to payments.
But look, what is happening iswe are a very much of a
market-based country.
And what is happening in openbanking today is there are many
market-based developments by theparticipants and the regulations
also going hand in hand inparallel and evolving and
(06:37):
progressing in parallel.
So I think that's kind of at themacro level, that's what's
happening.
Market-based activities andregulation and just kind of
parallel, progressing.
And in my opinion, this ishealthy, and because that kind
of thing is that will find theright balance in the market for
it to scale on its own.
And when you take it down to itscomponents, maybe you've got you
know data recipients, you gotdata providers, you've got
(07:00):
aggregators, you have standardsetting organizations.
They're all trying to find theirroles in this new evolving
space, both with some strategicmoves as well as understanding
how regulations coming along.
And then sprinkle a little bitlegal stuff and lawsuits that is
always uh you know makes it fun.
So you have a very robustmarketplace that is forming.
(07:21):
I mean, that's kind of at themacro level what is happening
today.
And I think it has a little bitmore runway to go.
The beauty of this thing is theplane doesn't stop, right?
I mean, everybody keeps doingcertain things to kind of
position themselves well whileeverything is trying to get to a
place where we have reached aflying altitude.
And underneath that, if you kindof peel down in one more time,
there are a few things that needto be thought through.
(07:42):
I mean, obviously, security is abig aspect of open banking.
Like, we need to do these thingsin a secure way for all aspects
of the ecosystem.
We at TCH have a DDA tokensolution which is designed for
open banking, where we help theparticipants not share the you
know real routing number and DDAnumbers, but we actually mask
(08:02):
them so that when they travel,they are not compromised.
Security is a big aspect ofthis, and you know, there's a
solution there and it needs tokind of be top of mind.
The other part of this isliability.
I mean, obviously, consumers areinitiating certain things and
data is moving back and forth.
Who's got the liability?
I think that needs clarity,either in a market-driven way or
regulations or a combination of.
(08:24):
That's really important, in myopinion.
I think the consumers and theend users should have clarity
and controls around their data,meaning they are the ones who
want to share, that is great.
They need to know what they'resharing, they need to know that
how frequently that's beingshared, and if they have a
reason to stop that, they needto be given that control to
share that data.
(08:44):
I think that's really important.
And then again, from the enduser's perspective, it needs to
be friendly and needs to protectthe end users in terms of if you
go out and initiate payments,they understand what kind of
payments they are and what kindof rights they have and
protections they have with thosepayments.
So to summarize, I think it'svery much of an evolving space,
very much like really intriguingwith all aspects of it.
(09:05):
But I think there's a little bitmore to go here before we kind
of reach the flying altitude andwe'll see how all the players
kind of play.
TCH is in the middle of itthrough really, you know, making
it more secure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:16):
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, I think we could do awhole episode on open banking if
we wanted to.
So another hot topic, of course,is real-time payments.
So can you speak to the overallgrowth of RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (09:28):
Yeah, so look, we've been at this obviously for a
while, but I think we're prettypleased with the last couple of
years, you know, in ourperformance.
We had close to$500 billion involume in Q2, and we have over
100 million payments in Q2.
So that's a healthy growth.
We see now around 1.2 millionpayments a day.
(09:48):
And the last I checked, we havemore than 98% market share in
this space, which is reallyimportant.
It's being used by 7 millionunique customers, clients, and
then we have more than 300,000corporations are also involved
with this.
We're happy with all of that.
We are open to all banks andsizes and shapes, and we'd love
(10:09):
to work with them.
We now have more than a thousandbanks that are using RTP and
enabled for RTP, I should say.
Good 90% of them are smaller,less than$10 billion in size
banks.
A few hundred of them are creditunions.
So, again, a goodrepresentation, although we
wanted to get better and get toubiquity.
And then I think the last Ichecked, we're very close to, if
(10:32):
not, we're hit that number of72% DDA reach.
And when we talk to some of ourcorporates, in the use cases
that really matters to them,it's reaching up to 90% DDA
reach.
So, with all of that, we'rehappy, but our eye is still on
the ball.
We need to keep executing,execute crisply, uh, year after
year, to bring the usage as wellas reach of RTP to the economy.
(10:54):
Until we do that, we willcontinue to do, you know, keep
going.
So therefore, it's a focus, andit will continue to be a focus
for us.
I would say we're still earlyinnings in terms of the match
here, but happy where we are sofar.
SPEAKER_01 (11:06):
Okay.
So you mentioned use cases.
So, in your opinion, what aresome of the most interesting use
cases?
SPEAKER_03 (11:11):
Yeah, so look, what we're seeing most of the volume
are around a few of them, right?
So the one that comes to mind iswhat we call account to account
or me to me payments.
So a consumer taking funds fromtheir banking account, sending
to brokerage, or vice versa.
Somebody taking funds out of awallet and sending to their bank
account, that's a good use case.
(11:33):
We do see what we call B2Cdisbursements, businesses
sending money to consumers.
That's a good use case for us.
That happens in thinking aboutmerchant settlements, merchants
that are settling with theirprocessors, they're getting
their funds in real time.
You can think about insurancecompanies sending benefits to
consumers, not necessarily witha check because that is costly
(11:54):
and they want to get that out ofthe system.
Moving into electronic with RTP,that's another AUC.
And then what we call early wageaccess is another use case.
It's a specializeddisbursements, if you will, that
is important.
So this is a consumer who isworks for a company and has a
normal two-week cycle or abi-monthly cycle of payroll, but
they need the access to theirfunds earlier, and their
(12:17):
employer gives some benefitsaround that, and that gets done
uh through real-time payments.
