Embrace change, take risks, and disrupt yourself

Hosted by top 5 banking and fintech influencer, Jim Marous, Banking Transformed highlights the challenges facing the banking industry. Featuring some of the top minds in business, this podcast explores how financial institutions can prepare for the future of banking.

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Buy Now, Pay Later: A Digital Solution to an Age Old Problem

With consumers strapped for cash during these turbulent times, traditional and non-traditional financial firms are expanding financing options to support consumer and merchant needs.

One of the newest solutions modernizes the old-school layaway or retail installment loan offering for the digital world. The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) concept allows consumers to take possession of merchandise before they’ve paid in full, with access at the point of sale.

We are joined on the Banking Transformed podcast by Greg Lisiewski, VP, Global Pay Later Products at PayPal. He discusses the marketplace opportunities of the BNPL solution and how this can be a win-win-win for all parties involved.


his episode of Banking Transformed is sponsored by PayPal:

This podcast episode is being presented in partnership with PayPal. PayPal provides access to more than 403 million active global accounts and multiple buy now, pay later offers in a single integration. PayPal Pay in 4 enables shoppers to make purchases in four interest-free payments.

Customers get more buying power and flexibility, and you get help maximizing reach and revenue.

Learn more about PayPal Pay Later here.



Jim Marous:
Hello, and welcome to another Banking Transform Solutions podcast. I'm your host, Jim Marous owner and CEO of the Digital Bank Report and co-publisher of The Financial Brand. With consumers strapped for cash during these turbulent times, traditional and non-traditional financial firms have expanded their financing options to support consumer and merchant needs. One of the newest solution modernizes the old school layaway or retail installment loan offering for the digital world. Buy now pay later concepts allows consumers to take possession of merchandise before they've actually paid in full, with access at the point of sale. We are joined today by Greg Lisiewski, Vice President, Global Pay Later Products at PayPal. He discussed the marketplace opportunities for the buy now pay later solution and how this can become a win-win-win for all parties involved. When I was younger, my parents took advantage of layaway programs, where retailers allowed you to set aside a larger purchase and pay over time without a credit check. Picking up the purchase later, it was really simple and very popular.

Jim Marous:
Buy now pay later is the digital version of the layaway program. It has also been very popular with millions of consumers taking advantage of the solution and more and more companies jumping into the competitive fray. PayPal's pay later solutions can help merchants drive conversion, revenue, and customer loyalty by providing consumer options to flexible payment options. By leveraging technology to help make financial services and commerce more convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is helping empower more than 403 million active customers in merchant accounts to join and thrive in the global economy. So Greg, before we get started, can you share a little bit about your background and your current role at PayPal?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, sure, Jim. Hi, it's great to be with you today. I run the pay later products here at PayPal. And prior to that, I spent quite a bit of time in the space, what's commonly now mainstreamed as buy now, pay later. I grew up in credit card at MBNA but at the forefront of technology and product. I've been in banking long enough to have worked at a bank before there were websites, but fortunately that changed pretty early in my career, and got the chance to build a lot of first generation web experiences and products at that time. Then, gosh, 15 years ago, became the head of consumer product and marketing at a little alternative finance company called Bill Me Later, which in many ways was the OG of this buy now, pay later wave, just a generation earlier.

Greg Lisiewski:
We were acquired by PayPal 2008, coming at the heels of the last recession or cycle, spent five years there, a really great time. I stepped down for a few years, founded a company in the buy now, pay later space, which I eventually sold to a bank in the Midwest and then went back to PayPal about two years to bring PayPal to the modern period of buy now, pay later with newer products, shorter term durations, and do it not just in the US, but on a global scale.

Jim Marous:
Well, it's interesting because the whole evolution of the buy now, pay later marketplace has happened so quickly. You look at the primary target market for buy now, pay later, and it really is a younger consumer, but it has expanded. But as Gen Z grows up and begins using the power of disposable income, what do companies like PayPal and other companies need to consider?

Greg Lisiewski:
It's a great question. Your opening around layaway is really interesting that was about our parents-

Jim Marous:
Yeah.

