Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Let's continue our focus
Speaker 1: on vaccine passports. I want to bring in Stephen Thomas.
Speaker 1: He's a CEO of TPT Global Tech, uh, and they
Speaker 1: are our tpt S med Tech is developing vaccine passport
Speaker 1: and COVID health technology that's currently operational in one of
Speaker 1: my favorite places in the world, Jamaica, mon in the
Speaker 1: International airport there in Montego Bay. Travelers can move about
Speaker 1: safely and freely. I guess if if, if this technology
Speaker 1: works out. So Stephen, what are you guys doing? Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me on this morning. I appreciate
Speaker 1: being on the show. And we're excited. So we're doing
Speaker 1: some great stuff. Man. You know we uh, we're a
Speaker 1: publicly traded company here in Sandy of California. You have
Speaker 1: to say we're a small company with big ideas and
Speaker 1: we have developed an end to end UH COVID management
Speaker 1: solution technology platform, you know, where we create mobile labs
Speaker 1: out of shipping containers where we actually do the testing
Speaker 1: for COVID as well as vaccinations in our labs. And
Speaker 1: we've also developed a software technology platform called click pass
Speaker 1: where we're able to do the testing as well as
Speaker 1: the vaccination tracking, tracking, and deliver a digital passport system.
Speaker 1: And our system is up and running, you know, we
Speaker 1: launched this back in August, so we're the first company
Speaker 1: to actually put this out into the global marketplace where
Speaker 1: and we're really excited to uh be the first to
Speaker 1: do something like this. And as you mentioned, you know, Jamaica, Safemond.
Speaker 1: We we are up and running in in Jamaica at
Speaker 1: the Montego Bay Airport, UH and some of the resorts
Speaker 1: like Scandals UH in the island. I think we've got
Speaker 1: a to the level about eighteen different testing locations on
Speaker 1: the island that we're in the process of onboarding. So
Speaker 1: it's a very exciting, you know time for our publicly
Speaker 1: traded company and what we're doing, you know out here
Speaker 1: in San Diego and throughout the United States as well.
Speaker 1: All Right, Steven, give us a sense of kind of
Speaker 1: the deployment of your technology, because I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of solutions out there, but there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, frustration that the testing capabilities and the
Speaker 1: testing tracking in the United States much less the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, you know, hasn't really been as robust
Speaker 1: as we would have liked. Give us a sense of
Speaker 1: kind of where you guys are, well, what what we
Speaker 1: what we like to speak of it kind of being
Speaker 1: one of the first to put this out is that
Speaker 1: we have the Indian solution. So what we're able to
Speaker 1: do is we're able to either tact on our own
Speaker 1: lab mobile labs, or we work with partner labs, right,
Speaker 1: and they take that information and that's delivered through our
Speaker 1: QuickPath technology platform to the end customers, subscribers. So what
Speaker 1: happens is you go to one of our locations of
Speaker 1: one of our part of locations, you get tested or
Speaker 1: you get the vaccination. We tracked that information and we
Speaker 1: send you a digital report via either the Internet or
Speaker 1: to your phone, right and it's on a centralized platform.
Speaker 1: So it's an amazing situation where you know, you're not
Speaker 1: bringing two or three different companies together to try to
Speaker 1: deliver the solution which could create, uh, you know, some
Speaker 1: types of technology issues when you're bringing multiple companies together.
Speaker 1: So we're an end in solution and I think it
Speaker 1: worked incredibly well and we're excited of the results that
Speaker 1: we're having in Jamaica. You know, when I was down
Speaker 1: there and we're onboarding at the first day, you know,
Speaker 1: there was like two or three people in line. They
Speaker 1: had all the paper and there was the nurses and
Speaker 1: putting out all that information. And by the time we left,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just running so smooth. And there
Speaker 1: they would come to the airport, you know, download the
Speaker 1: quick pass app about the information intade of the app,
Speaker 1: show their QR code, the nurses would do their test,
Speaker 1: uh and then within you know, fifteen minutes, they would
Speaker 1: get the results, walk up to the Delta or American
Speaker 1: Airlines show their test report digitally on their phone. You know.