So those are some of the usecases.
The other one is loandisbursement.
So I think you're seeingsomewhere you're as a bank
providing financing throughdealerships where they can
actually sell their cars ortheir gears, and you know, you
as a bank can give thedealerships money in an instant
(12:38):
manner.
Those are all the use cases.
You're seeing, if you look atmost of them, not all of them,
but most of them, you do see aconsumer at least on one end of
that transaction.
Right.
So the consumer, I think whatyou know, the make maybe the
macro level thinking here is youknow, the consumers, as we know,
in the last decade or so hasbeen very digitized and has been
very kind of on demand andexpecting things to happen
(13:00):
quickly and as they needed.
And that shows up in behaviorthat the consumers are driving
this real-time payments.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
Okay.
So what are some of the adoptionchallenges that banks have
related to RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (13:11):
Yeah, so look, I mean, I think it's mostly really
around prioritization and reallybusiness case, right?
I mean, I think when you look atthe banks in the United States,
which is obviously a very uniquebanking market when you compare
to other developed economies,meaning that it has about 5,000
banks, where every otherdeveloped economy, you know, a
handful of banks will have 90%total aggregate market share.
(13:33):
That's not the case in thiscountry, you know, by design.
So by design, we have a long wayto go because it's a long tail
of banks.
But when you look at any bank,there are a lot of competing
priorities.
I mean, they are you know mostlyin multiple businesses, and all
of those businesses are goingthrough change via technology
and other things.
So they have to prioritize thesethings.
(13:54):
And almost all the time itrequires technology resources,
and that needs to kind of bethought through and put into
some sort of a prioritization.
So that's basically what's goingon, and and you know, sometimes
it's not prioritized.
And of course, that ties to youknow, business case, right?
So you need to kind of for foryou to be able to go to the top
of the list, you need to have avery robust business case.
(14:14):
And there are certain pockets,obviously, that are very clear
in terms of business cases, andthat's why we've got more than a
thousand banks that are usingit.
But in some other cases, that'snot that clear for that bank.
So therefore, that could be achallenge.
Another thing that you hear alot about, which is real, but
also something that we addressis fraud and scams and kind of
the this notion that if thepayment is faster, so will the
(14:37):
fraud and scam.
This is not a binary, we won'tdo this kind of feedback, but it
is more, well, we need to weneed to understand it better.
It may take us a little while ina while for us to get
comfortable with our processesto be able to handle these
transactions.
So it's it's a more of a maybe adelay, if anything.
But there we're having thoseconversations, and I think the
industry as a whole have made alot of very good progress around
(14:59):
this, and everybody's kind oflearning from each other.
And I think that's another thingthat that you hear that we can
address very you know, very kindof targeted manner.
So those are kind of some of thethings that you're hearing on
that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Okay, okay.
So let's talk about the futureof RTP a little bit.
So, what do you see coming inthe future for RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (15:15):
Yeah, I mean, so look, as I mentioned earlier, we
need to keep executing, and weneed to keep executing in a way
that we wire the entire economy.
What that means is we go andtalk all the banks, talk to all
the banks, and we make sure thatthey are enabled for RTP.
So that's reach is gonna bethere until we get to Ubiquiti.
So that is important andongoing, and it's not gonna go
(15:37):
away.
I mean, obviously, we areenhancing the capabilities
around the message types and soon and so forth.
So there's some productdevelopment that we continue to
do as well with releases that wedo on a recurring basis.
That's also important, and we'llkeep doing that as well.
Lastly, probably not lastly, butthere, you know, maybe for this
purpose, another one that I canmention is we will need to kind
(15:58):
of keep re-evaluating the usecases, right?
I mean, so there are a few thatare kind of showing up today and
showing up healthily, but thereare others that could actually
be turned on.
So we will continue to do thatwork and identify the next set
of use cases and see how richdata and instant payments can
actually help the next use caseand the next use case.
Because it's not always aboutthe instant real, I mean, I know
(16:20):
the naming is real-timepayments, and so therefore
everybody goes into the instantnature of this.
But remember, the other aspectof this payment rail is the
data-rich environment, the ISO2022 standard.
And so that you can travel, youknow, more data can travel,
which could again be a lotbetter for you know risk and
reconciliation and so on and soforth by the users.
So we'll need to look at thoseaspects of it as well and find
(16:42):
the next level of use cases thatwe think will be next.
SPEAKER_01 (16:45):
Okay.
Well, let's turn to another hottopic, one that is talked about
almost everywhere these days,stable coins.
So what I hear is that mostbanks are still in the very
early stages of exploring stablecoins, but where do you see it
heading?
SPEAKER_03 (17:00):
Yeah, it has taken over the the waves, the media
waves for sure.
So look, I mean, it is veryearly, but it is moving very
fast.
I mean, I think you cannot denyin that, like every morning you
wake up and you see two to threepress releases from legitimate
parties on legitimateactivities.
The way we look at this thing isa bit more uh bottom-up than top
(17:21):
down, right?
So we're not in the mode of,well, let's go and make an
investment in stable coins andgo change the markets.
Some participants are doing thatand it's more appropriate for
them to do.
What we're doing is, you know,is really like what is the
problem to be solved, right?
And what is this new thing doingthat the existing things cannot
(17:41):
do, period, or cannot do well.
So therefore opening up apossibility in the market for an
entry.
That's kind of how we thinkabout it.
That's how we work with thebanks, you know, as well, who
think about the same way.
When you look at it from thatperspective, there are some
areas where you can say thestable coins can solve some
problems, right?