Greg Lisiewski:
Managing their cash flow-

Jim Marous:
Right.

Greg Lisiewski:
To get us the goods or things we needed for our day-to-day lives or they need it for their day-to-day lives. You know, the Gen Z adoption here is a little bit different, and what people should really pay attention to is what's driving their preference for buy now pay later solutions or just solutions in general. I think there's a couple key themes to think about. One that we've started talking about more and more as we started to analyze is this whole subscription lifestyle that is just part of who they are, how they get their media they pay for, X dollars a month, whether it's Netflix or whatnot, how they consume their music with Spotify, heck how they're even getting their wardrobes in many cases, on this perpetually replenish subscription thing.

Greg Lisiewski:
We talk about that as a subscription lifestyle, and buy now, pay later fits into that in a sense of, I know I have $50 or a $100 discretionary to spend every two weeks and therefore I'm going to buy a good or service, it's going to cost me $50 or $100 every two weeks, and that renews every six weeks. That's one of the big drivers of this newest wave of buy now, pay later, which is a really short duration, $150, $200, $250. AOVs. Dovetail that with the rise of technology, mobile for sure, which obviously is not new, but it's ever adopted, and again, is 100% organic to Gen Z.

Greg Lisiewski:
That's given the rise to what we call non-linear commerce experiences. I start in one channel and I pick up and might finish in another channel and I might go back and forth between channels through the journey. Last but not least, I would say they're looking for fair, transparent products, particularly in the credit realm, modern and tech forward, all of which has been met, that demand has been met by newer upstarts in the buy now, pay later space.

Greg Lisiewski:
Certainly here at PayPal, who's been at the forefront of digital payments for gosh, a couple decades now, we're making sure we're adapting to modern Gen Z oriented expectations.

Jim Marous:
When you talk about the nonlinear commerce and omnichannel experiences, that sounds similar, like they're almost the same thing. Are they?

Greg Lisiewski:
You know, that's a great question. I agree, when I first started thinking about it, I'm like, "What, isn't this just the idea of offline and online and the lines are blurring?" That omnichannel is meant to cover all channels, so that online, offline world. Nonlinear is more about the customer journey and how it can hop between channels on the same day, in the same hour, or across multiple days.

Greg Lisiewski:
Maybe I'll just use a use case, like order ahead for your coffee. I'm getting ready to start my commute in the morning and I want to pick up a latte on the way to work. I go to my phone and I order the latte and I stop by my local Starbucks or my Dunkin Donuts and I pick it up. That's nonlinear. Or, if I'm a Gen Z person, take it to retail now, interacting with Instagram or TikTok. I see an influencer, I see an outfit I like, more and more I can engage with that outfit. I can order it, I can pick it up at the local store or I can ask them to set it aside so I can try it and then I can buy it on my mobile phone. Nonlinear is really about the journey customers are now taking that blend, truly do blur the line between online and offline.

Jim Marous:
It's funny, we've been in this conversation for just a few minutes, but the number of times we've used the word engagement. It is becoming the foundation upon which everything is built. Be it Amazon, be yourselves, be it other organizations, we're talking about how do we drive engagement overall with the consumer, wherever they are for their advantage, aren't we? I mean, it's not driving it just for the buying process. It's really saying, how can we provide a better experience in the lifestyle for a consumer through better engagement, correct?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, no, that's a 100% right. Intersecting with nonlinear, where brands and financial institutions likewise, you need to more and more meet the customer on their terms, where in their journey they're looking to "be engaged". It can be a little intimidating because in many ways, what's happened is technology and newer solutions have given the power back to the consumer. You have to tailor solutions with the customer at the center. That can be a little daunting if you even think about in this space, the buy now, pay later, or the layaway program we talked about.

Greg Lisiewski:
If you bridge those two with private label programs, as an example, private label programs in many ways were about the brand being at the center. I, as a retailer was at the center. Customers came in the door, they were looking for goods and services from my brand, and I gave them a way to finance it or pay for it. In many ways, I then monetize that experience, so you had these large private label programs spin up to became really big financial contributors to retail businesses. I won't name names, but there's one jewelry case I'm thinking of where it's a credit card business that happens to sell jewelry. Right?

