Trust as Infrastructure: Innovation, AI, and the Future of Payments

Welcome back to Practical Product Management, the podcast where we talk about product management and how it's done in context. There's lots of really good books, lots of really great theory out there, but you can't do everything by the book. It has to happen based on what season, what team, what resources, what you do in your, in your company, in context. So we're going to have a chat today with Ryan. Super happy to have you here. And we'd love to have you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Hi everyone. Ryan Dew. I am the CPO at Thred. Thred is a global issuing processor based in London. I've been in the industry now for the better part of two decades, having similar posts at a couple of other stops. In the issuing processing space. So I've been working in banking and payments for quite some time. Super happy to join you guys and have a conversation. I love it. This is going to be a fun one because we've all been in this industry, but we've all been in other industries. So it's kind of fun to see the differences between regulated industries versus less regulated. I don't want to say unregulated, but less regulated industries. Ryan, your role seems to include a lot of innovation. And I know that innovation means different things to different people. It means different things to different job families and it means different things to different industries. Why don't you talk a little bit about how you're approaching innovation, what you're seeing working, and what do you think of sort of like the rise of some of the new tooling? Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Marilyn. So, you know, at Thred and really at global issuing processors, innovation is kind of a slow burn, right? So what you see operating in the banking and payments space, there's a lot of guardrails that need to be in place before people can just run into whatever new product or feature they're looking to build. So, and that changes country to country. So there's not a global regulatory framework per se that makes innovating and changing sort of what you're doing in the UK, as an example, different than how you would go to market in APAC or Latin America or certainly the United States. So what we typically do is we try to find a use case, a client use case for a particular type of product or service that we're working on. So we like to, we like to, to do MVPs or, you know, pilot client launches that allow us to kind of get it right. So, so what we'll do is we'll find a customer that has a need that we're trying to fix or solve that we're trying to, to make. We will work with them and kind of understand sort of where they plan to go to market, how they plan to go to market. You know, is this a B2B or is it a B2C type of use case? And okay, what are the applicable regulations that apply there? And we actually have a whole team that focuses on kind of diving deep and and understanding sort of the framework for whatever product or service we're trying to launch. And then what we do is we start with the guardrails. So we build the guardrails around the product or service offering. That way, you know, it not only keeps us out of trouble, but it helps our customers gain that trust and feel protected from our platform. So those are kind of the first things that that we do. And then I think what's interesting is, you know, that was, that was sort of like just kind of the default of how we do things. But as you start to see some of the new technologies and innovations in the payment space, specifically around kind of sort of AI and agentic commerce, kind of trust as a service has become a thing. So you kind of need to, you gotta, you kind of need to build the trust into the product offering so that the customers feel that they can leverage a new tool without feeling like that there's a risk of something going dramatically wrong. So it's funny because, you know, just what we had built as part of our muscle memory has become kind of a key pillar for all of the new innovation that's coming out of the financial services sector. It's interesting as you say that, like for so many years in the payment space, we I felt like we sort of argued against like, it's just a commodity, it's just a commodity, it's just a commodity, it's just a commodity. Like everything is a little basis point, you're in a little piece, you get a little— but it's easy to sort of imagine that in a space where you take a payment and then just slice it up into all the pieces and parts of who participates, that, oh, trust doesn't matter. But it's so critical, like, because this is people's financial health. I mean, I think there's probably nothing other than maybe our physical health that people take more seriously. Right. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, yeah, sorry, go ahead, Marilyn. No, no, go ahead. No, it's just funny because I think the thing that you see in our space, in our industry more than anything is, you know, the speed, right? So everyone's looking for a way to move money faster, a way to cycle quick, quicker, you know, innovation and launch new products quickly. And often with speed, there's inherent risk, right? So moving fast is not, not always, you know, the best way, especially from a product development standpoint. But, but certainly once you get a product launch, it's all about how does that product kind of respond at scale in, in a way that is, that allows customers to do what they need to do quickly. So sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, Marilyn. Please feel free. No, no, not at all. Not at all. I just— so I mean, you know, Leah's got a deep and wide background with payments. You have a deep and wide background with payments. I've been in payments in a couple places, and it's funny because if you haven't spent any time in payments, you kind of think like, well, how hard