One of them being cross-borderpayments.
The cross-border payments withlet's call traditional rails are
(18:03):
not bad, but can they be better?
Yes.
They can get faster, they canget more transparency, and
possibly, depending on the modeland the provider, it can get
cheaper.
And I think that's kind of onearea that we're looking at.
But when you stepping back fromthat for a second, when you look
at stable coins today and howit's being used, there are only
a handful of use cases that havereal scale.
(18:23):
One of them is on-ramp, off-rampto crypto, which is real because
crypto investing is real by theend users.
So therefore, stable coins isreal there when they're buying
and selling.
The other one that you see, itis not a US-centric use case,
but it is real globally, isthese end users in, let's say,
either high inflation and orcapital control kind of markets.
(18:45):
Think about Argentina,Venezuela, Turkey, maybe, where
the consumers are looking foraccess to USD and maybe outside
of the banking system and toprotect their wealth in kind of
hard currency.
You see that use case happeningas well, which is real.
International remittances, whichties back to the cross-border
use case that I have mentionedearlier, is another thing.
(19:07):
I think the other ones that arevery, very early days, but some
promise there is kind of B2Bcross-border.
You could see pockets of thiskind of being impacted by that,
especially around kind of maybebig B small B, meaning like a
marketplace where the funds needto kind of travel from one
business to another on aplatform.
Think about Airbnb or Amazon andthat kind of hayout is
(19:29):
important.
And then the other hypothesis isagain, this one is very, very
early days, but it's uh it'smore of a hypothesis is if the
capital markets gets tokenizedand the securities get
tokenized, so then the creatingand settlement of those
securities where actual dollarsare needed as well, then will
require very much atomicsettlement and you know instant
settlement.
(19:49):
So then you can see kind ofstable point there as well.
So those are some of the usecases.
Where do I see it going?
I mean, I think it's very, Imean, I said, you know, the RTP
was early innings.
This is like way earlier thanthat.
And you will see a lot of themarket participants, both the
legacy and the new ones, aregonna make their strategic
moves.
And it will take a little whilefor this to check out and see
(20:11):
where there's scale, in additionto the ones that we see on ramp,
off-ramp, and the capitalcontrols one, where it's gonna
scale.
So it's a little uh, I don'tthink I I want to be in the
business of guessing that.
Uh, and obviously we havemultivariable you know stuff
happening here, and we're justkind of trying to understand and
and position the company as bestas we can.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's talk about thefuture as the chief strategy
officer.
What are the top two or threepriorities that you're focused
on for the clearinghouse in thenext, say, three to five years?
SPEAKER_03 (20:39):
Sure.
So, I mean, I think as Imentioned earlier, instant
payments and scaling of instantpayments will be a priority for
us for a while.
I think that is important.
It's again in Uriel afterdecades, you know, in the US.
And so that doesn't happenovernight, and we will continue
to focus our execution on thatand a crisp execution to get a
scaling of instant payments.
(20:59):
I think DLT and distributedledger technologies and stable
coins and tokenized deposits arealso uh, you know, will be here,
and we will pay a lot ofattention to that and see how we
can make TCH competeappropriately and effectively in
the market.
That's another area.
The other one is AI andspecifically AI for commerce and
payments, agentic commerce andall of that.
(21:21):
I think it's gonna be somethingthat we're gonna need to kind of
lean in and understand.
What does it mean for our Railsif you know agent initiates a
payment and you know what arethose use cases?
What do we need to think about?
All aspects of that is anotherarea that you know we will lean
in.
Security is gonna be anotherone.
I mean, obviously, with RTP andinstant payments, frauds and
(21:41):
scams, and as well as the DDAtokens that I mentioned to you,
going back to who we are,secure, efficient, reliable,
that's at the heart of that.
So we will continue to look atthat as well.
And then maybe the last one thatI think I'd like to look at a
little bit more is kind of thispromise of data and ISO 2012 and
rich data in in instantpayments, and maybe kind of
(22:02):
understand how to turn thatpromise into reality for the
users.
So those are some of the areasthat we will continue to spend
our time on.
SPEAKER_01 (22:10):
Okay.
Well, when you step back andlook at the payments industry as
a whole, and you may havementioned a few of these in the
last answer, but what are thebiggest trends that you're
seeing that are reshaping theindustry?
SPEAKER_03 (22:20):
Yeah, so look, I have been incredibly lucky to be
in this space for the last 20years, and I feel like it has
been changing drastically.
You know, as long as I've beenin it, it was by no means by
design, it was by luck that Istumbled into it, but I very
much enjoy it.
But when you look at thatjourney, it's almost always
under the same headings, right?
I mean, it's new technology,right?
It's the end user demands andchange or what they're looking
(22:44):
for, and then and thenregulation, right?
So here, regulation you can alsocombine with geopolitic stuff as
well, as one header.
And here it's still the same,right?
I mean, obviously thesubheadings underneath that
change a little bit, but youknow, new technology in terms of
AI and DLT is gonna be you knowsomething that we're gonna need
to keep in mind and see ifthat's uh you know, there are
reasons for us to kind of leanin and invest there.
(23:05):
In terms of end user demands,again, I mentioned a little bit
about this.
End users are looking foron-demand satisfaction, they're
looking for security, they'relooking for choice, they're
looking for easy, basically.
And all of that is kind ofinforming the product designs
for everybody, and that's notstaying static.
It has been changing drasticallythroughout this time.
(23:26):
And then regulation, right?
I mean, regulation also doesn'tstop.