Jim Marous:
Right.

Greg Lisiewski:
They almost pivoted completely away from the, what I'm sure... 50 years ago, they were founded to literally sell jewelry and suddenly the credit business was big. What technology has done is given the power back to the consumer. It's no longer you can only get a layaway or a private label program where a big bank has decided to do a deal with a relatively big merchant. It now can happen online and it's happening at the largest of online retailers. But through companies like PayPal who has 400 million plus merchants and consumers on our network, 30 plus million merchants, we're really democratizing out this capability to merchants of all sizes. In doing so, we're empowering consumers to take value propositions with them where they want to shop and that's important. It's important to realize the customer's in control and the sooner you can accept that, the more you can adjust your solutions for that. It can be a little frightening because you're handing over control, which comes with a little bit of risk, but one I think is worth taking.

Jim Marous:
Now what's interesting is when you talk about the consumer and the overall engagement process, we're really talking about the consumer's desire for speed, and simplicity, and embedded solutions that make it so I only have to tap once to go from point A to point B, whatever that may be. That's not just in the digital world, but in your omnichannel experience. Can you walk me through how this new dynamic of speed, simplicity, omnichannel, non-linear and even subscription lifestyle relates to PayPal's pay later solutions?

Greg Lisiewski:
To that point, simplicity is key to this, as well as fair and transparent. I'll go back to that example of, start with the Instagram influencer who's debuting... It's not just fashion, right? It could be a TikTok chef debuting the set of knives you should buy or whatnot. That's where you see product, you get interested in product, you get driven to trial. When you want to take advantage of that, the happy part of shopping is getting excited about buying something and then ultimately getting it. It's not paying for it. That's the dud moment in retail. You get all excited, you get into this line, and you have to go through the process.

Greg Lisiewski:
Pay later and PayPal specifically can help streamline that. Suddenly if you're looking at a $200 dress, which for many people is quite expensive, four payments of $50 lined up with your paycheck, that simplifies and makes it possible for you to purchase the item you want. If you use something like PayPal, which hundreds of millions of consumers are familiar with, I don't have to pull out my wallet and start keying in information or hand over a piece of plastic. I tap a PayPal button, I use the login information that's top of mind to me, our pay later solutions are embedded in that checkout experience that have been used now for two decades online.

Greg Lisiewski:
I already have my payment instrument on file with PayPal, so I don't have to put in the debit card that's going to be the payment instrument ultimately for it. It's all simplifying that process. You go from that wow moment of wow, look at that dress, or look at that knife set, or look at that vacation opportunity to ordering it and then receiving it. The payment was there, you understood the terms, it's bare, it's transparent, but it didn't get in the way. It was simple, it wasn't a burden, that's what the products are all about, streamlining and getting people from desire to ownership.

Jim Marous:
From an operational perspective, from a consumer perspective, do I have the choice then of hitting that PayPal button and either paying for it immediately, or you give me the ability to just say, you know what, I'm going to put this on layaway. I'm going to put this on a pay later scenario. I can do that instantaneously with a single push of a button and a secondary one if I want to change my option?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, Jim. That's well said. In fact, the way we have organized checkout now at PayPal is pay now, so use one of your traditional funding instruments, whether it's a bank account, a debit card, a credit card, or if you have a balance with PayPal, or pay later. That is PayPal, it's pay now pay later. If it's pay later, you pick Pay in 4, and because it is ultimately still a lending product, there's a couple of steps in there to make sure you understand that you're signing up for an obligation to repay, but it's really streamlined and then you're on your way. Regardless of whether you chose to use your debit card or split it in four, you end up with the same PayPal experience, not only during the transaction, but post transaction. You'll get your confirmation email from us and you'll be able to log into your PayPal app, through the mobile app, or web, or mobile browser and track your spend and your activity, etc.

