Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sure.
Speaker 3: A report from a little known firm called Tatrini Research
Speaker 3: sent shockwaves across multiple sectors this week, outlining scenarios in
Speaker 3: which AI agents remove all friction in the economy. Among
Speaker 3: the scenarios, AI agents seek to save users by eliminating
Speaker 3: transaction fees charged by payment processing firms like MasterCard and Visa.
Speaker 3: Let's get insight on how one executive is navigating potential
Speaker 3: risks from AI. Sephanie Feris joins us at the desk.
Speaker 3: She CEO of Fis, a fintech that helps banks, merchants,
Speaker 3: and capital market firms process payments globally. Stephanie, so great
Speaker 3: to have you for It's been a very fun week
Speaker 3: for you two with everything.
Speaker 2: That's going on.
Speaker 3: And look, of course your revenues don't come from interchange
Speaker 3: fees directly, but of course a lot.
Speaker 2: Of your customers grapple with this.
Speaker 3: How were you thinking about the likelihood that this could
Speaker 3: be the future that the payments world and processing were
Speaker 3: and interchange fees completely gets disrupted by AI.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a great question and it's certainly to hot
Speaker 1: topic of the day. Pulling way out I think if
Speaker 1: we think about FIS, we're the largest financial technology firm
Speaker 1: that serves financial services broadly, we see more money that
Speaker 1: goes across our entire money life cycle. We support like
Speaker 1: twelve percent of the world's economy uses our technology, so
Speaker 1: we have a great purview in terms of what's happening.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing to note that's important as
Speaker 1: we tackle this question is why we're so excited about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six and beyond and so optimistic And I'll
Speaker 1: bring it back to AI. But financial services in itself
Speaker 1: is growth on. We are really seeing a generational moment here.
Speaker 1: So you think about the banking industry and where it
Speaker 1: sits today in terms of its ability to have less
Speaker 1: regulatory be able to grow organically or inorganically fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollars worth of M and A transactions last year, be
Speaker 1: able to innovate inside the financial services industry with crypto
Speaker 1: and tokenized deposits. So financial services as a set, which
Speaker 1: payments is part of that has a real growth on agenda.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there's a tectonic shift happening in technology,
Speaker 1: which is AI. So you put those two things together
Speaker 1: and for me, it's a generational moment. So when I
Speaker 1: think about financial services including payments, you put those two
Speaker 1: trends together and it's pretty exciting, especially for FIS because
Speaker 1: we serve that industry now with respect to AI, which
Speaker 1: seems to be the topic of the day, and I
Speaker 1: certainly also read the report. Look, I think what you're
Speaker 1: going to hear from many CEOs that we are eternal optimists,
Speaker 1: so we believe in technology, and as CEO of a
Speaker 1: technology company, we think innovations and technology like this are
Speaker 1: really good. We also have survived them over many, many decades,
Speaker 1: and so when you think about it from an FIS standpoint,
Speaker 1: we process transactions and run technology for systems of record.
Speaker 1: They're multi decade system and they're AI enablers. So we
Speaker 1: don't see a world where we're disrupted by AI. We
Speaker 1: actually see a world where AI is a strategic accelerant.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what you're going to hear from
Speaker 1: a lot of us that run technology across the financial
Speaker 1: services industry. What you need to have AI capabilities is
Speaker 1: a fantastic data and data mote and data strategy, and
Speaker 1: that's what we have. We have more data at FIS
Speaker 1: than anyone in the financial services industry. We have over
Speaker 1: a billion cardholder accounts on file, we process seventy three
Speaker 1: billion transactions. We see over nine hundred million bank accounts
Speaker 1: on file, and so when we are talking to our
Speaker 1: customers about AI, it's about how do we help them
Speaker 1: use their data?
Speaker 2: How do we help them get to their data?
Speaker 1: How do we help them build AI agents on top
Speaker 1: of that data. So for us, we see it as
Speaker 1: an accelerant.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about this when I read this a
Speaker 4: trainee piece. He obviously brings up crypto with his reference
Speaker 4: to Ether and Solana as maybe payment rail with less friction.