Um, you've got the Genius Actfor stablecoin, you've got 1033
for open banking, you've got,you know, infrastructure bill
that is being discussed uh inDC, you have USD as a reserve
currency as a geopoliticalthing, and you know, as
something that at least peoplein DC think about directly,
which impacts us as well.
(23:46):
So those are the things thatwill continue to be the headers,
the regulation, the end users,and technology.
Business models is a fourth one.
Uh, business models also changeembedded finance, buy not pay
later, and so on and so forth.
They're always there as well.
And so those are the headings,really.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Yeah, I love that framework you gave there.
That's a good way to look at it.
So, a couple final summaryquestions.
So, what's one thing thatbanking and payments leaders
that are listening today shouldbe thinking about right now?
SPEAKER_03 (24:14):
There are many things that we should be
thinking about.
I mean, I think what I wouldtell you is like, let's start
with the end users, right?
Like, you need to kind of listenand understand the end user
needs.
I think that's kind of where weall start.
And then from there, understandthe problems to be solved, the
needs that they have, and thentaking that and turn it into
like what are the jobs to bedone from those problems that
(24:37):
they have, and try to meet themin a secure and easy in a manner
that gives them choice.
I think if we all do that, thenthe market works perfectly and
the water will flow where thoseanswers are being met the best,
and you will come out on top.
So I think the takeaway for meis the end users, the need, the
problems to be solved, the jobsto be done.
I think that's the way onereally needs to think about it.
(24:58):
It's really not a paymentsanswer per se.
It's really generic, moregeneral, you know, business
answer.
But I think if you continue todo that, you will come out on
top.
SPEAKER_01 (25:06):
Okay.
Well, Sal, this has been a greatdiscussion.
Any final thoughts before wewrap up the show?
SPEAKER_03 (25:12):
I guess the last thought would be a plug for me.
You know, we will have ourannual TCH conference in uh
early November, November 4th and5th, I think.
And this is a very well-receivedconference.
It's smaller in scale by design,where you bring in uh both the
kind of payments operating kindof topics as well as payments
advocacy topics together.
And it's only two days and it'skind of contained well uh in
(25:34):
downtown New York.
So anybody who is in thebusiness of payments, you know,
they will benefit a lot fromjoining this conference.
So that would be my lastthoughts.
A plug for TCH.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Okay.
Well, Sal, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
SPEAKER_03 (25:49):
My pleasure, Greg.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
And to all your listeners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_00 (25:55):
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
To learn more about how theclearinghouse is powering the
modern payments infrastructureof the future, please visit
www.theclearinghouse.org.
Welcome to the Future of Modern Payments, a
special podcast series sponsoredby the Clearinghouse, the U.S.
payments operator that providessafe, reliable, and efficient
clearing and settlementnetworks.
In this series, we'll explorehow innovation, collaboration,
and client insights are shapingthe future of payments.
From real-world use cases toforward-looking strategies and
(00:24):
the evolving voice of thecustomer.
SPEAKER_01 (00:28):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Sal
Kerakaplan, the Chief StrategyOfficer at the Clearinghouse.
So, Sal, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:40):
Thank you, Greg, and thanks for having me.
Looking forward to a niceconversation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, me too.
So before we dive into theclearinghouse and the meat of
the show, can you give us aquick snapshot of your personal
background, maybe where you grewup, where you call home today, a
few things like that?
SPEAKER_03 (00:54):
Yeah, sure.
So I'm born and raised Turkish.
So I have left Turkey, came tocollege in the US, and since
then I've been here.
I have lived in places likeHouston, Texas, as well as
central Pennsylvania andPittsburgh.
But for the last 20 plus years,I call New York City my home.
I'm married with two teenagerboys, and we love being here and
(01:15):
uh you know being in the city.
SPEAKER_01 (01:16):
Okay.
Can you walk us through yourprofessional journey and how you
got to the clearinghouse?
SPEAKER_03 (01:21):
Yeah, how does one how does one land in a
clearinghouse is always a goodquestion.
So look, I have been in uhpayments for now two decades,
and that kind of at the macrolevel answers why YTCH.
I've been at Card Network for adecade and doing jobs like
product and strategy andcorporate development and
(01:42):
partnerships and so on and soforth.
And then I've been uh in twolarge banks for a decade
together as well, doing verysimilar work around payment
strategy.
So know this space very well,and so therefore, especially
being part of a bank as well,know clearinghouse well as well.
As part of my last role with thebank that I was with, I actually
(02:02):
represented that bank at theclearinghouses PayCo board.
And I have also kind ofrepresented that bank in other
bank consortiums in the paymentspace.
So I know kind of the land ofthe consortiums very well, why
they exist, how they exist, andhow they're governed.
My work with a car networkalways was my favorite because I
(02:24):
kind of liked the network aspectof payments a lot more.
And when the opportunity kind ofpresented itself to do that uh
again on a network basis, I wasable to do that with the
clearinghouse.
So I've been here nowapproaching two years and just
kind of having a lot of fun, youknow, solving some payment
problems from the center.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Okay, great.
So for those that may not know,can you tell us what the
clearinghouse does?
SPEAKER_03 (02:48):
So Clearinghouse, you know, is basically a
privately owned paymentsinfrastructure company for
really safer, reliable, andefficient payments.
That's what we do every day, andkind of as expected, you know,
it's there every day, everymoment, every second.
But TCH also shapes thelandscape of payments.
In addition to kind of being anoperator, it also shapes the
(03:09):
landscape.
And it really shapes thelandscape in two ways.
TCH also has an associationwhere you have a voice in
payments advocacy, which alsohelps shape the landscape of
payments.