Speaker 1: The the airlines know that it's secure because it's all
Speaker 1: Hippo compliance secured uh de identified information, except for if
Speaker 1: the person wants to actually show their i D. There
Speaker 1: is a function where they hit a button and the
Speaker 1: i D pops up on the screen so that that
Speaker 1: airlines or or cruise line or supporting advantage to actually
Speaker 1: verify that it's the actual person's phone and the person
Speaker 1: who actually have the cast results and be able to
Speaker 1: verify that. So is it exciting? Uh? Scenario that we
Speaker 1: put together. I'm gonna tell you offline about the sweetest
Speaker 1: spot in Jamaica. I don't want other people to know.
Speaker 1: It's like a secret destination. But you mentioned Hippa and
Speaker 1: as someone who I like to travel a lot, I
Speaker 1: get in a lot of motorcycle accidents and I hate paperwork,
Speaker 1: Hippa is like the bane of my existence. What is
Speaker 1: it like working with this kind of regulation? Well, you
Speaker 1: know what, we have a fantastic development team and we
Speaker 1: are actually part of the whole Google back in Hippa
Speaker 1: compliant engine, So we work very closely with Google and
Speaker 1: that's why we're Hippo Climate and so it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot easier for us to be able to do
Speaker 1: what we do. So it's it's it's been actually a
Speaker 1: good experience, a little little, little, some pain points, but
Speaker 1: we were able to work through it and we have
Speaker 1: a secure technology platform. All right, Steve, where are you
Speaker 1: in terms of some maybe some other airports, some other airlines,
Speaker 1: some other you know clients that you might be signing
Speaker 1: up for your technology. Well, you know, there's other Caribbean
Speaker 1: islands that we're in the process right now of breaking
Speaker 1: up UH for example of the Bahamas, Turks and Keiko's.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Trinidad, we're talking with UH Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: so we're pretty excited about that as well. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. You know, we're in Miami. We have
Speaker 1: our mobile labs at the day Lin mall and one
Speaker 1: of the Walmart parking lots in Miami. We just entered
Speaker 1: into an agreement with a national parking lots company. Believe
Speaker 1: or not. They've got a little five thousand parking lots
Speaker 1: across the United States and they've offered those parking lots
Speaker 1: to US took to bring COVID testing and point of
Speaker 1: care testing to their communities. It's a very interesting concept
Speaker 1: with with UH, with this parking lot company. I was
Speaker 1: very pleased that they reached out to us because I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a fantastic partnership for US to
Speaker 1: be able to be able to expand this technology across
Speaker 1: the United States. Because look, it's not just for the airline,
Speaker 1: it's also for restaurants, it's for concerts, it's for you know, schools,
Speaker 1: colleges to be able to act. To sporting events. You know,
Speaker 1: you get tested. You show up to a stadium, you
Speaker 1: you show your pure code, and that stadium over that
Speaker 1: team or whatever away team would know that those fans
Speaker 1: coming into that game have all been tested in it's
Speaker 1: twenty four hour periods. So the idea is that everybody
Speaker 1: in that sporting event is COVID free. For example this
Speaker 1: summer and tune into the Mississippi we're working with the
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commisor and we're doing a concert on the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River this summer. Fascinating stuff. Good luck to your company.
Speaker 1: Stephen Thomas, CEO of TPT Global, more banted Tin, president
Speaker 1: of s J Consulting, and talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: what's going on with this big ship in the Suez
Speaker 1: Canal SAT. I know it's huge, right, it's a quarter
Speaker 1: mile long and it's two thousand tons whatever that means. Um,
Speaker 1: why is it stuck in so hard? Can't they just
Speaker 1: get some boats in a rope and like pull it out.
Speaker 1: The boats will be We're getting pulled towards the ship
Speaker 1: rather than pulling the ship away. It is a huge task.
Speaker 1: It is so heavy that the tugboats are not gonna
Speaker 1: make it. In my view, they will need to start
Speaker 1: getting some of the containers off the ship to reduce
Speaker 1: the weight on it and then they will have some success.
Speaker 1: It is not an easy task, alright. So the image
Speaker 1: that is in my mind is the one way we
Speaker 1: have all seen is literally this monster's container ship. It's
Speaker 1: abound buried into the uh, you know, the bank of
Speaker 1: this canal and this little teeny tiny bacco with a
Speaker 1: couple of guys trying to dig it out. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't look like the canal was prepared for anything like this.
