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Speaker 1: Al Kelly, the executive chairman of Visa. As you mentioned out,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Visa is also

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Speaker 1: doubling down with a one billion dollar commitment to transform

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Speaker 1: this continent. Talk about that and why it's so important

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Speaker 1: to you, well.

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Speaker 2: Jennifer, good to be with you.

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Speaker 3: I think this is one of the most exciting places

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Speaker 3: in the world and by twenty fifty youre going to

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Speaker 3: be two point five billion people and it has made

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Speaker 3: so much progress, but yet there's so much opportunity ahead

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Speaker 3: of us, and so we have We're looking to expand

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Speaker 3: our operations here. We're looking to extend the amount of

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Speaker 3: innovation we bring to the marketplace. We want to increase

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Speaker 3: the collaboration that we have with so many different players

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Speaker 3: who play very intricate and important roles here in Africa.

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Speaker 3: Today we're announcing, as part of our investment, a new program,

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Speaker 3: Visa Fintech Accelerator, where we plan to work with forty

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Speaker 3: startups very closely, ultimately probably taking a third of them

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Speaker 3: and actually investing months worth of time and putting some

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Speaker 3: capital behind them. And we will do this for the

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Speaker 3: next five years to try to help bring more players

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Speaker 3: into the ecosystem that will help Africa grow.

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Speaker 1: How do you get around though some of the challenges

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Speaker 1: of the continent, and in particular I'm talking about the

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Speaker 1: reliance on cash and also the informal economy here. I mean,

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Speaker 1: how does that play into what it is that you're

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Speaker 1: trying to do well.

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Speaker 3: Much of the world has actually become much more digital

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Speaker 3: over the course of the last three years. It's probably

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Speaker 3: the silver lining of the pandemic and has happened here

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Speaker 3: in Africa as well. Clearly, Africa is still a heavy

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Speaker 3: cash society, but therein lies the opportunity and governments are

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Speaker 3: playing a very very important role in facilitating and trying

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Speaker 3: to accelerate and set an example relative to digitization. We're

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Speaker 3: doing a lot of projects with governments throughout Africa and

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Speaker 3: I just believe that there's a runway here to digitize

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Speaker 3: Africa at much greater levels over the course of the

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Speaker 3: next decade. And we know through several sources, including the

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Speaker 3: World Bank, that if you can increase digitization, GDP will

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Speaker 3: be boosted along the way.

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Speaker 1: I also want to talk to you about the US,

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Speaker 1: which is of course the headquarters of VISA, and specifically

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Speaker 1: about what we're hearing from a lot of executives that

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Speaker 1: potentially the US could avoid a recession, and that of

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Speaker 1: course plays into what consumers are feeling at this point

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Speaker 1: in time based on the data that VISA has, what's

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Speaker 1: your outlook, I mean, is the US on a better

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Speaker 1: trajectory than maybe we thought earlier.

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Speaker 3: Well, this consumer in the US has been incredibly resilient.

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Speaker 3: In fact, the consumer around the world's been incredibly resilient.

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Speaker 3: When we look at transaction levels, there were one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty percent of what they were in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 3: When we look at e commerce excluding travel, it's one

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Speaker 3: hundred and seventy five percent of twenty nineteen, and.

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Speaker 2: Travel itself is coming back.

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Speaker 3: Cross border travel was one hundred and twenty nine percent

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Speaker 3: of twenty nineteen in December, one hundred and thirty four

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Speaker 3: in March, and one hundred and thirty nine percent last month. Clearly,

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Speaker 3: the consumer is doing some trading down for brands to generics.

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Speaker 3: They're spending though the same amount of more money, but

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Speaker 3: they're obviously spending more on non discretionary I'm sorry, non

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Speaker 3: discretionary items, and therefore some of the discretionary spending it

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Speaker 3: is probably suppressed a little bit, but I believe that.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if we avoid a recession, but we're

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Speaker 3: going to be on the edge. But if we have one,

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Speaker 3: it will be very narrow and very sure, not very deep.

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Speaker 1: So you' and that's your projection for the rest of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three or how long do you think that

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Speaker 1: might last?

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Speaker 3: Well, I think there's nothing on the horizon. I mean,

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Speaker 3: we're really not economists, but there's nothing on the horizon

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Speaker 3: that suggests any real change as we look out as

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Speaker 3: far as we can.

