Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders
Speaker 1: stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends
Speaker 1: shaping today's complex economy, plus global business finance and tech
Speaker 1: news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Last month, shares a Pioneer Global Film more than thirteen
Speaker 2: percent after the fintech firm with drewist guidance for the year,
Speaker 2: citing on certain macro conditions. The company also reported adjusted
Speaker 2: IBITA for the first quarter tim that beat alist expectations.
Speaker 3: John Kaplan is the CEO and director at Pioneer. It's
Speaker 3: got a roughly two point four billion dollar market cap,
Speaker 3: shares down about thirty three percent so far this year.
Speaker 3: He joins US now from our Chicago bureau. John, Welcome
Speaker 3: to Bloomberg Business Week Daily. I'm curious how you see
Speaker 3: conditions out there. Are macro conditions more or less certain
Speaker 3: now than they were a month ago when you pulled
Speaker 3: your guidance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's great to be here, and I think that's
Speaker 4: a really important question as it relates to the global
Speaker 4: trade environment, we have not seen a pullback in US consumers.
Speaker 4: I'd also say that as the trade relationships between China
Speaker 4: and the US and the US and other countries gets resolved,
Speaker 4: that will lift uncertainty. But we still are existing in
Speaker 4: an uncertain environment, and we are seeing our customers entrepreneurs
Speaker 4: around the globe who do business cross border increasing their
Speaker 4: focus on globalizing their business. A pioneer, forty percent of
Speaker 4: our revenue is businesses doing business with one another that
Speaker 4: never touches the United States, fifteen percent of our revenue
Speaker 4: is customers in China exporting to countries around the globe,
Speaker 4: not including the US, And twenty percent of our revenue
Speaker 4: comes from China based entrepreneurs who are selling high quality,
Speaker 4: low cost consumer goods to US consumers. And as you know,
Speaker 4: the US consumer is forty three percent of the world's
Speaker 4: consumer consumption and seventy percent of the US economy is
Speaker 4: driven by the US consumer. So it's super important that
Speaker 4: US consumers are healthy, that they're spending money and getting
Speaker 4: the products that they want.
Speaker 3: Why So, if you think about where you are now
Speaker 3: and given what you just told us, John, do you
Speaker 3: stand by the decision to pull the guidance about a
Speaker 3: month ago, was that the right move.
Speaker 4: It absolutely was. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 4: we do a pioneer is we are building the firm
Speaker 4: for long term growth, and in doing that, it's establishing
Speaker 4: a trusted relationship with our shareholders and helping them understand
Speaker 4: exactly what we see. So at the time of our
Speaker 4: May seventh earnings announcement, the tariffs were still one hundred
Speaker 4: and forty five percent, effectively an embargo between China and
Speaker 4: the United States, as Secretary Besson had described it, and
Speaker 4: so it was important at that time to not play
Speaker 4: chicken with the US administration or with the market about
Speaker 4: how trade would resolve, which is call balls and strikes,
Speaker 4: And at the time it was prudent and responsible to
Speaker 4: give our shareholders exactly the guidance we did, and we
Speaker 4: feel comfortable about it.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you have better visibility today?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: You know what we said at earnings was that our
Speaker 4: Q two results we anticipated would look very similar to
Speaker 4: our Q one results, and I can reaffirm that message here.
Speaker 4: I'm hopeful that the politicians around the world will meet
Speaker 4: with one another resolve their structural issues because I know
Speaker 4: the entrepreneurs around the world want to continue to do
Speaker 4: business with one another.
Speaker 2: Is it really because of the strain between US and
Speaker 2: China specifically, or is it more than that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for our business, you know, really our emphasis as
Speaker 4: we looked at guidance was primarily related to the US
Speaker 4: and China. But it's important what you just mentioned, which is,
Speaker 4: you know, at the time there was a pause and
Speaker 4: a reduction in the in the tariffs as it relates
Speaker 4: to countries like Vietnam and elsewhere those are anticipated to.
Speaker 4: That pause was ninety days mid July. That ends and
Speaker 4: we're hopeful to see resolution, but we got to wait
Speaker 4: and see. One thing about our customers that we've seen
Speaker 4: is they are you know, on the front foot growing
Speaker 4: their business exporting goods and services around the world. You know,
Speaker 4: we have customers in one hundred and ninety countries and territories.
Speaker 4: We have you know, really broad broad business in terms
Speaker 4: of industries, geographies, size, and sort of category. So when
Speaker 4: we look at our customers, we feel very confident and
Speaker 4: about what the long term future looks like for payoneer
Speaker 4: and in fact see value at these levels.
Speaker 3: Well, can you tell us about how you're looking at
Speaker 3: stable coins and what you do right now with stable coins.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I'm glad you asked the question because
Speaker 4: the paying your customers hold seven billion dollars of funds
Speaker 4: in their payoneer account. The pain aer account is one
Speaker 4: hundred percent of an entrepreneur's cross border accounts receivable and
Speaker 4: accounts payable, and we view the momentum and energy around
Speaker 4: stable coins as confirmation of the innovation that's going to
Speaker 4: come in cross border trade.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 4: We have not made any significant announcements as of yet
Speaker 4: of where we'll go with stable coins. I think rest
Speaker 4: assured you read lots about Circle and Ripple and other folks.
Speaker 4: I think they envy the distribution we have, the brand,
Speaker 4: we've built, our last mile relationships, our network of licenses.
Speaker 4: We feel well positioned to bring the hype into the
Speaker 4: reality cycle and drive adoption. We choose to sort of
Speaker 4: put our foot on the gas there.
Speaker 3: So are you working on a stable coin?
Speaker 4: I'm not going to share yet here today what our
Speaker 4: plans are, but we're very focused on providing solutions for
Speaker 4: customers in partnership with others to enable our customers to
Speaker 4: move funds around the world in a fast, effective inexpensive way.
Speaker 3: How would it make it faster and less expensive if
Speaker 3: you were to have a stable coind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in some ways, pay your account functions as the
Speaker 4: promise of the of the new currencies and new technology. Today,
Speaker 4: customers use payoneer to send an invoice to their business
Speaker 4: customers around the globe. They get paid. They get paid
Speaker 4: practically instantly today. So I don't think it will largely
Speaker 4: change the speed, although we may pick up seconds here
Speaker 4: or there. What likely it'll give us is more diversity,
Speaker 4: and that diversity is something we think pockets of the
Speaker 4: globe are excited about. Argentina and freelancers in Argentina, for example,
Speaker 4: excited about some of that innovation. We have the ability
Speaker 4: to drive its penetration.
Speaker 2: And that's what I was going to kind of ask
Speaker 2: you what particular regions would this be the most useful
Speaker 2: and if you count is it Argentina, is it elsewhere? Yeah.
Speaker 4: So we do see you know, adoption, you know, quality
Speaker 4: adoption occurring in Latin American in some pockets. We see
Speaker 4: quality adoption and interest occurring in APAC in some regions.
Speaker 4: But it is you know, the hype cycle is pretty
Speaker 4: intense right now. We're very focused on the practical applications
Speaker 4: of helping two million active customers eighty billion dollars of
Speaker 4: funds transacted across the pay in Aer platform in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four. We are, you know, a big platform helping
Speaker 4: cross border SMBs, and they are diverse and have different
Speaker 4: needs depending on just what country they're in, what use
Speaker 4: case they're deploying against.
Speaker 2: All right, super appreciate it, John, Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: John Kaplan. He is Chief executive officer director at Pioneer,
Speaker 2: joining us from our news bureau in Chicago,