Speaker 1: Why was that? Well? There a couple of factors. One
Speaker 1: is the sizes of ships have gotten big over time
Speaker 1: and they've never had to experience it. The maximum ship
Speaker 1: that used to travel a few years ago would be
Speaker 1: eight thousand, ten thousand, twelve thousand containers, and now they
Speaker 1: are up to eighteen and twenty thousand, So they are
Speaker 1: much bigger in size, and that means they're also heavier.
Speaker 1: And when they are heavier, they tend to score further
Speaker 1: below the level of the water and they then are
Speaker 1: hitting the surface that they didn't imagine would be happening.
Speaker 1: And then maybe some eroision taking place that is causing
Speaker 1: that soil to further into the canal that has cost
Speaker 1: us to happen. So he Twitter is having a field day.
Speaker 1: The guy with a digger has an account on Twitter now.
Speaker 1: Perike Patel, probably my favorite twitterer, has uh published a
Speaker 1: bunch of schematics as to how they could deal with this.
Speaker 1: Even I've in the case says this is bad um
Speaker 1: bad risk management. They should have had a backup canal.
Speaker 1: In seriousness, how big is this problem? Try and put
Speaker 1: it in a scale for us, but for one, there
Speaker 1: is no option to have a backup canal. Whoever thinks
Speaker 1: that the chipping okay, yeah, you know, China is trying
Speaker 1: to have a backup canal to the Panama on the
Speaker 1: other end, and it is going to be decades of okay,
Speaker 1: so this is not something they could have anticipated. It's
Speaker 1: easy to do Monday morning quarterbacking on it. At this point,
Speaker 1: they need to look at getting the weight of the
Speaker 1: chip down from all the containers that are on it,
Speaker 1: and then they will have ability to push it such
Speaker 1: that at least it can not be blocking that tired
Speaker 1: and at least one lane can continue as opposed to
Speaker 1: them moving in both directions. All right, so what do
Speaker 1: you believe is is this simply unload the ship, get
Speaker 1: some bigger tugs in there. If that's in fact the case,
Speaker 1: how many days slash weeks do you think we're looking
Speaker 1: at here? I think they should be able to within
Speaker 1: a week or ten days if they move quickly on
Speaker 1: it and and do what the professionals no needs to
Speaker 1: be done. Uh. But then and there is urgency because
Speaker 1: the people who manage the Swiss Canal are losing revenue
Speaker 1: that they get paid for every ship that goes through.
Speaker 1: So there is incentive on everyone's part, including Evergreen, to
Speaker 1: get this thing fiasco off there seen and away from
Speaker 1: the media. Could the same thing happen in the Panama
Speaker 1: Panama Canal? You bring up one of the other key
Speaker 1: water ways in um in global logistics? What are the
Speaker 1: what are the differences between the seas? And one difference
Speaker 1: between the two major one is that the two water
Speaker 1: bodies that Panama Canal connects are not at the same
Speaker 1: sea level that the thirty foot difference between the Atlantic
Speaker 1: Ocean and the Pacific at that place where the two
Speaker 1: openings of the canal connect and they use locks gates basically.
Speaker 1: I've seen it myself. I've been there where they fill
Speaker 1: the water to raise the ship up to connect with
Speaker 1: one side or to load it on the other side.
Speaker 1: So if something like this was to happen in Panama,
Speaker 1: they would be better prepared to deal with it. SWEZ
Speaker 1: doesn't have that option. So it's interesting. Sets I mean,
Speaker 1: is there an argument made that ships have gotten too
Speaker 1: big park nows, not just for the canals, they've gotten
Speaker 1: too big for the ports, and they even gotten too
Speaker 1: big for the supply chain because when you have to
Speaker 1: load a ship eighteen thousand containers, it takes several days
Speaker 1: or weeks. So the merchandise that was prepared and needed
Speaker 1: to be in the showrooms are stored and with consumers
Speaker 1: are sitting at a port for twelve fifteen days to
Speaker 1: be loaded on a ship and then traveling, and they
Speaker 1: travel at a slower pace because of the heavier weight.