Jim Marous:
It's interesting. This is really a win-win-win. Obviously it's a win for the consumer. It gives them control, it gives them choice, it gives them tracking. There's a lot of transparency in this whole process. You get your PayPal statement. It also helps the merchant because in some cases, I may have already decided to make the purchase and I just decide how I'm going to pay for it later. But in some cases, I may be at the merchant, I may be on the site, whatever it may be. I may not be sure if I want to buy something, but the knowledge that I have the ability to possibly put it on layaway or credit by pay later basis makes it so the merchant benefits and obviously PayPal benefits in this equation as well. Overall, as an experience, that transcends the entire buying experience, doesn't it?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, win-win-win is a great way to sum it up. You're right. We're a two sided network business, and obviously we're the third piece of that, because we are in business. You did a great job summarizing there, and for the merchant, in many ways it's all the same advantages when you partner with PayPal. The value prop, particularly pay later helps pull people through the funnel. They might be at that point of consideration and typically, they might say, "I'm going to come back in a month or a couple weeks, when I get my paycheck." Now they can make that purchase today, or they might add an accessory or add an extra item to the cart. The difference, though, which is also applies to the layaway reference, the difference in this case though, is they don't have to manage a program.

Greg Lisiewski:
I remember these programs too. They don't have to have a part in a physical world, in the back of the store where they're holding inventory and they're tracking payments and people have to come in and out every couple weeks. PayPal takes all of that risk. From a merchant perspective, they're able to move the goods today, PayPal uses its data at great scale to make a decision on extending this small amount of credit to a consumer, and it takes the risk on the repayment, so the merchant gets paid as if they would for any other PayPal transaction, so they get them money upfront. Because they're already doing business with PayPal, it's all embedded in their PayPal relationship, it's all part of their processing. They already have the tender type integration, the operational stuff, returns, exception, processing, financial settlement, etc.

Jim Marous:
You talked about that simplicity factor again, and I'm thinking about if I'm at a merchant, many merchants have their own program, a pay later type program or there may be other competitors in the marketplace. This is where the PayPal brand really plays a major role in that. If I want to buy something, I don't have to make that subsequent decision as to who do I work with to buy it. It's an organization. In most cases, most consumers already have a relationship, it's already gone through all the dynamics. Again, it's simply a push of a button and not an overt decision process that expands the overall process of wanting to purchase something. As you said, the worst part about buying something is having to pay for it or having to decide how am I going to pay for it. The reality is that the simplicity is a really big benefit from the perspective of not only the merchant, but from the consumer and not having that additional layer of saying, what way do I go with this. Correct?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, Jim, 100%. Two pieces to that. One is the brand trust. We've been in business for 20 years. We built a lot of trust on both the merchant side and the consumer side. There was a report out recently that ranked us as the number two most trusted brand in the world, actually. That's really important in payments because not only do you not want to pay for something, you don't want to create extra risk when you do end up paying for something. There are only so many ways to say four payments of $50, so we do think our brand brings real value there from a merchant consumer perspective. The second part of that, that I wanted to highlight is because PayPal has been in online payments business for 20 years, we have really wide distribution, 30 million plus merchants globally.

Greg Lisiewski:
In the markets where we operate, what that allows us to talk to our consumers about is you can have buy now, pay later features from PayPal essentially everywhere you can shop online today. Hopefully that's online and offline in the future because PayPal's already there. Because there have been a rise of new competitors, who've been good for driving innovation and bringing solutions to market, but they don't have ubiquitous coverage. It's very fragmented still. If I'm a consumer and I'm buying a pair of sneakers, I might go to one merchant and I'll see a solution from partner A. I want to buy a pair of jeans, I go to another merchant and I see a different provider. I probably haven't heard of them, so I have to do that extra calculus of is this a company...

Greg Lisiewski:
The merchant trusted them. If it's a big merchant, there's definitely a halo effect from a brand. If it's Walmart or Target, it's like, Walmart wouldn't put something up I'm not trusting, but there's 10 million merchants online in the US. Most of them are not named Walmart, so there's that element there. If I'm buying two different items at two different merchants, suddenly I have two different accounts to manage after the fact, yet at both of those merchants, let alone if it was four or five or six merchants, PayPal is likely a payment option. Therefore PayPal's there, PayPal pay later solutions are there. We bring brand and trust, but we also bring near ubiquitous coverage to consumers.

