Fortune Staff

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

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Global Payments Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

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Global Payments

global payments

Sophie Mellor

No one is using crypto to pay for things anymore, JPMorgan payments boss says

/2022/09/20/no-one-using-crypto-pay-things-anymore-jpmorgan-says/

Jeremy Kahn

Payments juggernaut Adyen wants to provide banking to eBay and Etsy sellers

/2022/03/31/adyen-payments-banking-strategic-expansion-credit-finance/

Pandemic-fueled rush to link digital and physical shopping powers payments firm Adyen to record growth

/2022/02/09/adyen-2021-earnings-results-profits-omnichannel/

This Dutch payments firm is a proxy for retail’s shift to ‘omnichannel’ commerce

/2021/08/20/adyen-earnings-omnichannel-retail/

Jeff Sloan says this $125 trillion market is "an enormous opportunity for us"

Global Payments CEO: Digitization of B2B  payments is the new normal 

Leadership

Global Payments CEO: New normal is B2B payments digitization

Jeff. So good to see you again to talk about global payments. You know, for the past few years you've been talking up the importance of digital payments and surprisingly consumers have adopted these very comfortably whether talking about mobile payments, QR codes, contact with payments and your company has enabled that technology. Now you're saying the next big growth area is B two B. Business to business digital transactions. Why is this the next big growth spurt? I think the next stage of evolution is to attack, that's actually a $125 trillion market annually globally and much like the consumer business many decades ago. Most people don't know that half the volume today in business to business, which is businesses paying other businesses is actually done today by check and most of the rest of it is done via a ch is relatively low digital and card penetration into the B two B segment. Yet the growth is fantastic. Why have businesses been so slow to automate and digitize? It's hard to believe that they're making payments in paper checks. It's one of those things that's a mystery to everybody. But what I would say is much like cash and check in the consumer economy, I think um that recent experience has taught us that the more comfortable people are with technology and using digital means of payment, the more efficient they can be both on paying out or paying their own bills as well as I'm paying in and getting their own invoices paid. And what's the big expense that here is it speed, is it cost savings for businesses. The first thing I'd say susie is you can actually be much more efficient paying things digitally. So for example, you can get paid more quickly. You don't need as much staff dedicated to payables management as you do in the in the analog world. The second thing is the extent that you use virtual cards. So cards as a means of actually getting your payables paid. Those are funds good meaning that once the transaction is authorized, you know, you're gonna get paid and you're not worried about the check being lost in the mail or the check bouncing. And the last thing I'd say is we're all trained as on the consumer side when we get an invoice, the email via pdf to pay it. So instead of snail mail and dropping your bills on the inside of B two B and when you get paid until somebody does or does not get the mail, you can actually get paid digitally electronically. Which is obviously a lot more efficient than it is via snail mail. What does this mean for your business? Global payments, How transformative it will be to be is one of the largest markets that were chasing in 100 $25 trillion of value. If you compare it to our Corbett, the consumer market, it's four times the size. So it's an enormous opportunity for us if you're asking me where we are in 5 to 10 years, I think that we have to be one of the largest players in the world in B. Two B. Now, the other big trend that you have been talking about is buy now pay later payment options or what people call B. N. P. L. I mean this is an installment plan. They've been around for years. So why is this new digital version so popular? I call it lay away when I was actually in grade school. This is how I bought my first bowling ball by putting a dollar away every week for a year until christmas. So it has been around for a long time. Having said that though, what I think is different from a consumer point of view is the amount of technology that's gone into product development to allow you to shop when you're on the website when you're at the point of purchase and