can it be? Like, how many, like, how many, how many people need to be involved? It's one of those things that there's a lot of people involved in the process, and oh, by the way, you better not screw it up. And you cannot test and learn your way into it in a really reckless way. You have to be able to innovate responsibly. And in the best case, it just feels like magic and simple and easy, and no one really notices that you've done your job. And in the worst case, you do something really bad with people's money and they hate you. And there's— it's like teeth. Teeth are binary. They're either— you either don't feel them or like it's the worst pain in the world. That is kind of payments. Payments are like teeth. I've decided. I thought you meant like when you're getting bitten, but you mean like in your mouth. You either don't see it, you either don't notice it at all, or it's like the worst pain in the world. Well, it's like— I just let you answer, Ryan, but the one thing I would say is anybody who thinks it's simple, define what Ryan means by issuer processor, and then we'll let you know if you— like, everybody thinks they know what stuff means, and then you're like, oh yeah, oh, I was wrong. Yeah, no, I mean, it's— go ahead. Yeah, no, it's so true. It's so true. I mean, it's funny because, like, we— and I think we all probably fall into this to a certain degree— is that, you know, we, we take for granted some of the kind kind of the key industry norms in the payment space. So, you know, how an ISO message runs and, you know, what's in field 48 and, you know, some of these things that just people just kind of that have been doing this for a while really take for granted. But what I think is, what is interesting is the way that value's delivered has evolved. So it's not this batch process that we've seen in the past. It's not this, kind of timed cadence of events that take place through the lifecycle of a payment flow, things are happening in real time, right? So with the onset of APIs over the last 10, 15, 20 years, and now with some of the key innovations around sort of, you know, if you look at stablecoin as an example, as a rail, right? You're starting to see the actual foundational layer of payments and banking get disrupted. And that's amazing. And it's also very scary because as we all know, you know, things can go wrong. And when they go wrong in payments and banking, you know, money ends up in the wrong place. So it's super important that there's a standard, there's a framework, and that people kind of are taking it seriously and following the rules. Yeah, no, it's true. And I think that those— I think for many years when we innovated in payments, we were like, well, we can do a lot of stuff as long as we don't touch these, you know, the issuer's rails, as long as we don't break the DOS machine running, you know, Tesis acquiring and FDR and all these kind, you know, the ACH models and all those things, as long as we don't— in the US specifically. As long as we don't touch any of those and those stay steady and stable and we don't mess with them too much. And it's like, those things were always gonna get old, and we were always gonna— they were always gonna get slow. That was true 15 years ago, and it's true today. So, and so now we're in this stage of like, even old dogs who've done this a long time are like, okay, how are we gonna do this without breaking everything? And still be safe, right? Because you are still— I think we— it's easy to be like, oh, payments and fintech is like, oh, just making sure people can pay for stuff. Yeah. Also, you're securing their actual financial health. Yeah. Because if somebody gets in there, they could be done, right? And their money is gone and you can't get it back. Right. Right. Ones and zeros. It's So we've just spent the last few minutes terrifying anybody that's a product manager and telling them that they're never going to be able to innovate in payments, which is not true. Because to your point, these processes were always going to get old. So maybe let's like flip the coin, because this is— to me, um, to me these are just constraints, and I love a good constraint because like when you're trying to develop the magical future Like, but you have to help people think broader and bigger than the constraint, but within the boundaries of the rails. Like, but being secure, but like, but being right, but not sending someone's money to someone else. Um, so, and you both, I know, have done a really good job of bringing these things in. I mean, Leah, you and I got to sit back and rethink everything because a transaction couldn't take more than 2 or 3 seconds. Um, let's talk a little bit about how you see innovation and disruption in product managers fintech and what are some of the joys and tools that you both find and use in this space? Leah, do you want to jump in first or you want me to go? Go ahead. You go ahead. Yeah. Okay, cool. So I think just as a product manager, just taking the term product manager, I think there's a redefining of what that means. And it's not just in fintech, frankly. I know we're talking about kind of fintech and financial services on this, on this podcast, but certainly the role of the product manager has evolved, right? So you start to see kind of what I, what I kind of call the full-stack product builder. And, and, and instead of, you know, you have your kind of your group that writes the business requirements and then you hand it over to technology to actually build. There's an expectation now that as those lines get blurred, that the product manager is going to kind of be able to, you know, help build a prototype or kind of a working model that they can collaborate with the technology team on, which is, you know, very different than it was a few years back even. But what's really cool about that is it takes kind of what I call the kind of the drudgery out of product management