Speaker 1: So you are extending the supply chain. Yes, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: and I may add that you know that there was
Speaker 1: a similar thing happening in the airline. Air was three
Speaker 1: eighty double decker with passengers where that plane is had
Speaker 1: its day, It's going to die and there will be
Speaker 1: no more A three eight the same thing. I am
Speaker 1: absolutely glad that you're raising the topic. This the ship's
Speaker 1: approutant too big, Wow, fascinating, statiste. The Gindel, president of
Speaker 1: SG consulting me appreciate your thoughts. There we have the
Speaker 1: os of Facebook, Alphabet and Twitter. They are testifying they
Speaker 1: will testify before Congress today, uh, talking about social privacy,
Speaker 1: data security, and the roles that they may have played
Speaker 1: in the Capital insurrection in January. Let's get a preview
Speaker 1: of what we might hear. Jim Anderson, CEO of Social Flow,
Speaker 1: based in New York City. In full disclosure, social Flow
Speaker 1: is a platform used by Bloomberg for social media purposes. Jim,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us here. Is this gonna
Speaker 1: be just another I guess, uh show by politicians or
Speaker 1: can anything substantive get done at these hearings? Do you think?
Speaker 1: I sure hope something substantificantly get done. I mean, the
Speaker 1: show is, of course part of it. Congressional hearings are
Speaker 1: are part spectacle by design. But I am really curious
Speaker 1: to see whether we can get past that angry shaking
Speaker 1: of this that text CEO phase of things and really
Speaker 1: get into it. And I think what you're gonna see
Speaker 1: here is how much research the staffs of these representatives
Speaker 1: have done. Right. There's a lot of the work required
Speaker 1: to come up with really intelligent and thoughtful questions, and
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll get a signal that they're ready to move
Speaker 1: beyond just talking and shaking their fists and start to
Speaker 1: actually propose the solution. I often get the feeling that
Speaker 1: the staff knows a heck of a lot more than
Speaker 1: the representatives for whom they work, Uh, absolutely right. I
Speaker 1: Mean sometimes I lose my faith in government when I
Speaker 1: watch these things, because it really doesn't seem like these
Speaker 1: elected officials are prepared at all to run a country,
Speaker 1: let alone a hearing um. What what do you think
Speaker 1: needs to be done about Facebook? About Google? I mean,
Speaker 1: these huge platforms certainly have uh some some real dominance,
Speaker 1: you know, bordering on anti trust issues they do. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you can't you mentioned the exact
Speaker 1: right word. I think antitrust really is the foundational issue
Speaker 1: because if you look at what people object to is
Speaker 1: it's primarily around eyes. Right. You know, these big giant
Speaker 1: tech platforms, they're so huge, they're so hard to control.
Speaker 1: I mean, the size honestly is at the root of
Speaker 1: many and many of these complaints, and I think because
Speaker 1: of that, we tend to over emphasize the role of
Speaker 1: the platform and under emphasize the overall political situation. I mean,
Speaker 1: if today's hearing is around misinformation, and obviously the the
Speaker 1: insurrection and the events of the capital on January six
Speaker 1: or are huge, But I mean, do you really think
Speaker 1: that big tech caused that problem? By I don't think
Speaker 1: most people believe tech caused it. They believe they contributed
Speaker 1: to it. They may not believe they responded, you know,
Speaker 1: as effectively as they could have. But I think we
Speaker 1: we just tend to over emphasize what Facebook or Google
Speaker 1: or or Twitter should do because of their sign Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I'm reading Jack Divine's new book. Jack Devine
Speaker 1: was a former senior UH person at the c i
Speaker 1: A back in the Cold War, and he's got a
Speaker 1: new book out talking about UH. You know, how these
Speaker 1: platforms have been used by the Russians to influence the election,
Speaker 1: and how it's a big, big issue. So there's a
Speaker 1: national security aspect to this. Um. If I were in Congress,
Speaker 1: that would be where I would focus. Um, do you
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be? Race has a big issue here today?