Jim Marous:
In the financial services industry, in the merchant world, buy now, pay later is... While it's only got probably a life span of maybe a year, it's certainly known by most. But one area that I was thinking about the other day was, I would imagine that this whole dynamic of pay later impacts conversion rates for the merchant, doesn't it? It's not something you'd initially think about because I'm not in the merchant business, but for them, something that breaks off an abandonment rate of a purchase really impacts the finances. Especially in an online world, where they get engaged and not engaged, and you got extra marketing to do. Does this help the conversion rate on an merchant process?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, it absolutely does. I'll use another throwback reference to demonstrate the power. You talked about layaway earlier, think about the old Sunday paper with stuffed with circulars for retailers. Typically, if you pulled out the retailers in the more durable goods business or the furniture business, whether it's electronics or furniture, or mattress, those have had financing solutions on them forever. You couldn't flip a Circuit City ad without seeing financing on every page for the expensive TV or, or whatnot. Probably still true at Best Buy if they still do circulars, I'm not really sure.

Greg Lisiewski:
What's changed though, is financing typically was larger AOV, four or five, six, $700 plus. Typically it was 6, 12, 18, 24 months, almost always had interest and was only available to the biggest merchants because that's where it made sense for banks to partner because they needed to scale, or in specific verticals like furniture, where they're really healthy margins, so you can make the economics work for a somewhat overt, pretty heavy customer experience, pretty operationally expensive thing to run. Now, because of technology, mobile FinTechs like PayPal and others, you really democratize it for all players. To your original question, all to the benefit of driving conversion for merchants and payment flexibility and choice for consumers. The earlier in a flow or journey, merchants let their customers know that they're going to have payment choice, payment flexibility is available. Now you go down to 7,500 $200 purchases, that absolutely helps drive conversion.

Jim Marous:
It's interesting. You talk about the history of PayPal. I referenced PayPal this week as a legacy FinTech, which is really interesting that we actually are talking about... We're not talking about MBNA here, but we're talking about legacy FinTechs, and PayPal's really that. It's a big organization, but it's also one of the first FinTech organizations that most of us knew. Now, buy now, pay later has seen incredible growth in the last 18 months, a lot of it outside the normal realm of who we would've considered are payment providers. Why and how has this come from? Where does this growth happen and why so quickly?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, it's a really great question, and it's a great term. I might borrow that from you in the future, legacy FinTech. I jumped from bank to FinTech. You mentioned MBNA in 2006, so that's 15 years ago and PayPal's older than that yet. FinTech wasn't really a category, nor was buy now, pay later. What's given the rise in this last 18, 24, 36 months? It had been building. Coming out of 2008 recession, lending was one of the few industries that were slower to get back on their feet. From a FinTech lending perspective, it started in the B2B space. Then it went B2C on consolidation learners, lending club prosper, etc. Then it was 2013, 2014, 2015, where a lot of the companies that are now common names started to develop new products and bring them to market. I'm thinking of Affirm, Afterpay in Australia, they didn't come to the US until the last couple years. My own company, Blispay was on that forefront.

Greg Lisiewski:
PayPal was there whole time, but focused on growing-

Jim Marous:
Right.

Greg Lisiewski:
Its core distribution, and it was late '18, early '19. Klarna would be another. Where traction started to build, Gen Z and millennials started to drive this affinity for this newer type of buying solution. The growth curves were pretty good. If you go track it in '18, '19, they were decent. Last March and April of 2020, everyone's world changed with the pandemic. In those early days, if you remember in banking, it was sort of like, "Oh no, this is the next cycle." Everyone thought 2008 was a cycle that they'll never see again, this was completely different. This was a cycle inside of a pandemic that kept people at home, forced them to shop online.