because you're not focusing on kind of moving tickets and, and workflow management and that kind of stuff. And you don't have to be an SQL query wizard to kind of use some of these newer tools, you know, like some of the natural language tooling that's out there to actually get at key analysis that you need to help inform your product development. So it's, it's, it's actually, it's, it's collapsing the value chain and sort of there's a hybrid approach to new product development that is pretty exciting because on one hand it allows you, if you're non-technical, to be a little more technical leaning and kind of get in there and build some rapid prototyping for whatever product or service you're building. But it also, the tooling frees you up to kind of focus on the analysis, focus on the product market fit And really, it allows you to get to an outcome-based approach much more quickly. As a result, I will say that, you know, people are expecting more. There's less test and learning going on. There's an expectation that when you get to market with products, often, you know, those products are going to land properly because you've done everything sort of upfront and done the research needed to hopefully guarantee that that product or service is going to be successful. So there's all kinds of tools. Every day there's a new tool. I think you asked about what tools are we using. It depends on what you're doing and sort of what step in the product development process you're in. And because, you know, not all tools are created equally. So if you're talking sort of rapid prototyping, we've used Lovable here. If you're looking at kind of market research tooling. We use Google Gemini. Marilyn and I were talking about this offline. I love Gemini. I think it's a great tool. And I like it actually better than ChatGPT for certain things. Wow. Google, send Ryan a t-shirt. Yeah, send me a t-shirt. Woo! But yeah, no, there's a lot of new tools popping up and it's really just finding the one that fits the the, the part of the flow you're working on or where you are in the product development lifecycle best. I think, I think it's interesting. I think that like when you're— as you're talking, I'm thinking like what is interesting and maybe has always been interesting about the job of a product manager in this space is that you can be as kind of wide as you want depending on what you want to own, or you can be really niche and like, I'm gonna attack this problem But no matter what you do, whether you're super wide or you just have this really, you know, interesting scope that you're trying to solve for, you have to understand the context. There's not a lot of room to be like, "Well, I don't really know how that works, and I don't know how that works." And there is the thing about this space is that for most transactions, there is a structure that is well documented because it has to run across some fairly significant rails and make multiple hops and do different things and have a this is a synchronous response, this is an async response, and these, all these things have to happen. So there is a structure that you can follow, but within that structure, sky's kind of the limit. As long as you send the right messages to the right people for the right things, you can really innovate. And if I think, you know, if I go all the way back to when I started, I remember, like, I, I always talk about this, Marilyn, I've talked about this before, partly because it's somewhat why we ended up working together, but I worked at a company that was a startup that was a gateway who was the very first gateway that Square ran their transactions across before they went direct to Chase. And the thing that was fascinating about that is that they just were like, we need a solution that'll work at a trade show. Can we build this on the weekend? And those guys sat in a room, built some shit, and created a whole thing on their phone that they could do to take payments at a trade show. And that was— but because it was within the construct of we send the right messages to the right people to move money from point A to point B, it worked. Yeah, and it was legal and it was safe, and, you know, and there was plenty of things that needed to be improved about it. There was no dongle at the time, there was no way to swipe, there was no, you know, but— and now we wouldn't even consider thinking about that, right? Like the things that— that, that was— but that was That was clearly innovation within the structure. I think sometimes we think we have to break all the structures apart in order to innovate. Sometimes the box that you have is like, this is the safe space, now do whatever the hell you want. And I think that's where, if you are a product manager, take your brain and say, this is the piece I'm not going to try to change necessarily, but man, what could I do differently here that creates a different experience for my customer. Does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. And I think it sort of leads into that. In highly regulated industries, there are things— I like to tell people there are things that are like, you know, you're working with live electricity, so you need to be very careful, you need to be very methodical. There are other places in the same ecosystem that are kind of like painting your office, like, go ahead, try some different colors, like, no one cares. Well, people will have an opinion, but it's less of a one-way door. And you should know where are you working with the electricity and where are you just painting the walls, and then take the innovation and the risk where the danger's lower. But you both said something that's really interesting that I kind of want to pull back to, is that in every case, you're deeply understanding a customer's pain so you can solve a customer's pain point. I need to take payments on a trade show floor. I don't really care how, and I'm not like innovating the rails. I need to lower my cost of payments because it's cost prohibitive. Like, you know, I need to be able to take an in-person transaction when I've only done batch and online. Like that focus on what does the end user— because I mean, you know, Ryan, you guys are largely a B2B, but my friend, you really serve a person, right? That human that's trying to make sure that money gets from one place to another. And so that really deep understanding of the human in context, what are they hoping to see, what do they need to feel, and what, what are their behaviors in those moments? If you got that, the rest of this is kind of a little more, you know, piece it together in interesting ways and make, make magic happen. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's funny because I, as you, as you guys were both talking, I was thinking, you know, we think at Thread, we refer to us often We refer to ourselves sort of as plumbing, right? We're the plumbing for the payments ecosystem and kind of plumbing just works, right? It just kind of gets it. It just— Awesome. Yeah. But when it doesn't, boy, it can go bad. So part of what we do is make sure that we have those pipes not clogged and make sure that we have the proper kind of, you know, sealing on either end so that it's not leaking at all because it's the leaks and it's the death by a thousand cuts that we always see when a problem pops up. You know, it can just— it compounds and gets worse before it gets better. So we go out of our way to really, really, really try to put that piping together properly. And to Marilyn's point, we are a B2B company. Often, we, you know, our customers are the program managers or are the fintechs that are layering on top of that piping and actually building those unique user experiences. But the foundation that sits underneath it just has to get it right. So we allow often our customers to kind of, they build the customer experience, they build the fun stuff, you know, and and make that, that customer feel, you know, very different when interacting with their app or with their, with their web portals. Whereas we're the ones behind the scenes just making sure that the bits and bytes go from point A to point B properly and, and that there's no leakage, there's no security issues. Um, that's really our role, and that's what we do extremely well. I was just going to say, like, part of your job, Brian, is, is to make sure that those those organizations have the messages, interfaces that they need, right? They can't give delightful experiences if you're not right there as a partner making sure that like, oh, like here's a nice message that you can return in your UI that will tell the user what's going on. It's not a— it's not shooting something off into the universe. I was actually going to say plumbing. I was going to be like, maybe you're like heating or electricity, but no, when When something starts to leak, it gives the same reaction as plumbing. So I'm gonna go back to your analogy. Horrifying, but good. Yeah, it is horrifying. I was also gonna say, like, I think one of the things that just for product managers out there that are listening, um, you know, over the years, the number of product managers have been like, I don't want to work in a platform, I want to work close to the customer. And I often describe it as great. Go build all the perfect customer experiences you want, and when you push the button, if nothing happens, best wishes. Yeah, right. Congrats. You got to get that right, right? Like, over the years, how so many times the buttons have been there, they've been beautiful, it's a great experience if it works perfectly, but if you push the button and my platform doesn't do what it's supposed to do, you got no product. Yeah, yeah, right. And so, so I just always try to tell people who are like, be a little open-minded about what— where the fun can be, because there can be fun in building those solutions and solving those problems and feeling out— figuring out how to scale them so that any flashy user interface can sign up and, and attach, right, and make things happen. Um, you know, I think, I think we, we sometimes underestimate the power of the— you know, I have a book called The Invisible Product Manager, and it's about platform PMs right? Because they're like sitting under there, like making things happen, but nobody really notices them because they don't draw pretty pictures. It's funny because like, I mean, it's so spot on because like when you look at fintech over the last, you know, 10, 15 years, you know, I've worked in fintech long enough before, you know, they called it fintech or before they called it neobanks. It was just payments. But you see what people are doing to dress up a very simple, what everyone would deem at this point, a simple act of storing a card credential on their mobile device. They're using that card as, in many cases, as a bank account. They're using it so it's a place to store value. They're using it as a connection to the payment rails to move money from point A to point B. They're using it as a way to send money back and forth to your friends or family, not just make payments online. And it's really at its core, when you really think about it, it's dressing up that payment experience that is really what is making all of this kind of stick together and work. It's hilarious. I was talking to my I always talk to my family about— they always are curious, what do you do for a living? And sort of, what, what, what, yeah, what is that job you have again? I'm like, that's exactly how I always, um, I always describe it as it, like, do you know when you walk up to a register and you swipe your card, you dip it, or you tap, uh, and, you know, the payment just kind of goes through and, and it works within, you know, milliseconds? They're like, oh yeah. I'm like, That's what I do. I'm the jedi man behind that. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's funny because people have leveraged those rails and those experiences to build on top of them because they just work, right? And they just kind of dress it up around the edges to look very different. So it's fascinating when I sit back and look at it that way. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. I've had some very similar conversations with my family. And when I was an ACHP product manager, I remember just really sitting down with my dad to like get it. I got a piece of paper and a pen and like drew out how the Federal Reserve works, like when it comes to ACH and checks. And he was like, this is when there was still a fleet of planes flying around with checks in them, right? And he was like, I had no idea. And I'm all, I know you didn't. I didn't either. Right now I do. Right. So, but one thing I was going to say is I think what you just said that really often fascinates me is exactly what you said. You can do a lot of flashy, cool user experiences as long as the baseline stuff just works. The other thing that can be done is people can basically build flashy user experiences and claim that they've innovated. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they haven't done shit. So true. Yeah. And I mean, when I— so I'm gonna pick on something here, which Marilyn knows it. It's not a good season to have picked on this, but in the buy now pay later space, especially in the US, that is just a payment sitting on top of a credit card, to be honest. Yeah, it's credit card rails. That's how you decide if you're going to issue the credit. That's where you go get your payment from. If those people don't have cash available on their credit cards, you're not getting paid. Now you're charging collection fees. And I— the number of times I tried to explain that when I worked in Buy Now Pay Later and was like, you're not doing anything because you're not a credit provider. You would have to go be a creditor and become a lender in order to do this the way you're claiming to do it. All you're doing is laying a layer on top of credit cards. And it was like, that's not what we're doing. And I'm like, okay, you can tell people what you're doing and lie, but until you are listed with The credit bureaus, you're not providing new types of credit. Yeah, there's nothing new about what you're doing except you're, you're standing in as a go-between and letting people pay later, which they can do on their credit card in the US, right? I understand that those payment methods work in different ways in different countries. I totally get that. But for me, it was so infuriating to have to be like, you didn't do anything fancy here. Yeah, totally. You just change the experience. And so I just want to say that, not because I'm picking on Buy Now Pay Later, but just in general, it's a little buyer beware. Yeah. If someone's telling you that the thing they're doing is revolutionizing payments, dig a little deeper. Do they have to run across any of our banking systems? Do they have to run across the card— the issuing platforms? Do they need to run across the card brands? If so, be careful. Like, it's fine if you use the systems. I'm not suggesting not to do it, but don't believe the hype. I also think if they're not running across any of that, also beware. Yeah, don't do it, right? It's not a bad idea. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's, it's, it goes beyond just the guardrails though. The way I look at it is, you know, some of the innovation that, that some of those companies have been doing, it may have nothing to do with the underlying payments technology. It's the credit decisioning, right? So the inputs and the data that they're using that are alternatives to the typical FICO score, it's, you know, that stuff that really goes into first giving out and, you know, giving credit to a customer is where some of the innovation is. So I'm going to stand up for my BNPL friends in the industry here. That it's not just the payment experience that they're innovating on. It's that upfront decisioning, which I think that piece of it is fascinating. No, I would 100%. I will agree with you there. I think the fraud systems and the decision engines are the thing that is actually unique in that space. Right. Yeah. I just think that pretending like you did something underneath that layer. You know, but I agree, like, I think— but that's true. I think that's been true. You know, that's the difference in when we moved into online payments versus card-present payments. And that's true when you want the card-present payments to go faster. That's true when you want, you know, when you move into peer-to-peer, like, those things are all unique ways of moving the money in a rapid fashion, ensuring safety and being able to identify, do KYC, all that stuff. That's where you can actually innovate, right? But probably not. If you think you're disrupting all that other stuff, you got to climb and you can do it, but it's a climb. Yeah, I agree. I mean, so just to go sideways for a slight second, you said FICO score and I understand like this is it that everybody I've ever spoken to in any sort of banking or payments job understands that FICO is not a predictor of your likelihood or your ability to pay in the future. It's just not. But can I just tell you how like ratholed I am around about that? Like it doesn't even matter that number. And I still get mad when it goes down for no apparent reason. Like, oh, you paid off your credit card, you have no debt. Like your FICO score is going down. It makes me crazy. What do I have to do to get a perfect FICO? I swear I'm the same way. It's like I use it as a goalpost almost. I'm like, how do I get— Yeah, we feel good about ourselves. If I'm, I'm in the 800s, right? And it doesn't actually matter. Can I tell you when it does, when it feels extra sad? When you're 50 and you move to