Speaker 1: I tend to doubt it because it's such a partisan issue. Remember,
Speaker 1: you know it used to be just as is easy
Speaker 1: to paint Russia as a villain. Is anybody right and
Speaker 1: look at the political situation over the past three four years,
Speaker 1: though Russia was not, you know, the villain. In fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of people would say that Russia is not
Speaker 1: an issue at all. It's all about China. So I there,
Speaker 1: I would agree with you that the national security is
Speaker 1: a huge issue and and any adversary foreign or domestic,
Speaker 1: if you will, is going to use the platforms and
Speaker 1: tools available to them. I think the other thing that
Speaker 1: we need to get into, you know, you've heard and
Speaker 1: talked about this section to thirty reform quite a bit,
Speaker 1: you know, the the idea that platforms are not liable
Speaker 1: for what happens, and that seems morally offensive to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. I'm really really curious now that President
Speaker 1: former President Trump has said he's considering starting his own
Speaker 1: self on network. Section to thirty is the biggest friend
Speaker 1: you can imagine to a start up social network. So
Speaker 1: I'm interested to see whether the Republicans actually go very
Speaker 1: aggressively towards section two thirty. I would be willing to
Speaker 1: guess that we will see a lot less enthusiasm from
Speaker 1: the Republican side of things to talk about section two
Speaker 1: thirty today. That so, I'm really lucky to see how
Speaker 1: that plays out. When you look at former President Trump's influence, Jim,
Speaker 1: has it grown since he left office? Has it subsided?
Speaker 1: What do you see? It has very much subsided. It's funny.
Speaker 1: We do it with something we call the Trump Index
Speaker 1: every single day, where we basically just go and look at, okay,
Speaker 1: what kind of media attention is former President Trump getting?
Speaker 1: And you know, whereas during uh, you know, his presidency
Speaker 1: and be somewhere around a fifty out of a hundred,
Speaker 1: you know, now he's down around of five out of
Speaker 1: a hundred. And that makes sense. We have former presidents typically, um,
Speaker 1: you know, fade from public view. They don't you do things,
Speaker 1: and they they uh, you know, they sort of retire
Speaker 1: from public life. And we're seeing that. I think what
Speaker 1: everybody is thinking about, though, is is he going to
Speaker 1: make a comeback? And and have we heard the last
Speaker 1: of them? And I certainly wouldn't predict it. We've heard
Speaker 1: the last of them, Jim iSER. I guess there's been
Speaker 1: some talk that he may consider starting up a online
Speaker 1: network or maybe a cable network. I mean, what are
Speaker 1: you hearing? Yeah, it's well, I think everybody is is
Speaker 1: speculating about that. I think he is floating trial balloons.
Speaker 1: Part of what's happening is these people are saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's going to start a media company, he's going to
Speaker 1: start a social network, He's going to do this, and
Speaker 1: then let's see the reaction. You know that one of
Speaker 1: the things he really is quite effective at is controlling
Speaker 1: the narrative. You know, we always like to say, you know,
Speaker 1: to the degree he had a superpower, it was not
Speaker 1: the ability to tweet, it was the ability to get
Speaker 1: the media company to cover what he tweeted. So I
Speaker 1: think you're seeing a very carefully orchestrated floating of trial
Speaker 1: balloons about these things and then just sort of see
Speaker 1: what the how well they land with the marketplace, how
Speaker 1: well they resonate. At first it was gonna be he's
Speaker 1: definitely going to create a social network, and then he
Speaker 1: himself said, well, I'm thinking about creating a social network.
Speaker 1: I think the media company. He's fall into the same category.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that he knows what he's going
Speaker 1: to do next, but I would expect to continue to
Speaker 1: see these trial balloons floated. Jim, thanks so much. Great
Speaker 1: to get some time with you. Really fascinating stuff you're doing.
Speaker 1: They're over at Social Flow. Jim Anderson is the CEO.
Speaker 1: All right, let's revisit a story that was very much
Speaker 1: into headlines recently when Walmart said they were getting into
Speaker 1: the financial services business. Remember when they were gonna they are?