Speaker 4: And you've seen this before right in your career. You
Speaker 4: were at Fifth Third dealing with payment processing, then at
Speaker 4: PwC before. So AI is just another I mean maybe
Speaker 4: it's generational, right, but you've seen generational shifts with bitcoin
Speaker 4: in two thousand and nine and with the Internet in
Speaker 4: the late nineties. So do you adopt those technologies and
Speaker 4: then use them to do a better job serving your
Speaker 4: clients or do you worry that they will put you
Speaker 4: out of business?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we know absolutely have to adopt them right
Speaker 1: our job in terms of payment capabilities, and you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: Whether it's a check, acch WY or real time payments,
Speaker 1: crypto tookenized deposits. Our job as the technology provider is
Speaker 1: to make those capabilities available to everyone on our financial institutions.
Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that we innovate so
Speaker 1: that they can provide those capabilities. If their clients wants
Speaker 1: to use Crypto, they need to be able to use Crypto,
Speaker 1: If they want to use Circle, if they want to
Speaker 1: use a tokenized.
Speaker 2: Deposit, you have to have that capability.
Speaker 1: The great news is we have all and the good
Speaker 1: news is we're not seeing any of the other things
Speaker 1: go away. It's an and to your point, right, it hasn't.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen ACH go away. We haven't seen branches
Speaker 1: go away. We haven't seen ATMs go away. It's an and,
Speaker 1: so for us, it's an and. Now when you think
Speaker 1: about a technology company ourselves, the thing that I'm most
Speaker 1: focused on as a CEO is making sure that I
Speaker 1: enable my entire fifty five thousand people to be not
Speaker 1: only AI literate, but AI strength and strong. So we're
Speaker 1: investing four times in AI capabilities, both in terms of
Speaker 1: MATT like you talked about, to deliver to our our
Speaker 1: customers the products, but also to make sure that our
Speaker 1: technologists are the best in the industry in terms of
Speaker 1: how to use this technology.
Speaker 2: It's like putting a computer on your desk.
Speaker 1: I talk to them all the time about well most
Speaker 1: of them don't even remember, but remember when you had
Speaker 1: a desk and you did paperwork, and then the next
Speaker 1: day you had a desk and you had a computer.
Speaker 1: No one taught you how to use it. You powered
Speaker 1: it on and figured it out. And so that's how
Speaker 1: we're thinking about it. We're making a lot of investment
Speaker 1: in our colleagues to make sure that we keep them
Speaker 1: upskilled and that they can actually be cutting front end
Speaker 1: As a technology how.
Speaker 3: Are you thinking about that growth of your talent, Because
Speaker 3: there's one theory you added more AI, less people, and
Speaker 3: the other one, which maybe is more interesting. If AI
Speaker 3: can do more and can produce more code, you need
Speaker 3: more people to oversee that code.
Speaker 2: How are you thinking.
Speaker 3: About things like headcount as you add technology to what
Speaker 3: people are already doing at FIS.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question. We get it all the time.
Speaker 1: For me, it's most important as a technology company CEO.
Speaker 1: I need everyone in my company to be using the
Speaker 1: most cutting edge technology, whether we're using it to deliver
Speaker 1: for our products or we're using it internally for ourselves.
Speaker 1: I put it in every single person's hands. Everybody has
Speaker 1: digital capabilities and digital agent capabilities. Now the challenge it
Speaker 1: and then we give a lot of learning, but you
Speaker 1: have to have.
Speaker 2: A natural curiosity to want to do it.
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about my dad who lost his
Speaker 1: job in the nineties and didn't have a didn't know
Speaker 1: how to.
Speaker 2: Work on a computer.
Speaker 1: I came into my care in the nineties and I
Speaker 1: had a computer. I never knew how to not work
Speaker 1: with a computer. He never knew how to work with
Speaker 1: a computer. So that's really where we are in terms
Speaker 1: of AI. You have to need, you have to want
Speaker 1: to learn how to do it. And it's my job
Speaker 1: as a CEO to make sure that I put the
Speaker 1: tools in your hands and I encourage you to do it,
Speaker 1: and then it's really up to you to make sure
Speaker 1: that you embrace it.