after you're purchasing is really innovative. But at the end of the day, if you take a step back, it's really no different than installment lending. And what we're doing a global payments is powering financial neo banks, Fintech startups to provide the same kind of customer service that our people are used to. The more traditional bank card environment. I'm sure you've seen the reports showing that delinquencies are up for these be NPL payments and higher than what they are for credit cards. To what extent could the credit problems of the customers become a problem for global payments. What's important for us is that we only do B. M. P. L. And services like that in a regulated response. So the way we're approaching the NPL Suzy is we're doing it through financial institutions which are already regulated. Have know your customer have a male responsibilities and that gives us a lot of comfort that we're using global payments, name and brand in an appropriate way. So you're not getting involved in checking the credit worthiness of the borrowers. We don't take any balance sheet risk in B. M. P. L. Or otherwise. Let's talk a little bit now about the economy and the business environment. You have a special perspective money flows in the economy. So from what you're seeing, do you see a recession coming? Well we certainly don't, in my opinion have won today. There's two reasons I believe that the first is in our volume. So what we announced a couple of weeks ago is that through july and august of 2022 our volumes are right in line with our expectations are very consistent with the data that you've seen from these Mastercard. So so far we haven't seen it. The second thing I would say is I've been on a bit of a world tour as I've gone back out to many of our markets um in in europe in particular but also here in north America and for those of you in new york but also around the world. The hotels are packed, the airlines are packed, the restaurants are packed. You can see it, you don't need me to tell you that things are good. I think that will persist susie at least through the end of the third quarter. It's harder to see with a crystal ball where we are in the fourth quarter and the first part of next year. But sitting here today we feel really good about the strength of our business through the end of the quarter. Well holiday shopping is sometimes a good indicator of the the the economy when you're looking at the outlook for holiday shopping, what's your take on that? I would say right now as I think you've heard from large financial institutions throughout North America, the consumers in a very healthy place from a savings point of view. The consumers in a very healthy place from a spending point of view and I think the pent up demand in terms of travel and you're hearing this from the airlines in terms of people booking tickets today for the holiday season is very good. So sitting here today we don't want no reason to expect that things are any different to the holiday season than they are today. To what extent are some of these retailers coming to you to help them add more technology solutions so that they can save money and be more efficient. Are you seeing that happening? One thing I would say more recently about the advent of digitization, our businesses, consumers don't see a distinction between shopping on their phone, shopping in a physical store stores, shopping online shopping at the at the market and like so as a result they've come to expect an incredibly high level of service. One thing that gives really confident, but I look at the next 69 or 12 months is our rate of bookings and our new sales and our sale of new technologies especially in digitization is proceeding at a record pace As a result, I feel really good about where we are and where our customers are. Sounds like things are going really well for global payments but looking ahead beyond the holidays, what's your outlook for 2023? You've been reporting strong financial results all year. Do you see that momentum continuing into the new year? Well, we have record Results at the end of 21. We wreck results for each of the first two quarters. In 22 we're forecasting more of the same for the third quarter and the year. I expect that to continue into 23. So I'm very optimistic longer term about where the company is and where it's heading our new sales numbers are fantastic. Our existing revenue targets and our current financials are exceptional. So I feel good about where we are good about where we are. That doesn't mean that there will be a straight line path upwards in everything that we're doing. But I do feel really good about the health of the business.