Speaker 1: They announced they were starting a thin tech startup in
Speaker 1: the US, and they hired the head of Goldman Sachs
Speaker 1: Consumer Bank to lead it. Let's revisit that story. See
Speaker 1: how it's going. We welcome Sarah Hall's actually covers all
Speaker 1: things retail for Bloomberg Opinion. Sarah, this isn't the first time,
Speaker 1: as I recall, that a big retailer wanted to get
Speaker 1: into the financial services business Testco. I remember the big
Speaker 1: UK retailer tried this a while ago, maybe a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Didn't go so well. What's walmart strategy? Yeah, so Tesco,
Speaker 1: you know, in the wake of the financial crisis, had
Speaker 1: this insight that you know, the trust in big banks
Speaker 1: was not super high, and that um, you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: the affinity and loyalty its customers had for its brands
Speaker 1: would create an opening for them to really disrupt the
Speaker 1: banking sector. And fast forward to today and you know,
Speaker 1: Tesco Banking arm is profitable, but it hasn't exactly let
Speaker 1: the world on fire, right, And so that's kind of
Speaker 1: the cautionary tale for Walmart. Here is canna avoid some
Speaker 1: of those mistakes that Tesco made and can it um
Speaker 1: you know, as opposed to just having this sort of
Speaker 1: nice to have side business, can it really make these
Speaker 1: fintech offerings um really disruptive for the sector and an
Speaker 1: important part of its overall revenue and profit stream. My
Speaker 1: first move would be to higher a big wig banker
Speaker 1: from Goldman Sachs. Did Tesco try that? They They did not,
Speaker 1: And look, I think that showed people how deadly serious
Speaker 1: Walmart is about the initiative, and perhaps people should have
Speaker 1: bread between the lines. That was the case already. UM.
Speaker 1: The fact that when they initially announced the startup, they
Speaker 1: put their us CEO, John Furner and their CFO Brett
Speaker 1: Bigs on the board, clearly they would not devote the
Speaker 1: time of people that seen here in their operation to
Speaker 1: this startup if they didn't see it as utmost importance.
Speaker 1: And I think the gold been higher really announced to
Speaker 1: that in big bowl letters to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: All right, Sarah. So again, Tesco and sainsbury and UK
Speaker 1: tried this what what wrong? Or what maybe didn't go
Speaker 1: as right as they hoped? Yeah? So I think one
Speaker 1: of the big things was they tried to go it alone. Um.
Speaker 1: They after having in the nineties done joint ventures on
Speaker 1: things like credit cards and such, in this post financial
Speaker 1: crisis for a they tried to do it all by themselves.
Speaker 1: And the problem was they got distracted from their core
Speaker 1: grocery operations and all the and legal were able to
Speaker 1: kind of make their way in there and take some
Speaker 1: market here. You can see the clear parallel there to
Speaker 1: Walmart situation. It's in this generational battle with Amazon right
Speaker 1: to defend the business that it's physical stores and play
Speaker 1: offense in e commerce, and if it gets distracted by
Speaker 1: this shiny object of the fintech, that could be problematic.
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's good about how Walmart has
Speaker 1: set this up UM is unlike Testco it's not going
Speaker 1: it alone. It did do this as a joint venture
Speaker 1: with rivet Capital affirm that has extensive the experience backing
Speaker 1: fintech companies and UM. Walmart hasn't said where the new
Speaker 1: startup will be located, but I will wager it's not
Speaker 1: going to be located in Benjainville. It's not going to
Speaker 1: be near the Walmart mother ship. I think it will
Speaker 1: be in New York or Silicon Valley UM, both because
Speaker 1: that will be better for recruiting tech talent, but also
Speaker 1: because I think it does draw this bright line UM
Speaker 1: that makes it harder for uh, you know, the main
Speaker 1: retail team to get distracted. So what's that kind of
Speaker 1: look like? I mean Tesco you pointed out offered credit
Speaker 1: cards and certain banking services to consumers. I know rivet
Speaker 1: um helps people like buy now, pay later or gives
Speaker 1: these installment plans. What what are we going to get
Speaker 1: from Walmart as finance offering? So I would at what
Speaker 1: we're not going to see is physical bank branches. I
Speaker 1: think that's a pretty outmoded way of thinking about banking,
Speaker 1: even though Walmart clearly has such an ability to do
Speaker 1: so with you know, over four thousand stores in the US,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's where they're going to be focused. Um.