But also, you know, with uh kindof new stuff that we look at and
ultimately end up doingsometimes, that also shapes the
you know landscape.
One of those examples of newdevelopments is the real-time
(03:32):
payment network, which we havelaunched in 2017.
That's a major development inthe payments landscapes in the
US in the last uh in the firstrail in the last four years or
so.
But that's not the only rail wererun.
We obviously do have an ACHproduct called EPN and a wire
product called Chips, and we docheck clearing.
Last year, TCH clear and settledmore than$520 trillion.
(03:57):
World GDP is, I think, about$120.
So it is the payment railsunderneath everything else,
underneath the economy.
And you know, we clear andsettle about$2 trillion each
day.
And it's been around for like107 years, right?
It started with checks, and overthe years, it added new rails,
more electronic in nature.
Over the years, it you knowimproved its collaboration
(04:18):
around industry and was able toinvent itself, reinvent itself
over and over and over, and it'shere again and kind of shaping
the payments landscape.
Just think of us as uh you knowa payment rail that sits on
everything that you do as an enduser around financial services
and payments.
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Okay, great.
Thanks for sharing that.
So you lead the strategy team.
So, what does that mean byleading the strategy team at the
clearinghouse?
SPEAKER_03 (04:42):
So the strategy team basically has four subfunctions.
So, one is obviously kind ofhelp the company work on its
strategy and on strategicprojects around the company.
The strategy is about the trendsand the externalities that
impacts a certain industry and amarket.
So we, you know, we understandwhat the market is doing and
understand the trends that areimpacted that market and making
(05:04):
sure that the clearinghouse ispositioned properly.
So that's kind of task numberone.
Task number two is out of that,you end up a strategy work
almost always ends up with adecision to invest or not to
invest.
And if you decide to invest,there are usually three choices
of how to go about doing that.
You can build something to meetthat customer and the client
(05:25):
demand and the market demand.
You can partner with somebody tomeet that demand, or you can go
and buy a company to meet thatdemand.
And those are the three otheraspects of strategy team.
So we have partnerships that wetalk to many companies to see
what we can do better to meetour clients' demands via
partnership.
We have an MA thinking where wewill look at stuff and see if
(05:46):
that's appropriate for a companylike us to do something there.
And then we have what we callexploration and experimentation,
which is really uh kind of newstuff and building.
Those are the four aspects ofstrategy.
We work on those and they'realways kind of interwoven
together.
But that's the kind of thingthat the team works on and try
to answer those questions.
SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
Okay, great.
So let's talk about a few hottopics in the industry, open
banking being the first.
What are some recentdevelopments in the open banking
space?
SPEAKER_03 (06:15):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a fascinating space.
It's a very dynamic little pieceof payments.
It's almost one could argue thatadjacent to payments.
But look, what is happening iswe are a very much of a
market-based country.
And what is happening in openbanking today is there are many
market-based developments by theparticipants and the regulations
also going hand in hand inparallel and evolving and
(06:37):
progressing in parallel.
So I think that's kind of at themacro level, that's what's
happening.
Market-based activities andregulation and just kind of
parallel, progressing.
And in my opinion, this ishealthy, and because that kind
of thing is that will find theright balance in the market for
it to scale on its own.
And when you take it down to itscomponents, maybe you've got you
know data recipients, you gotdata providers, you've got
(07:00):
aggregators, you have standardsetting organizations.
They're all trying to find theirroles in this new evolving
space, both with some strategicmoves as well as understanding
how regulations coming along.
And then sprinkle a little bitlegal stuff and lawsuits that is
always uh you know makes it fun.
So you have a very robustmarketplace that is forming.
(07:21):
I mean, that's kind of at themacro level what is happening
today.
And I think it has a little bitmore runway to go.
The beauty of this thing is theplane doesn't stop, right?
I mean, everybody keeps doingcertain things to kind of
position themselves well whileeverything is trying to get to a
place where we have reached aflying altitude.
And underneath that, if you kindof peel down in one more time,
there are a few things that needto be thought through.
(07:42):
I mean, obviously, security is abig aspect of open banking.
Like, we need to do these thingsin a secure way for all aspects
of the ecosystem.
We at TCH have a DDA tokensolution which is designed for
open banking, where we help theparticipants not share the you
know real routing number and DDAnumbers, but we actually mask
(08:02):
them so that when they travel,they are not compromised.
Security is a big aspect ofthis, and you know, there's a
solution there and it needs tokind of be top of mind.
The other part of this isliability.
I mean, obviously, consumers areinitiating certain things and
data is moving back and forth.
Who's got the liability?
I think that needs clarity,either in a market-driven way or
regulations or a combination of.
(08:24):
That's really important, in myopinion.
I think the consumers and theend users should have clarity
and controls around their data,meaning they are the ones who
want to share, that is great.
They need to know what they'resharing, they need to know that
how frequently that's beingshared, and if they have a
reason to stop that, they needto be given that control to
share that data.
(08:44):
I think that's really important.
And then again, from the enduser's perspective, it needs to
be friendly and needs to protectthe end users in terms of if you
go out and initiate payments,they understand what kind of
payments they are and what kindof rights they have and
protections they have with thosepayments.
So to summarize, I think it'svery much of an evolving space,
very much like really intriguingwith all aspects of it.
(09:05):
But I think there's a little bitmore to go here before we kind
of reach the flying altitude andwe'll see how all the players
kind of play.
TCH is in the middle of itthrough really, you know, making
it more secure.