CEO Jeff Sloan says the pandemic accelerated the need for contactless payments.

Global Payments lands on the Fortune 500 for the first time

Jeff. So great to see you again and to talk about all the new developments at global payments. You know, the last time we talked was a year ago and it was before all of us were using the word pandemic. And at the time you said to me that contact list innovations will become very commonplace. We're talking about things like QR codes paid with your thumb, paid with your face. And actually we've been doing that. All of us have been doing that over the past year. How has the covid pandemic changed your business? Well, it's a great question, Susie. And what a difference a year makes. Let's just start by start of course by saying that. But so I think the pandemic has really accelerated the digitization of payments which was already ongoing but accelerated it by 3-5 years. So many of things that you just refer to contact lists and QR codes are great examples really are examples of what we call safer commerce. That means still transacting business the way you used to but not actually touching anything physically. So if you think about what we talked about last year, paying with your thumb, paying with your face, paying with a QR code. Pay by length paying by taking your iphone for example, I'm putting it down in the terminal rather than you taking your card and actually sticking it into the terminal and touching the keypad. Those are all trends that were underlying in the payments business for a number of years. But the pandemic brought ahead the adoption of that stuff by 3-5 years. And to be honest, I don't really see that changing. I mean it's remarkable how things have changed. I mean it's very unusual to see cash changing hands. You wrote an op ed piece recently about how much consumer habits have really changed in the past year. And uh you said that safe, commerce, just as you mentioned, is here to stay and that any business that isn't taking advantage of these new preferences is already falling behind the competition. So talk to us a little bit more about the trends you're seeing and what it means in the marketplace. The first thing I'd say is what you're referring to, which is what we call omni channel commerce. If you went back to ancient history, which was probably in payments three years ago. To be honest, doing back in ancient history, you would say, well, there's an e commerce business meaning conducted from your ipad or iphone online and then there's a physical world business. Now we call that Omni channel, meaning there is no difference between online acceptance of cards and the physical world. So one of the things that's done is it's made every retailer, for example, uh pretty much indifferent as to whether something comes into their network through us online or offline. You have to be good at everything or you're gonna find yourself in a very difficult place and something like a pandemic, I would say that's trend. Number one, trend number two is the rise of alternative means of distribution. So for example, think about our business with quick service restaurants, burger king is a great example. Um in the first quarter of 2000 and 20 before the pandemic really hit, we probably did something like 10,000 remote deliveries, meaning you ordered your hamburger or your taco from your phone, pay with your face, your thumb And we had to deliver to you through door dash or you went through the drive through and they handed it to you for the entire year of calendar 20 because of the pandemic. We actually did 100 million of those transactions for $1.5 billion 21 we've done 70 million or run rate of 280 million. So those kind of share shifts where people are doing things remotely an omni channel land and people are doing things remotely in the context of safer commerce, which is my burger example have really accelerated that trend, enthusiasts continued into 2021 I just don't think we're going to go backwards. It's so convenient, so easy for people to do and obviously saved. I think we're just going to continue to apply ahead. Where do you see the real growth and the engine for new opportunities? You mentioned a moment ago about burger king and all the business you're doing there. I know you service a lot of restaurants and retailers and health care providers. But where do you see the real growth prospects going forward? Well, let's start with health care. So as you mentioned rightly, we have a very sizable business called Advance MD in Healthcare. We actually provide the software in the payments that power. 