Speaker 1: You know Dufo Brett Bigs has said, I think more sophisticated,
Speaker 1: more digital, UM, and so I expect they'll be focused
Speaker 1: on things that you know, you can do on your smartphone.
Speaker 1: And look, you know Walmart's customer base UH is a
Speaker 1: low income consumer UM. Many of them are unbanked or underbanked.
Speaker 1: This is traditionally a segment that has not been well
Speaker 1: served by the established banking industry. And I bet you
Speaker 1: can expect to see products or sort of focus on
Speaker 1: that customers that specific needs. Also, you know, Walmart employees
Speaker 1: over a million people UM, and I can see UH
Speaker 1: trying to make some products that appeals directly to its associates,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, ways to distribute their paychecks or that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Sir. What's the sense of timing here
Speaker 1: for Walmart? Is this? If they laid out any any
Speaker 1: timing parameters here for rolling this out or when it
Speaker 1: might reach scale, they have not. They've been pretty tight
Speaker 1: lipped about it. But look, I think Walmart is urgently
Speaker 1: trying to find our revenue streams and profit streams that
Speaker 1: are not its core retail business. We see this in
Speaker 1: other areas, right. They are trying to build up in
Speaker 1: advertising business as well, um, and they're doing more forays
Speaker 1: into health care services and they're doing that to uh
Speaker 1: they see the model that Amazon has had and they
Speaker 1: they sort of want a piece of that. Amazon. You know,
Speaker 1: its retail business is what it's uh, perhaps most well
Speaker 1: known for, but it's cloud computing services have the a
Speaker 1: core way of boosting profitability, and now it has, through
Speaker 1: its advertising business, yet another really profitable revenue stream. And
Speaker 1: I think Walmart knows that if it wants to continue
Speaker 1: to have rock bottom prices but subsidize free shipping to
Speaker 1: all of our doorsteps in a more e commerce centric world,
Speaker 1: it is going to have to figure out other ways
Speaker 1: to find unlock revenue and profit. And that's what the
Speaker 1: spin tech star up is all about. It's pretty interesting
Speaker 1: that they have, don't They have like a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million people going into Walmart every year, like separate customers.
Speaker 1: That's half of the country every week. I think is
Speaker 1: actually that that figure globally UM And so yes, they
Speaker 1: have an extraordinary amount of data about no loyalty cards.
Speaker 1: There's no um you know, there's no like Starbucks card
Speaker 1: for Walmart. You can't get your tenth coffee free or
Speaker 1: anything exactly exactly, so they don't have And look, that
Speaker 1: was something that UK supermarkets did have rights that traditional
Speaker 1: loyalty cards that you swipe at every purchase UM. So
Speaker 1: Walmart does not. That that's been kind of anesthema to
Speaker 1: their everyday low price model. UM. But they do have
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of data about what you do in stores.
Speaker 1: They have a tremendous amount of data about what you
Speaker 1: do on its website. And they're about to have a
Speaker 1: new uh it's sort of data bit to monetized in
Speaker 1: their Walmart Plus program UM. So this is a new
Speaker 1: thing they've rolled out. It's sort of their answer to
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime. It's a ninety eight dollar a year membership
Speaker 1: where you get free grocery delivery and other things, free shipping,
Speaker 1: no minimum, certain other perks UM. And that will be
Speaker 1: another way to sort of learn about its customers, especially
Speaker 1: it's most loyal customers UM. And that should just be
Speaker 1: yet another bit of data that it can theoretically harnessed
Speaker 1: to figure out what kind of product makes sense for
Speaker 1: its consumer UM and what kind of products they're looking for,
Speaker 1: all right, very interesting stuff. Uh. Sarah wrote this opinion
Speaker 1: piece with Andrea Andrea Felstead. So Sarah hall'za and Andrea
Speaker 1: Felt can be found on Bloomberg Opinion. You just have opie.
Speaker 1: I am go. I wonder how much of Walmart's stuff
Speaker 1: is sitting in the Suez Canal right now. They probably
Speaker 1: have a bunch of stuff. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews
Speaker 1: with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm
Speaker 1: Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller venty three.
Speaker 1: Pet On Fall Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
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