SPEAKER_01 (09:16):
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, I think we could do awhole episode on open banking if
we wanted to.
So another hot topic, of course,is real-time payments.
So can you speak to the overallgrowth of RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (09:28):
Yeah, so look, we've been at this obviously for a
while, but I think we're prettypleased with the last couple of
years, you know, in ourperformance.
We had close to$500 billion involume in Q2, and we have over
100 million payments in Q2.
So that's a healthy growth.
We see now around 1.2 millionpayments a day.
(09:48):
And the last I checked, we havemore than 98% market share in
this space, which is reallyimportant.
It's being used by 7 millionunique customers, clients, and
then we have more than 300,000corporations are also involved
with this.
We're happy with all of that.
We are open to all banks andsizes and shapes, and we'd love
(10:09):
to work with them.
We now have more than a thousandbanks that are using RTP and
enabled for RTP, I should say.
Good 90% of them are smaller,less than$10 billion in size
banks.
A few hundred of them are creditunions.
So, again, a goodrepresentation, although we
wanted to get better and get toubiquity.
And then I think the last Ichecked, we're very close to, if
(10:32):
not, we're hit that number of72% DDA reach.
And when we talk to some of ourcorporates, in the use cases
that really matters to them,it's reaching up to 90% DDA
reach.
So, with all of that, we'rehappy, but our eye is still on
the ball.
We need to keep executing,execute crisply, uh, year after
year, to bring the usage as wellas reach of RTP to the economy.
(10:54):
Until we do that, we willcontinue to do, you know, keep
going.
So therefore, it's a focus, andit will continue to be a focus
for us.
I would say we're still earlyinnings in terms of the match
here, but happy where we are sofar.
SPEAKER_01 (11:06):
Okay.
So you mentioned use cases.
So, in your opinion, what aresome of the most interesting use
cases?
SPEAKER_03 (11:11):
Yeah, so look, what we're seeing most of the volume
are around a few of them, right?
So the one that comes to mind iswhat we call account to account
or me to me payments.
So a consumer taking funds fromtheir banking account, sending
to brokerage, or vice versa.
Somebody taking funds out of awallet and sending to their bank
account, that's a good use case.
(11:33):
We do see what we call B2Cdisbursements, businesses
sending money to consumers.
That's a good use case for us.
That happens in thinking aboutmerchant settlements, merchants
that are settling with theirprocessors, they're getting
their funds in real time.
You can think about insurancecompanies sending benefits to
consumers, not necessarily witha check because that is costly
(11:54):
and they want to get that out ofthe system.
Moving into electronic with RTP,that's another AUC.
And then what we call early wageaccess is another use case.
It's a specializeddisbursements, if you will, that
is important.
So this is a consumer who isworks for a company and has a
normal two-week cycle or abi-monthly cycle of payroll, but
they need the access to theirfunds earlier, and their
(12:17):
employer gives some benefitsaround that, and that gets done
uh through real-time payments.
So those are some of the usecases.
The other one is loandisbursement.
So I think you're seeingsomewhere you're as a bank
providing financing throughdealerships where they can
actually sell their cars ortheir gears, and you know, you
as a bank can give thedealerships money in an instant
(12:38):
manner.
Those are all the use cases.
You're seeing, if you look atmost of them, not all of them,
but most of them, you do see aconsumer at least on one end of
that transaction.
Right.
So the consumer, I think whatyou know, the make maybe the
macro level thinking here is youknow, the consumers, as we know,
in the last decade or so hasbeen very digitized and has been
very kind of on demand andexpecting things to happen
(13:00):
quickly and as they needed.
And that shows up in behaviorthat the consumers are driving
this real-time payments.
SPEAKER_01 (13:06):
Okay.
So what are some of the adoptionchallenges that banks have
related to RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (13:11):
Yeah, so look, I mean, I think it's mostly really
around prioritization and reallybusiness case, right?
I mean, I think when you look atthe banks in the United States,
which is obviously a very uniquebanking market when you compare
to other developed economies,meaning that it has about 5,000
banks, where every otherdeveloped economy, you know, a
handful of banks will have 90%total aggregate market share.
(13:33):
That's not the case in thiscountry, you know, by design.
So by design, we have a long wayto go because it's a long tail
of banks.
But when you look at any bank,there are a lot of competing
priorities.
I mean, they are you know mostlyin multiple businesses, and all
of those businesses are goingthrough change via technology
and other things.
So they have to prioritize thesethings.
(13:54):
And almost all the time itrequires technology resources,
and that needs to kind of bethought through and put into
some sort of a prioritization.
So that's basically what's goingon, and and you know, sometimes
it's not prioritized.
And of course, that ties to youknow, business case, right?
So you need to kind of for foryou to be able to go to the top
of the list, you need to have avery robust business case.
(14:14):
And there are certain pockets,obviously, that are very clear
in terms of business cases, andthat's why we've got more than a
thousand banks that are usingit.
But in some other cases, that'snot that clear for that bank.
So therefore, that could be achallenge.
Another thing that you hear alot about, which is real, but
also something that we addressis fraud and scams and kind of
the this notion that if thepayment is faster, so will the
(14:37):
fraud and scam.
This is not a binary, we won'tdo this kind of feedback, but it
is more, well, we need to weneed to understand it better.
It may take us a little while ina while for us to get
comfortable with our processesto be able to handle these
transactions.
So it's it's a more of a maybe adelay, if anything.
But there we're having thoseconversations, and I think the
industry as a whole have made alot of very good progress around
(14:59):
this, and everybody's kind oflearning from each other.
And I think that's another thingthat that you hear that we can
address very you know, very kindof targeted manner.