33,000 small doctor's offices here in the United States. And you would be surprised to know that the numbers are kind of staggering that in the first quarter of 2020 we did something like 10,000 Teladoc visits. By the time 2000 and 20 was over, we did 1.5 million Teladoc visits encounter 2020 And now in the first quarter of 21 Tuesday we've done a run rate of two million Teladoc visits. So I don't think we're going to go backwards there. So the state of medicine, especially for small practitioners, has really changed. And now you're getting into the real estate business, you're very close to closing on an acquisition you made called Zygo. What does ego bring to global payments? And how does it work? We're very excited about Zygo. It's our first foray as a principle into real estate technology, primarily what Zygo does use use allows you to pay your H. O. A. Fees, your condo fees online, using your phone, using your ipad, using your laptop, every single amount of money that allows you to submit change orders if something is broken in your residential unit and Diego has 11 million of those here in the United States. Um, it allows you to retrieve your card, allows you to coordinate with the building when rent payments or do so at the end of the day when you think about the confluence of a few things software with digital experiences with payments with safer commerce, who's going to want to walk into the landlord's office and actually write a physical check in a post code and environment. Who's gonna want to go to submit a physical work order when you can do it safely from your cell phone. So I think those trends are really fueling the growth of ego. You've always said that scale is so important in in this business that your urine and that's one of the reasons you've been doing so many acquisitions over the past couple of years. Are you done now? Is the deal making over or more to come look, it's a scale business Technology has always been a scale business. I think it will remain enthusiast, scale business going forward. So we like to do more things like to do more things that incremental margins versus our average margins. So we're really not done yet. So stay tuned. We'll see what happens. But we're very excited about where we're heading. I'd like to get your thoughts, Jeff on Bitcoin. As you know, there's been a lot of talk about this recently. What's your company's policy about Bitcoin? So we've been able to Bitcoin acceptance susie on our gateways. Then you can take at the point of sale since 2016, there really has not been a lot of customer demand at the merchant or consumer level to date. And just imagine asking a grocery retailer who has about a 1% operating margin to take a currency in the form of a virtual coin That is swinging 30 point today when you have a 1% margin. So I think we need to see some stability and some settling out susie before. I think merchants and consumers will start using at the points out. I mean I want to ask you about that because paypal has said that it would accept Bitcoin payments and they deal with a lot of retailers and other merchants. To what extent do you think merchants are prepared and ready to accept Bitcoin payments? Well, I think a small number are prepared today susie, but I don't think they're really ready. I think dealing with the volatility that you've seen is really hard. I would say that at the end of day if you back up for global payments were beneficiaries of innovation ecosystem. So whether it's Paypal is a very good partner of ours or really anybody else, the more innovative people are, the more products that are that we can sell better off global payments is really this is nothing but good news for us. Time will tell whether we reach the point from the stability point of view where you can actually use it effectively at the point of sale. Well when do you expect that your company would be handling a larger volume of Bitcoin payments? How far out is that? Listen I think it's going to be quite a period of time as the recent volatility has shown. I think if facebook has come out with their own stable coin which they called Liberal and I think you know the branding it's something different. I think if you see stable coins or central bank digital currencies as you've seen announcements in china the U. S. The United Kingdom, if those come to market it could be in 2022 will be actually see those at the physical point of sale. I think the quick currencies that have a lot more volatility I think it's going to go well beyond that before they become a routine part of the transaction.