Greg Lisiewski:
Not that online shopping wasn't a thing, but it accelerated. McKinsey talked about 10 years of adoption happening in a span of a few months, and it brought great uncertainty. Was I going to be able to leave my house tomorrow? Was I going to have a job? If I have a job, am I going to get paid? Oh my gosh, I better manage my cash flow. At the same time, when distribution of new pay later solutions were just hitting their stride on product pages earlier in that funnel. This industry momentum with the pandemic was a real once in a lifetime type inflection point, where really strong growth rates became astronomical growth rates and drove to mainstreaming of the solution. It's basically table stakes now for a retailer to have a more modern buy now, pay later solution, certainly online.

Greg Lisiewski:
I think offline is becoming more and more important. It's always been important at the big box stores, I'm talking about regional and variety type retailers. I think that's really it. I think the last 18 months or whatever the math is on the pandemic ignited a industry buy now, pay later that was already growing. It just bent the curve even more, the likes of which none of us have ever seen before, and hopefully we never see it again. For this reason, anyway.

Jim Marous:
Well, it's interesting too, because it made it so we couldn't define exactly who the target market was. I talk about the people that forego their mortgage payments. In some cases, they forego their mortgage payments because they couldn't make their mortgage payments and feed themselves at the same time. In the other cases, people were foregoing their mortgage payments because they were allowed to defer without any interest impact and build up a savings account. In the same way, a buy now, pay later, if you really wanted a TV or you need to replace your washer and dryer, this gave you the ability to take risk out of the equation say, "I can buy it. I have the money, but I can buy it without a negative impact financially at the same time I can benefit." What have you heard from companies that are actually using pay later solutions?

Greg Lisiewski:
I mean, it's pretty consistent. We're attracting new customers and it splits. The early adopters were like, "Wow, this is attracting new customers. It's helping me drive conversion. I'm getting really positive feedback in terms of experience and loyalty." More recently, it's been, "Oh wow, everyone has it. I'd better get in the game. I'd better offer it." There's a bit of a FOMO type experience where it's like, "Wait a second. Now suddenly my competitors has it. I need it." Vertically, it's like, "Whoa, what's fashion doing over there?" You see it spreading to beauty, and automotive, and other categories as well. Mostly it's been all positive. I am truly getting conversion, I'm getting new customers, I'm not taking on any more risk. With competition, pricing is being lowered as well, if you're a merchant.

Jim Marous:
You also see this situation of speed innovation. The difference between a fast follower and a mainstream, and a laggard has really shrunk. You have to be pretty on top of your game all the time with regard to... Certainly in the payment world, in the payment innovation space, that it continues to change at such a pace that merchants and consumers, everybody else really stay on top of these things, don't they?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, that's exactly right. The basic change is fast and if you're a merchant, the great thing is it's never been easier to take advantage of many of these tools, particularly with the rise of platforms. I'm thinking about the medium and smaller businesses now. There's not large capital investments required to add extra features to your infrastructure that in the past would've required you to be pretty capital intensive is now you can rent, just like customers and subscription lifestyle and the business side, with the move to SaaS and platforms. You can rent features, functionality, etc. It's naturally democratized because of companies like PayPal and others, big commerces, the Magentos, the WooCommerces of the world making it available so small Main Street retailers can compete with their big box competitors at the end of the walk.

Jim Marous:
So Greg, you look at PayPal, a big brand, but you don't see a whole lot of marketing for PayPal in the marketplace, you see it in the icons and the logos and all that. Is this partially because you're taking the engagement and experiences and stay so on top of the marketplace, as far as how those happen, that word of mouth becomes your primary marketing, that the experience drives the marketing of PayPal?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah. I'm a product-centric person, Jim. I'm always a believer in great product experiences ultimately win. That said, you have to let the world know about it. Given that we are... We have such broad adoption in the eCommerce space and we have such strong volumes from a eCommerce flow perspective, we really do bring the power of our double sided network to play here.

Greg Lisiewski:
While we're constantly partnering with merchants and talking to merchants about how to help them increase their conversion in their sales, and we do spend quite a significant amount of resources there, we're able to add this feature to our wallet, where we're seeing millions and millions of transactions and therefore drive adoption, and then consumers can turn around and let their friends, or their neighbors know about the value props that are available to them. We do run consumer marketing programs as well, and we're getting now... We're ready to enter the holiday season here, so I think you'll start to hear more about some of the stuff we talked about earlier in terms of PayPal's ubiquity, our coverage and the fact that PayPal is the one place to go to if you want to pay now or pay later.