Speaker 4: One of the things you need at FIS is obviously
Speaker 4: for consumers to keep powering this economy for sure, right
Speaker 4: and you know, never count the American consumer out is
Speaker 4: something that I've been hearing for twenty five years but
Speaker 4: the alarm, part of the alarm that the treaty piece
Speaker 4: raised is that the white collar jobs are the ones
Speaker 4: that are going to be lost now they're the ones
Speaker 4: that power the bulk of the spending. How much do
Speaker 4: you worry about that? You've got to think about it.
Speaker 4: It's so big picture and it's so kind of nebulous,
Speaker 4: but it would be a concern, right if if the
Speaker 4: top ten percent were reduced in terms of workforce.
Speaker 1: Yes, and no. So you're absolutely right. So first of all,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I never count count the US
Speaker 1: consumer out, and in fact, because of the large data
Speaker 1: that we see, not only are financial services and banks
Speaker 1: booming globally, but the consumer continues to remain healthy. I
Speaker 1: think you just talked about that on your previous piece.
Speaker 1: We're not seeing signs that a consumer is under stress
Speaker 1: or duress. So that's good, and I do think I
Speaker 1: agree that you sell me that.
Speaker 4: Bears repeating because you have a great viewpoint to judge this.
Speaker 4: You're not seeing signs that the consumer is under stress.
Speaker 2: No, we're not.
Speaker 1: The consumer remains healthy, banks remain healthy, financial services remains healthy,
Speaker 1: and is growth on. I think that's really and that
Speaker 1: is true globally. I think that's really important to reinforce
Speaker 1: and it's also why we as fis serving that that sector,
Speaker 1: feel so good about what's going to happen for our company.
Speaker 1: But also I think it's important to know we aren't
Speaker 1: seeing any signs of that yet. So in terms of
Speaker 1: then how to think about the you know, worker like
Speaker 1: frankly like myself that are older and need to adopt
Speaker 1: new technologies're not older. Oh, thank you, thank you so much. Look,
Speaker 1: I think it's this is my point where I tell
Speaker 1: the story about my dad, and I talk by the
Speaker 1: way everybody tell everybody.
Speaker 2: It's a great ending. He retired.
Speaker 1: He couldn't figure out how to do save or save
Speaker 1: as on the computer, but my mom could and he
Speaker 1: was very happy.
Speaker 2: So it's a happy story.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's a incumbent, and I talk
Speaker 1: to my teams about it a lot. I'm not worried
Speaker 1: about the younger workers. My daughter's about to graduate and
Speaker 1: come into the workforce.
Speaker 2: She needs to get a job.
Speaker 1: She will know how to use AI, just like I
Speaker 1: figured out how to use a computer. It's really incommon
Speaker 1: upon me, as the CEO of the technology company to
Speaker 1: put that in everybody's hands.
Speaker 2: Do I worry about it? I yes and no.
Speaker 1: But we need to make sure that we're giving everybody
Speaker 1: an equal opportunity to get after it. The Citron research story,
Speaker 1: as I told you about it before we came on,
Speaker 1: it was super depressing. And then I woke up the
Speaker 1: next morning and I was, you know, again going back
Speaker 1: to my optimistic point as a CEO markets two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's too much to take, and so I think we're all.
Speaker 2: Going to be just fine. Stephanie. This has been so amazing.
Speaker 2: We could have you on for another hour.
Speaker 3: I also think, by the way, part of this conversation
Speaker 3: is why it's important that like schools are teaching AI
Speaker 3: and they're not resisting against it.
Speaker 2: Stephanie, please please come back again. This is so wonderful.
Speaker 4: Are you actually from the great state of Ohio?
Speaker 2: I am all right. That's that's why.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, we're God.
Speaker 2: You and I have a connection there, don't we.
Speaker 4: In that I used to go to parties at Miami.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and miamis oh I have basketball. I have to
Speaker 2: mention out. Great job, go red HAWX. I love this, Stephanie,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Again. That's Stephanie Ferris. The CEO
Speaker 2: of FIS,