[ MUSIC ] Hickman, thank you so much for joining me for this virtual interview in these difficult times. And speaking of that, everyone knows Western Union and the vital service that you provide so people can Send money all around the world. Not only in good times, but in wars, and natural disasters. And now that we are in this unprecedented coronavirus Pandemic, how are things going? How's your business doing? Well, we are continuing to support our people, the customers around the world. The first thing is we are taking care about the safety of our employees. We have employees all over the world, from New Zealand to Argentina, from the US to To Prague, and first of all the safety of our employees are the most important thing. But also at the same time while we are safety of our employees, we are thinking all the time about our customers. They come from 200 countries and they want to continue to want to support their loved ones. I mean they're sending money. Our digital business is growing very strong obese and people said sit at home and then there are a lot lockdowns, they send money from home, worldwide to 200 countries to support their loved ones so the loved ones can really go buy a medicine or visit the doctor or You know basic things and it's important to keep that up. Because without that many people may have, you know, other difficulties and Western Union has done that for 170 years and we are going to continue to do that. So you mentioned that there there are two ways actually that people can send money your customers. One is digitally, as you mentioned, and the other one is to go into a Western Union retail store and you have a lot of them. No vast network of them. But as you mentioned, now that people are told to stay home, how is this impacting the retail side of your business? There'll be some black dance or gold white But it depends on the country, depends on it's known as essential business or not not many, many locations are open because it's essential business but it does have an impact on the retail side of our business. If people can't go on straight Can go visit a retail location. They can't do transactions. They can't pick up the money. At the same time. They are getting also innovative. We are promoting our digital business, we even start starting a video conferencing so you can like we do both of us the extra money Why I video conference to support the people. One of the big worries as you know is for so many people is getting laid off, not getting a paycheck. What are you doing to prevent layoffs at Western Union? Well, so far, we are supporting the customers so we need our people to that money moves, right? I mean, we do also Retrain the people, some people who are in retail dedicated [ INAUDIBLE ] locations are on the phone now are on the video conferencing now. But our people are more on the settlement side, more on the operational side and but I'm also worried about our agents or agents locations where people are working there. Well So far we need our people to support the customers. So are you saying that so far you have not done a single layoff and if that's true, how long can you keep that up? Yes ma'am we have not done a single layoff as long as possible. We want to keep the people working. We are supporting that. And if you are really dedicated that the people can support the customer. So we generate cash flow and they keep their jobs. I know that you stay in close touch with your employees and you talk to them at least in the good times. I think now it's a little tougher. But What are they telling you? What concerns them and how are you supporting them? Well, obviously I'm staying still very close to our employees. We have daily calls. We have I just came out from a call with our employees which we communicated and the end of the call. We had a question. q & a session so I can tell you directly what we have communicate to our employees. First of all, they are worried about their loved ones about their families. And they are seeing that Western Union has a leadership so you need is well equipped to give a trust to our employees. So this trust translates also to our customers they're most worried about besides their loved ones is obviously keeping the lights on. Keeping current constantly that our customers get served in a very well way and they are very dedicated to they know they everything they do has an impact to the to our customers and we're they're very dedicated. You know, these are tough times. That's very impressive. I can hear about that dedication, but how are you motivating Your employees. What are you doing and saying so that they stay positive and keep coming to work? Well I am probably being authentic as I am [ LAUGH ] being, really telling my own stories, how I do call my relatives. Really, look, I personally have relatives all y in Austria, in Turkey and in India. I'm especially worried about my elderly relatives and I'm telling the stories how I do support them. I think if people see authentic leadership. That makes them really say, now okay, this is real. Look, this is a global company. We saw the early signs that we're seeing again. As this [ UNKNOWN ] in China we already implemented there with our employees business continuity plans. And to learn, it's what we took. The as the virus is unfortunately spread all over the world. We implemented that everywhere and that learning was a big advantage for us. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Ersek says the company anticipated the COVID-19 crisis.