a country and you have no credit. Yeah. That is to me the number. It does not matter that you've owned property, that you've bought and sold businesses, that you've done all of that. You come here and they're like, we can't give you a phone contract. Because you don't have a credit score. I think that's— I think I'm feeling that pain firsthand. So you've struck a nerve, Leah, with that one. I just— I can't fathom how we can't get a global credit rating or something. But that's a problem to solve on another podcast for another day, I suspect. We could solve that problem. That's an interesting one for us to think about because, I mean, I had no credit score in Germany. I had no credits. I have no credit score. I lived here 3 years. I have no credit score in the UK. It's like, sorry, there was a— there was an innovation think tank at Citi that brought this up. I don't even know how many years ago, because people moving to the US would have— I mean, they would have a long history of credit in another country and nothing. Yeah, that's why I had to have the company rent my first apartment. I moved to Sweden and I couldn't rent an apartment. I was a 41-year-old woman who couldn't rent an apartment. Exactly. I guess I'll have roommates. Weird. Just sleep under your desk. That's why they rented her an apartment, because she was sleeping under her desk. Exactly. They're like, get that lady an apartment. No, but I do think, I mean, listen, I think that there are There are still spots that could use some innovation, for sure. Yeah, but I just, I just think that there's like— part of the reason I got into this space, and so I'll just say this, part of the reason I got into this space years ago, what I remember thinking was that certain people had access to payments and loans and, and there was a privilege of, you know, oh, I can access this and this, these kinds of payment methods and tools and things, and other people didn't. And that is still true. And so that's the thing that I'm like really fascinated by. I'm really, you know, I'm still like— I always tell recruiters like, don't come to me with payments jobs unless it's something I've never seen before. That's what I would be interested in. Right? Like, how do you— the folks who still don't have access, how do we find access? How do we make access happen? Right? Because there is a privilege in being able to get a credit card and having a FICO score. Well, and if you think about the, you know, the race to digitization, as we move away from cash towards digital transactions, there's a whole segment of the population that is falling further behind. They just don't have access. And I actually think that's a concern that becomes, I mean, in lots of ways, not just payments, right? So there's, that is a concern that is worthy of spending your time solving. Yeah. I think about, I spend a lot of time back and forth between the US and the UK and I've traveled my whole life and when I was younger, I always made sure I had cash with me. Just in case, you know, I didn't know if my card would work or— I don't even consider that at this point. I never have cash, which is probably— maybe it's not the greatest thing, but it never causes a problem. And I think kind of to Marilyn's point is, as things start to, you know, continue to innovate even at an even faster clip, when you start to, you start to see how money is changing and how you almost, it's programmable money at this point, right? So you're able to configure the transaction itself to behave a specific way based on any number of attributes that are introduced throughout the lifecycle of the payment. It's fascinating where we're headed with this. And it's, and the speed by which you're able to do that is, is uh, it's unmatched at this point compared to any time in history. There's no more traveler's checks, and you know, there's when they used to swipe the credit card on the, on the, um, uh, I forget what it was called, but the, the reader zappy thing. Yeah, the zip zappy thing. Yeah, yeah, the knuckle— that's right, the knuckle buster. But it's just, uh, it's amazing, you know, that, that has been, um completely shelved for the ability to insert data into the transaction itself and then to action that data within milliseconds. It's unbelievable. In a contactless way and in a lot of cases without a card. Yeah, totally. I remember, I mean, it's only been 15 years ago that I was traveling when I worked for TeSys and my company credit card got declined because I wasn't, I was in Tempe instead of Albuquerque. What? You know, one state over. Yeah. So, and, and back then the trick was when you left, when you got to the Albuquerque airport, you bought something because that would signal your issuer that you were in an airport. That's pretty sophisticated, actually. Right? Because I called the, the car, you know, the company, they were like, when you get to the airport, buy something. So that the card knows that you're traveling. And I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, that's— but that's what I would do, buy a cup of coffee every time I got there, right? Because I wanted to have— but now I like never worry. I mean, I use my US credit cards all the time, right? Nobody ever— it's never an issue, right? So yeah, but yeah, yeah. So let's transition quickly and then we'll go to the lightning round. But I'm curious, like, where do we think Where do we think, um, and I'm loath to say it, but AI plays a role in, in this space and in the innovation in this space? And I'm only loath to say it because I don't think it's new. I think AI is— it's generative is a little new, there's some things that are new, people having access to it is new, but the data underneath it, I'm like, meh, been doing that for years. So, so where do we think that that's where, you know, how do we think that's going to change things in this space? Yeah, I definitely have an opinion here, so I