So those are kind of some of thethings that you're hearing on
that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Okay, okay.
So let's talk about the futureof RTP a little bit.
So, what do you see coming inthe future for RTP?
SPEAKER_03 (15:15):
Yeah, I mean, so look, as I mentioned earlier, we
need to keep executing, and weneed to keep executing in a way
that we wire the entire economy.
What that means is we go andtalk all the banks, talk to all
the banks, and we make sure thatthey are enabled for RTP.
So that's reach is gonna bethere until we get to Ubiquiti.
So that is important andongoing, and it's not gonna go
(15:37):
away.
I mean, obviously, we areenhancing the capabilities
around the message types and soon and so forth.
So there's some productdevelopment that we continue to
do as well with releases that wedo on a recurring basis.
That's also important, and we'llkeep doing that as well.
Lastly, probably not lastly, butthere, you know, maybe for this
purpose, another one that I canmention is we will need to kind
(15:58):
of keep re-evaluating the usecases, right?
I mean, so there are a few thatare kind of showing up today and
showing up healthily, but thereare others that could actually
be turned on.
So we will continue to do thatwork and identify the next set
of use cases and see how richdata and instant payments can
actually help the next use caseand the next use case.
Because it's not always aboutthe instant real, I mean, I know
(16:20):
the naming is real-timepayments, and so therefore
everybody goes into the instantnature of this.
But remember, the other aspectof this payment rail is the
data-rich environment, the ISO2022 standard.
And so that you can travel, youknow, more data can travel,
which could again be a lotbetter for you know risk and
reconciliation and so on and soforth by the users.
So we'll need to look at thoseaspects of it as well and find
(16:42):
the next level of use cases thatwe think will be next.
SPEAKER_01 (16:45):
Okay.
Well, let's turn to another hottopic, one that is talked about
almost everywhere these days,stable coins.
So what I hear is that mostbanks are still in the very
early stages of exploring stablecoins, but where do you see it
heading?
SPEAKER_03 (17:00):
Yeah, it has taken over the the waves, the media
waves for sure.
So look, I mean, it is veryearly, but it is moving very
fast.
I mean, I think you cannot denyin that, like every morning you
wake up and you see two to threepress releases from legitimate
parties on legitimateactivities.
The way we look at this thing isa bit more uh bottom-up than top
(17:21):
down, right?
So we're not in the mode of,well, let's go and make an
investment in stable coins andgo change the markets.
Some participants are doing thatand it's more appropriate for
them to do.
What we're doing is, you know,is really like what is the
problem to be solved, right?
And what is this new thing doingthat the existing things cannot
(17:41):
do, period, or cannot do well.
So therefore opening up apossibility in the market for an
entry.
That's kind of how we thinkabout it.
That's how we work with thebanks, you know, as well, who
think about the same way.
When you look at it from thatperspective, there are some
areas where you can say thestable coins can solve some
problems, right?
One of them being cross-borderpayments.
The cross-border payments withlet's call traditional rails are
(18:03):
not bad, but can they be better?
Yes.
They can get faster, they canget more transparency, and
possibly, depending on the modeland the provider, it can get
cheaper.
And I think that's kind of onearea that we're looking at.
But when you stepping back fromthat for a second, when you look
at stable coins today and howit's being used, there are only
a handful of use cases that havereal scale.
(18:23):
One of them is on-ramp, off-rampto crypto, which is real because
crypto investing is real by theend users.
So therefore, stable coins isreal there when they're buying
and selling.
The other one that you see, itis not a US-centric use case,
but it is real globally, isthese end users in, let's say,
either high inflation and orcapital control kind of markets.
(18:45):
Think about Argentina,Venezuela, Turkey, maybe, where
the consumers are looking foraccess to USD and maybe outside
of the banking system and toprotect their wealth in kind of
hard currency.
You see that use case happeningas well, which is real.
International remittances, whichties back to the cross-border
use case that I have mentionedearlier, is another thing.
(19:07):
I think the other ones that arevery, very early days, but some
promise there is kind of B2Bcross-border.
You could see pockets of thiskind of being impacted by that,
especially around kind of maybebig B small B, meaning like a
marketplace where the funds needto kind of travel from one
business to another on aplatform.
Think about Airbnb or Amazon andthat kind of hayout is
(19:29):
important.
And then the other hypothesis isagain, this one is very, very
early days, but it's uh it'smore of a hypothesis is if the
capital markets gets tokenizedand the securities get
tokenized, so then the creatingand settlement of those
securities where actual dollarsare needed as well, then will
require very much atomicsettlement and you know instant
settlement.
(19:49):
So then you can see kind ofstable point there as well.
So those are some of the usecases.
Where do I see it going?
I mean, I think it's very, Imean, I said, you know, the RTP
was early innings.
This is like way earlier thanthat.
And you will see a lot of themarket participants, both the
legacy and the new ones, aregonna make their strategic
moves.
And it will take a little whilefor this to check out and see
(20:11):
where there's scale, in additionto the ones that we see on ramp,
off-ramp, and the capitalcontrols one, where it's gonna
scale.
So it's a little uh, I don'tthink I I want to be in the
business of guessing that.
Uh, and obviously we havemultivariable you know stuff
happening here, and we're justkind of trying to understand and
and position the company as bestas we can.
SPEAKER_01 (20:28):
Okay.
All right.
Well, let's talk about thefuture as the chief strategy
officer.
What are the top two or threepriorities that you're focused
on for the clearinghouse in thenext, say, three to five years?
SPEAKER_03 (20:39):
Sure.