Jim Marous:
Okay. Finally, we're talking about, as we discussed, a FinTech firm that has been in business for a long time. To keep that fresh, to keep innovation fresh, you need to have somewhat of a disrupter or a challenger mindset, you got to keep that going. How does that happen to PayPal? How do you keep the challenger mindset in place organizationally so that you're always viewed as the front provider in this space?

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah. That's a really great question. You certainly cannot get complacent because the competition is coming. They're here, it's here every day, we're very cognizant of it. I like to remind people, I often will talk about internally, we have multiple credit products at PayPal. Bill me later still exists, we just changed the brand. It's called PayPal Credit. It's a really big business for PayPal. Having spent some time at a bank, what tends to happen is it's like, "Oh, I don't know if I want to launch a new product, because it's going to quote unquote cannibalize my other products." The reality is, it's already being cannibalized.

Greg Lisiewski:
The question that you should ask is, do I want to cannibalize my own products or do I want somebody else to? If you have an inside out view, it's a false guide because you're looking at your own impact to your own products. When in reality, if you have an outside in view, if you have a customer centric view, if you sit still, someone is going to cannibalize your product. I like to think, and I think at PayPal, we do a good job of this, we'd rather "cannibalize" our own products than watch the competition do it. You have to live in a state of constant... Perhaps paranoia is too strong a word, but you can't sit still because sitting still is going backwards, because the competition's not sitting still. You have to stay current.

Jim Marous:
Yeah. That's a leadership and culture issue though. You've been in legacy financial institution, now I'm not going to... MBNA was by no means what I'm going to call a normal financial institution. They were a FinTech before FinTech was even a word. But the reality is, that's the difference between the legacy banking environment in many cases, not all. The FinTech spaces that can... The leadership and culture of "I've got to continually reinvent what I do, serving my customers". It's the difference between customer centric and customer obsessed. Even when you look at some of the recent communications that's been out there around making it so PayPal becomes a platform people continually want to access, I'm getting to the point where I'm figuring that loyalty overall is how often am I going to access a specific app.

Jim Marous:
I'm a major user of PayPal for my business, both on an income and an outflow basis. I probably look at my PayPal count daily, for one reason or another. To look at what's happened, to look at the payments, but also to see what we are doing from a business standpoint. Interesting perspective on the challenger mindset. Greg, finally, if somebody's interested, not that it's hard to find PayPal in the marketplace or online, but if somebody's interested in the pay later scenario and the different solutions you have, how do they find that out?

Greg Lisiewski:
Generically, obviously they can certainly start at Paypal.com and look at our pay later solutions. But for your audience, if anyone's interested in going further, I'm happy to share my email address, which is just [email protected]. I take the complicated spelling off the table and just my last initial. You have a really fascinating audience. If someone wants to learn more, I'll try to pay attention to my inbox and get back to someone in reasonable time.

Jim Marous:
Great. Greg, we knew it was going to be a great conversation and it was. We certainly have been bombarded with buy now, pay later solution discussions, but you brought some new perspectives into the marketplace that I don't think have been covered before, certainly for not only the consumer marketplace for the bankers, but also for the merchants. Thanks very much for being on the show today.

Greg Lisiewski:
Yeah, Jim, it was a real pleasure to talk to you. I appreciate the time. Thanks for having me.

Jim Marous:
Thanks for listening to the Banking Transform Solutions podcast, a new podcast that focuses on innovative solutions for financial institutions. We would like to thank PayPal, the sponsor of today's show. If you're a solution provider wanting to discuss how you can help bankers and credit union executives solve a major marketplace challenge, drop me an email. We are keen to help. This has been a production of Evergreen podcast, a special thank you to our Producer, Leah Longbrake; Audio Engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman; and Video Producer, Will Pritts. I'm your host, Jim Marous. Until next time, remember, consumers will respond quickly to financial solutions that meet a need. It's up to us to respond to these needs at digital speed.

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