will, I will, I will, I'll jump in for, for everyone. So I mean, it just depends, it depends on what, what part of the ecosystem you're talking about, right? So I, I tend to agree with you, Leah, like the, you know, AI's been here for a long, a long time, right? And when I say a long time, within the last 10 years you've seen AI kind of when I look at kind of a payment, right, and at the core is the actual transaction itself, and you start to kind of zoom out and look at the surround services that sit around that payment experience, you know, the first area that kind of adopted AI and really more so machine learning in general was fraud detection, right? So you had, you had global fraud experts that were introducing kind of rapid learning models to the transaction flow that allowed a more robust set of security. I mean, to your point, you don't have to go and make that transaction at the airport for it to signal that, hey, I'm traveling. You know, they can— it's much more sophisticated now. But I think as you start to zoom out, AI is going to play a bigger part in the surround services that sit around the payment experience. So things like the act of provisioning a card into a mobile wallet, right? You know, there's going to be, there's going to be signals that are provided and there are signals that are provided to the wallet providers and the card schemes to let them know that this is not someone who's stolen someone's plastic, right? And you start to see authentication, stronger authentication methods get introduced into those flows, things like passkeys as an example. And what I, you know, I talk to a lot of industry players a lot of the time about sort of what they're doing as it relates to autonomous purchasing, agentic commerce really. And it's really at this point, it's so funny because everyone has a different play and a different perspective on what's important and what, where they want to play. But at the core of it, there's just a set of foundational elements that everyone has to kind of get right. And this is going back to our discussion earlier, right? Even in the era of kind of fast innovation cycles and AI kind of eating software companies, it, it's, it still goes back to how do you put those kind of first principles in place that allow you to build, um, secure, scalable products that move across the various payment rails at scale. And it's, it's really, it comes back to that. So where do I see a lot of the innovation? I think agentics is going to continue to grow. I think it's, you're going to see a consolidation around, you know, the global standards that, that get adopted. And those are going to be driven by the card schemes. I'm a firm believer in that. So, you know, I think as as you get that kind of consolidated view on how to do this safely and securely and build customer trust, you'll start to see that whole kind of era or that whole group of products in that category just take off. I also think stablecoin is the biggest disruptor that we've seen in a while. And I don't even think it's the— it's not even the coin itself and the currency itself. It's more the underlying rails. Being able to kind of move funds, especially like cross-border money movement. It really takes the friction, the cost and the speed to a level that we've, we've never really seen. So I think those are the two areas that you're going to see a continued sort of growth in innovation and new products being offered. Yeah, I think so. I agree with you on everything you said. I think one area in the customer side that I think I think there's some folks working on it, but I don't think anybody's nailed it yet, is kind of what we're going back to what we're talking about with like FICO scores and scoring. I think if on the fly you can tell me what's the most beneficial way to spend my money, what, what payment method to use in this scenario on the fly. This, this one, go with your Amex because it's going to give you this many points. This one, go with your Chase, you know, Chase card because of this. Or this one, use your, use bank transfer because of this. Like, if you can tell me all of that on the fly and it's going to improve my credit score, save me money, make me money, whatever, that's where the consumer is going to get a benefit again. I mean, what if you could just pre— I mean, imagine a future where there are just rules and it routed, it routed based on rules, and, and it would depend. Like, you know, I love my, I love my Amex. I would use my Amex for everything. I know some people don't want to take it because the interchange is too high. But what if all of that just happened without me having to do anything? When we— like, years ago, we built intelligent transaction routing for companies, right? So now how do you take that same principle? Now with the Agentic stuff and with— and with AI, you can take that to the consumer. So I also think AI— AI brings a new set of risks. That need to be managed, which is fun, I think. And I think, you know, if you think about like deepfakes and, you know, there are so many, it is so much more difficult to know who you're interacting with without being able to like physically touch them. That there's just a lot of opportunity around identity. If you think about all of the ways AI. If you think about all of the ways that technology can solve problems, it also introduces some pretty interesting and complex ones as well, which is a great fun place to think. I mean, I don't say this based on what you just said, you know, the pandemic was a game changer for how payments were handled in Germany, for instance. Like, I lived in Germany I would have to go to the ATM sometimes at the end of dinner because I needed cash, because I didn't know that they only took cash. I mean, there were so many places in Berlin that only took cash. Really? Because Germans don't— they're very like, I don't need you to know where my money is, I don't