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Speaker 1: And also sticking with the US, I wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about specifically what we're seeing from Senator Dick Durbin. He's

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Speaker 1: really talked about how Visa and your other competitors get

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Speaker 1: a bulk of their revenue from the fees that are

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Speaker 1: charged to consumers and to merchants. He's trying to pass

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Speaker 1: legislation yet again to rein in on that. Are you

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Speaker 1: concerned at all about this for the Visa company?

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, these fees, these interchange fees, are

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Speaker 3: actually fees that go from merchants to the banks. We

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Speaker 3: only set the fees, We're not the recipient of the fees.

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Speaker 3: But I do think the legislation is quite flawed, and

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Speaker 3: particularly at a time like this when we talk about

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Speaker 3: things like the economy, the reality is competition is as

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Speaker 3: good and as robust as it's ever been. I've been

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Speaker 3: in payments for three and a half decades. This legislation

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Speaker 3: will end up reducing the amount of credit available to people,

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Speaker 3: It will take away rewards from consumers, it will potentially

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Speaker 3: increase fraud. There's many, many things that are problematic about

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Speaker 3: this bill. And if we look back and look at

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Speaker 3: the history in twenty ten, when Durbin went in on

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Speaker 3: debit cards, there was great promise of how great it

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Speaker 3: was going to be for the consumer.

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Speaker 2: But what happened the consumer.

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Speaker 3: Loss rewards on debit cards, free checking went away, and

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Speaker 3: the promise that merchants would pass along or any kind

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Speaker 3: of savings directly to consumers never bore itself out. So

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Speaker 3: we have an absolute air tight history case to look

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Speaker 3: at to say that this legislation is not ultimately very

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Speaker 3: very bad for consumers, and I actually don't think very

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Speaker 3: good for merchants.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it will fail then or do you

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Speaker 1: think he might be successful the secondary.

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Speaker 2: You know, I can't predict these things.

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Speaker 3: I can tell you that we will work hard at

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Speaker 3: making sure that we get the message out throughout the

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Speaker 3: House and the Senate as to our feelings on the bill.

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Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of Senators and House members

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Speaker 3: who sympathize with a lot of the arguments that I

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Speaker 3: just made. The Merchant Coalition tends to be quite organized. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: the consumers in the US don't necessarily know much about

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Speaker 3: this legislation, and therefore they're unaware. But I can tell you,

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Speaker 3: as I've said to many of them, if you have

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Speaker 3: a town hall with your folks and say would you

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Speaker 3: like less credit and less rewards and potentially more fraud,

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Speaker 3: You're not going to get a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: Cheering and putting their hands up.

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Speaker 3: So I think it's part of my job is to

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Speaker 3: make sure I'm not only representing the industry, but I'm

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Speaker 3: representing the consumers in the United States.

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Speaker 2: But we don't take anything for granted.

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Speaker 3: We'll work hard at making sure that our views relative

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Speaker 3: to this act are well expressed and had frequently expressed.

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Speaker 1: And let's just finish back on Africa's insistance. That is

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Speaker 1: where we are and what we're talking about here today.

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Speaker 1: What is your projection for the future African consumer, especially

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Speaker 1: as it pertains to what it is that you are

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Speaker 1: trying to do with Visa.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think so much of this comes down to

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Speaker 3: continuing to grow out the infrastructure, continue to have more

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Speaker 3: Africans have access to financial vehicles and financial and being

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Speaker 3: the financial mainstream, and then education is obviously very critical.

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Speaker 2: I think if we look at the progress that's.

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Speaker 3: Been made here in the last ten years, people have

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Speaker 3: access to the Internet has gone from nine percent to

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Speaker 3: forty percent. We project that there'll be six hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty million smartphones by the end of twenty five. Yet

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Speaker 3: as much progress as has been made so citing that

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Speaker 3: Internet statistic, the reality is that the average country in

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Speaker 3: the world is at sixty two and a half percent

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Speaker 3: of people with internet access.

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Speaker 2: So I look at this as a nation that has

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Speaker 2: already proven or a fifty four nation.

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Speaker 3: It's a continent into fifty four nations that has already

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Speaker 3: proven that they can make great progress. And but that said,

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Speaker 3: I think there's even more to come than has happened

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Speaker 3: to date, and that's the reason why we're here and

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Speaker 3: why we're so excited about the continent.

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Speaker 1: Al Kelly, Executive Chairman a Visa, Al thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: For being here in Marrakesh with us,