Western Union CEO: Global payments are more important now than ever

Western Union CEO: Global payments are more important now

Pay with your thumb and pay with your face are only the beginning

Global Payments CEO says big tech mergers are getting the US closer to going cashless

Pay with your thumb or face are only the beginning.

Global Payments CEO: US closer to going cashless

Jeff. There's been a flurry of mergers going on in this whole Fintech industry. Of course, there is the big $22 billion deal that you did with Total System Service's pieces. And then there's a whole long list of other companies. Fidelity National, Ah, Fiserv, World Line. The list goes on and on. What's behind all of these mergers and why is it going on right now? Sure. Well, Global Payments is a technology company that developed software that allows merchants and banks to issue cards and take payments. You know, at its core, that's what we d'oh to be in that business and be successful globally, you need tohave scale. I think a lot of those murders are all about how do I justify making investments into new products innovation, new geography, ese and the answer to that as I need a bigger base against which has spread those costs, I need scale. I think that's what's driving this murders. And so what can you do now with pieces that you couldn't do before? Or maybe that you could do better now that you're combined? Well, certainly we could make more investments combined. Then we could stand alone. So, for example, some of the future products that were inventing right now Jesus has been issuing business meeting. They help issue credit courts for banks. Global payments was not in that business we have in acquiring business being we facilitate acceptance for merchants. By combining Kardashian's butt court acceptance, we could develop more products. And service is for consumers to make payments online, for example, more secure and provide more complete solutions to our customer base. Help us picture a little bit about the changing landscape because we're all used to using either cash or check credit cards, our cell phones. But with all of these murders that are going on and all the new technology, how is the whole landscape changing about the way we do business with merchants? Well, I think the way you actually shop every day is gonna change. A good example is right here in the turnstiles in New York City, so contactless meaning instead of using your phone, or instead of taking your Carter your wallet much like the tube Susie in the UK, you'll just take your wallet out of your personality was put on top and then you've automatically paid so I expect to see more contactless innovation here in United States. The other thing I expect to see which is a little bit longer dated is more use of Q R code. So in Asia, for example, use your cell phones. You actually don't use a code, and there's like a U P c kind like you see at the supermarket code. And that's actually we get scanned at the point of sale, not a card. So I think the future of the business is very bright, and I think you'll see a proliferation of different means to pay. We hear a lot about pay with your face. How close is that? We'll pay with your thumb. Now become today with your face. So we provide. Service is to 20 the top 40 quick service restaurants in United States, and we also facilitate. We don't do it ourselves, but facilitate delivery. Grubhub indoor dash back to your house Today you can pay with your thumb, or you could pay with your face to do that today. So that's all right here. Now pay with your palm. I think it's the latest thing, and we'll see whether that works out you talked about scale when we just started the conversation, and we know you just did this huge deal with a teeth. But do you need to make more acquisitions, more deals, maybe even consider partnering with someone bigger so that you could do more exciting techie things? But we're not finished yet. I have a lot of energy, and I think we have a lot more things that we can do but listen. In a scale business consolidation is always part of the game because our economics really depend on getting the next transaction in. Each incremental transaction at the margin is cheaper than a prior transaction. That's what Dr Scale Economies, which is why consolidation really makes so much sense. So expect to see more of it, more of it here in United States and really more than globally. Because you think about technology investing in general, there's no reason why we shouldn't have a much bigger on base against which to spread these investments over time. So companies like PayPal that we know so well square apple pay. They've been doing this for years. Where do they fit into this whole new payments world? Well, most of those are partners in the ecosystem with the nice things about our businesses were gently the beneficiaries of innovation. So papal, for example, is one of our big partners. So his Visa, MasterCard, the more innovation you see at the point of sale, let's think about contactless, which is really coming from these and massacred in the banks. The more innovation there, the better our service is more highly value. They are. So the other day, the nice thing about where we are, Susie, is that we the beneficiary of all those things, they get rolled out in the market. You know, when we look at what people in China are doing, they have so far ahead of us in terms of using cash or card on doll that they've really gone cash list. How long is it gonna be before we're living like that here in the U. S. This year? It away? Is it a decade away longer? I think it's longer. That's gonna take a long time. In fact, you very seen efforts by some local governments to ban, like Amazon go some of the cashless initiatives that you've seen at a fear that the unbanked or the underbanked are not gonna be well represented in some of those markets. So I think it's been quite some time. But what I do think will happen and it's happening today is a share of the payments that's going into the digitization, which is to say, moving from cash on dhe check into Elektronik that is only going to increase on. That's increasing all income levels. So I think cash and cheque will go down in percentage, maybe a really long time before we go truly cashless. So what? The economic impact of all of this as people go as we go more towards that cashless world, what does it mean for our economy? Short. So I think the easy answer is, the more you can do something, the easier it is, the more you gonna do with it. You know, at the end of the day. And I think if you look at the history of credit card transactions in the United States, the more loyalty points and more rewards and more inclusive those things are the more people. So it's nothing but good news. I think for the consumer economy that it's better, faster, cheaper for consumers to buy things at the point of sale that you can buy it on the phone by paying with your thumb of your face that you buy it online, that you could return in a physical store that does nothing but reduce the friction that's embedded in commerce and give people more twice, which I think is a very good thing for society. Lord Jeff, When you became a CEO of global payments just seven years ago, you told your employees we will become a Fortune 500 company by the next decade. He just missed it for this year, but you're getting very, very close. Why is this milestone so important to you and to your employees? I think it's super important for us to set really audacious goals when we're starting out. And really, the way I looked at that, Susie was that was really a proxy for doubling the size of the company by way of revenue, which is really the metric that fortune uses, I think is very important when you're driving in business with 24,000 people to be able to say objectively, what is success? What is good behavior? What is not success and what is not great behavior. And I think setting up a milestone that took us about seven years to achieve, which is to say, doubling the size of the company, getting more scale in what we do more than double the market value of the company, I thought was a really good objective to set and of course, much, much like people in politics. I said, And doing it by the end of the decade was ultimately our goal, and I was really pleased that our folks and I will be celebrating that. More importantly, how do you want people to be describing global payments? Let's say 23 years from now, What is it going to be doing that's different than what you're doing now? So I think it's really as a cutting edge technology company where I tell folks all time is we really transformed the business from kind of legacy payments processing business into a cutting edge technology company, and those are the folks that we need to hire. Those are the folks who need to motivate on the folks that we need to retain, and I want people to think about it as I could go work at Apple. I could go work at Google. I could go work a global payments. I really want to put us in the same category as the most sophisticated, complex, well respected, unknown brands in the world for technology, and that's the kind of message I think we're trying to.

Global Payments

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