need to know where, how I spend it, I don't need you to know anything about it. And so they use cash a lot. With the pandemic, they required to not pass cash because it was so dirty. Yes. And so they had to move to digital. And so then that actually made everybody go Well, it was actually a lot easier. Can I do that in a way that I can do without you knowing? You know, so then it was a— it's amazing how something that, like, that can, can make you go, huh, how does that consumer think, right? And it was a good model for thinking about consumer behavior and how something dramatic can actually change consumer behavior like that because it's required to change because you couldn't pass cash. I experienced something very similar. So prior to the pandemic, in the years before the pandemic, I was on the West Coast and I didn't usually use cash for anything. And then we moved to New York City, New Jersey, New York City, that area. And during the pandemic, like, so before the pandemic, I was surprised by how many people use cash. Like all of a sudden I had to like start having cash on me for stuff, which was super weird because I like had this tiny wallet and I didn't have anywhere to put cash. And so it was like super awkward. I had to rethink my whole life. Yeah, I had to rethink my whole life. But then the pandemic, like, like, people went from cash to nothing. Like, you didn't touch— like, not even like insert your card. People were like, oh, I will come in proximity to your cooties, but I will not touch your cooties. Yeah, but that's the thing is like behavior, we like, we think, we often sort of fancy that customer behavior is super hard to change. It is sometimes, but it's also easy to change sometimes. Yes, right? Especially if people can understand the reward, understand the reason, and understand the benefit, right? Like, so people will adjust, right? So anyway, I mean, the US, the pandemic one example is a great one because the US was living in the payments dark ages prior to the pandemic, you know? It's like now you can't go to a local brewery or any type of mom-and-pop restaurant without a QR code right on the table to place your order. Right. So that did not exist before the pandemic. No, I was going to say, try to help my dad over that hump. The early pandemic was rough for the OPs. Yeah, well, that's what I always laugh because one of my favorite arguments with one of my friends here in Europe is I'm always like, I don't understand giving your bank details out in an email. It doesn't make any damn sense to me. Like, you exchange it over invoices without any encryption, and that makes me feel crazy. And he's like, you give people your credit card and let them walk away from the table. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, all right, fair enough. All right, point taken. Ew. But I was like, I was so like, I don't understand this. And he's like, yeah, I don't understand that. Like, no, you can't have my credit card. Bring the machine over here, right? So, but yeah, it is— behavior is so fascinating. Customer behavior is so fascinating. All right, everybody, we need to move to the lightning round. I have one question, one lightning round question, I think. What is your walk-on music? For today or for anything? What is it? Because mine changes based on my mood. That's right. All right, so what you got? My walk-on song for today, and everybody's gonna laugh because this is weird, it's called Super Good by Yung Gravy and James Brown. It's a little sassy. It is how I feel today. That's a good one. I like it. That's a good one. I, I, uh, I feel a little bit upbeat today. It's nice, it's not too cold, it's not raining yet, to Leah's point. So I think, um, um, I, I was, I was walking to the coffee shop earlier and I was listening to Identitech by Radiohead, which was a very, very cool song. That's a good one. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna— I was, I was listening to Tom Petty this morning. Ooh, nice. So I was, yeah, I was listening, but then when you said that, Ryan, I thought of Walking on Sunshine. Is it Katrina and Lionel? Oh, oh, yeah. The waves, isn't it? The waves, yep. So I was thinking about that one. That might be, I mean, it's a stretch. There's only like a patch of sunshine right there. This is Wales after all. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the further you go west in the UK, the harder it gets, right? Or north, right? But yeah, so that's what I'll go with, is Walking on Sunshine. I like it. Love it. All right. Any parting words, anyone? This was awesome. I really enjoyed this. This was good. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks again, guys, for having me. It was a good time. I really enjoyed it. Listen, I would say we didn't scare you. Yeah, and hopefully we didn't scare any budding product managers out of the financial services because we still need you. It's fun. I was actually just gonna say fintech and payments aren't— it's not boring. Like, so dispel yourself of that myth. It is also not— it's not like, oh, I don't do anything important for the world if I do that work. I hear people say that, right? That's not true, because when we work in payments, you're touching— you can touch people's lives a lot. And it's— if you can be good at payments and fintech You can be good at almost anything. Like, if I'm hiring a product manager and they come out of payments and fintech, I'm like, excellent. I know that they can hang generally. Accounting, regulatory, legal, they're all your best friends when you're in this world. So true. Exactly. So don't run away from it, kids. All the cool people have done it. All right, thank you so much for coming and talking to us. I'm sure we'll think of another reason to have you back, so it'll be fun. Anytime, guys. Anytime, guys. Thanks so much, I appreciate it. Have a great day. A lot of fun. All right, everybody, see you next time.