So, I mean, I think as Imentioned earlier, instant
payments and scaling of instantpayments will be a priority for
us for a while.
I think that is important.
It's again in Uriel afterdecades, you know, in the US.
And so that doesn't happenovernight, and we will continue
to focus our execution on thatand a crisp execution to get a
scaling of instant payments.
(20:59):
I think DLT and distributedledger technologies and stable
coins and tokenized deposits arealso uh, you know, will be here,
and we will pay a lot ofattention to that and see how we
can make TCH competeappropriately and effectively in
the market.
That's another area.
The other one is AI andspecifically AI for commerce and
payments, agentic commerce andall of that.
(21:21):
I think it's gonna be somethingthat we're gonna need to kind of
lean in and understand.
What does it mean for our Railsif you know agent initiates a
payment and you know what arethose use cases?
What do we need to think about?
All aspects of that is anotherarea that you know we will lean
in.
Security is gonna be anotherone.
I mean, obviously, with RTP andinstant payments, frauds and
(21:41):
scams, and as well as the DDAtokens that I mentioned to you,
going back to who we are,secure, efficient, reliable,
that's at the heart of that.
So we will continue to look atthat as well.
And then maybe the last one thatI think I'd like to look at a
little bit more is kind of thispromise of data and ISO 2012 and
rich data in in instantpayments, and maybe kind of
(22:02):
understand how to turn thatpromise into reality for the
users.
So those are some of the areasthat we will continue to spend
our time on.
SPEAKER_01 (22:10):
Okay.
Well, when you step back andlook at the payments industry as
a whole, and you may havementioned a few of these in the
last answer, but what are thebiggest trends that you're
seeing that are reshaping theindustry?
SPEAKER_03 (22:20):
Yeah, so look, I have been incredibly lucky to be
in this space for the last 20years, and I feel like it has
been changing drastically.
You know, as long as I've beenin it, it was by no means by
design, it was by luck that Istumbled into it, but I very
much enjoy it.
But when you look at thatjourney, it's almost always
under the same headings, right?
I mean, it's new technology,right?
It's the end user demands andchange or what they're looking
(22:44):
for, and then and thenregulation, right?
So here, regulation you can alsocombine with geopolitic stuff as
well, as one header.
And here it's still the same,right?
I mean, obviously thesubheadings underneath that
change a little bit, but youknow, new technology in terms of
AI and DLT is gonna be you knowsomething that we're gonna need
to keep in mind and see ifthat's uh you know, there are
reasons for us to kind of leanin and invest there.
(23:05):
In terms of end user demands,again, I mentioned a little bit
about this.
End users are looking foron-demand satisfaction, they're
looking for security, they'relooking for choice, they're
looking for easy, basically.
And all of that is kind ofinforming the product designs
for everybody, and that's notstaying static.
It has been changing drasticallythroughout this time.
(23:26):
And then regulation, right?
I mean, regulation also doesn'tstop.
Um, you've got the Genius Actfor stablecoin, you've got 1033
for open banking, you've got,you know, infrastructure bill
that is being discussed uh inDC, you have USD as a reserve
currency as a geopoliticalthing, and you know, as
something that at least peoplein DC think about directly,
which impacts us as well.
(23:46):
So those are the things thatwill continue to be the headers,
the regulation, the end users,and technology.
Business models is a fourth one.
Uh, business models also changeembedded finance, buy not pay
later, and so on and so forth.
They're always there as well.
And so those are the headings,really.
SPEAKER_01 (24:01):
Yeah, I love that framework you gave there.
That's a good way to look at it.
So, a couple final summaryquestions.
So, what's one thing thatbanking and payments leaders
that are listening today shouldbe thinking about right now?
SPEAKER_03 (24:14):
There are many things that we should be
thinking about.
I mean, I think what I wouldtell you is like, let's start
with the end users, right?
Like, you need to kind of listenand understand the end user
needs.
I think that's kind of where weall start.
And then from there, understandthe problems to be solved, the
needs that they have, and thentaking that and turn it into
like what are the jobs to bedone from those problems that
(24:37):
they have, and try to meet themin a secure and easy in a manner
that gives them choice.
I think if we all do that, thenthe market works perfectly and
the water will flow where thoseanswers are being met the best,
and you will come out on top.
So I think the takeaway for meis the end users, the need, the
problems to be solved, the jobsto be done.
I think that's the way onereally needs to think about it.
(24:58):
It's really not a paymentsanswer per se.
It's really generic, moregeneral, you know, business
answer.
But I think if you continue todo that, you will come out on
top.
SPEAKER_01 (25:06):
Okay.
Well, Sal, this has been a greatdiscussion.
Any final thoughts before wewrap up the show?
SPEAKER_03 (25:12):
I guess the last thought would be a plug for me.
You know, we will have ourannual TCH conference in uh
early November, November 4th and5th, I think.
And this is a very well-receivedconference.
It's smaller in scale by design,where you bring in uh both the
kind of payments operating kindof topics as well as payments
advocacy topics together.
And it's only two days and it'skind of contained well uh in
(25:34):
downtown New York.
So anybody who is in thebusiness of payments, you know,
they will benefit a lot fromjoining this conference.
So that would be my lastthoughts.
A plug for TCH.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Okay.
Well, Sal, thank you so much forbeing on the show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
SPEAKER_03 (25:49):
My pleasure, Greg.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (25:50):
And to all your listeners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_00 (25:55):
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
To learn more about how theclearinghouse is powering the
modern payments infrastructureof the future, please visit
www.theclearinghouse.org.
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