Al explores the potential of harnessing big data for small businesses and learns about the importance of data-driven decision-making. He is joined by Brian Ford, VP, ATB Business Solutions and Victoria Clark, AVP, Payment Product at ATB to talk about how they’re supporting business in Alberta.
Al explores the potential of harnessing big data for small businesses and learns about the importance of data-driven decision-making.
He is joined by Brian Ford, VP, ATB Business Solutions and Victoria Clark, AVP, Payment Product at ATB to talk about how they’re supporting business in Alberta.
Also in this episode:
Al Grego:
Coming up on Shop Talk
Brian Ford:
Payments carry data, and data's really important to make your company make the right investment decisions and the right financial decisions.
Al Grego:
Hello everyone. I'm Al Grego.
Tobii Sanwo:
I'm Tobii Sanwo
Al Grego:
And this is the August 2023 edition of Shop Talk with Moneris.
Welcome to the Shop Talk Podcast, Tobii.
Tobii Sanwo:
Thank you Al. It's great to be here.
Al Grego:
Tobii, have you ever seen the movie Moneyball?
Tobii Sanwo:
No, I haven't. I don't really follow baseball.
Al Grego:
Do you follow any sports?
Tobii Sanwo:
I do. Basketball and football. The real football, not the one with your hands.
Al Grego:
Touche. Well, even if you're not a baseball fan, you might find Moneyball interesting. It's the true story of how Oakland A's GM Billy Beane used statistical analysis to assemble a competitive baseball team.
Tobii Sanwo:
Statistics in sports doesn't sound interesting to me.
Al Grego:
Ah, but Billy Beane changed the game, for better or worse. He proved that data-driven decision making can work in sport.
Tobii Sanwo:
Well, we know that in business today, it plays a crucial role in transforming industries and improving overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Al Grego:
Right. But in sport, there's so many decisions that are gut or field decisions. Moneyball proved that the more data you had, the better equipped you are to make them.
Tobii Sanwo:
So is that this month's theme?
Al Grego:
Yes. But since our listeners are mostly small business owners or entrepreneurs, I'd like to focus more on how small business can leverage data-driven decision making.
Tobii Sanwo:
Such as?
Al Grego:
Well, take this podcast for example. This is our 20th episode of Shop Talk.
Tobii Sanwo:
Congratulations.
Al Grego:
Thanks. But here's the thing. Our download numbers hit a plateau a while back, and they've been slowly declining ever since.
Tobii Sanwo:
Do you know why?
Al Grego:
That's a great question. I could make a bunch of guesses, but instead I looked at the data. And the most glaring issue I found seems to be the name.
Tobii Sanwo:
Really? Shop Talk.
Al Grego:
Exactly. If you do a search on the name Shop Talk in your podcast app, you'll find over a dozen different results from automotive to vacuum repair before you even get ours.
Tobii Sanwo:
But that's no good.
Al Grego:
It's an SEO no-no.
Tobii Sanwo:
SEO?
Al Grego:
Yes. Search engine optimization. We'll learn more about that in a future episode, but basically choosing such a common name, we're getting lost in all the shop talk noise.
Tobii Sanwo:
I can see how that would be a problem. So how'd you fix it?
Al Grego:
Well, this summer I've been working on giving Shop Talk a bit of a makeover, beginning with the name.
Tobii Sanwo:
That's exciting. What's the new name?
Al Grego:
Wouldn't you like to know?
Tobii Sanwo:
You don't know either, do you?
Al Grego:
No, I don't. But I have whittled it down to a few finalists and all will be revealed in September's episode.
Tobii Sanwo:
What if I'm already subscribed to this podcast?
Al Grego:
Well, nothing changes. The new podcast will go on this channel, so if you haven't subscribed already, you might want to do it now.
Tobii Sanwo:
Looking forward to it. What do you have lined up for this month?
Al Grego:
Well, this month's feature interview is doubly informative. I'm joined by Brian Ford and Victoria Clark from ATB Financial. We talk about how they're supporting small businesses in Alberta and using data to help them succeed.
Tobii Sanwo:
That should be a good interview.
Al Grego:
And after that, I'm joined by a resident consumer spending data expert, Sean McCormick. He'll share some key data points as we approach the halfway point of the summer.
Tobii Sanwo:
This S=summer is just flying by.
Al Grego:
Indeed. Let's begin with my chat with Brian and Victoria.
Speaker 3:
Featured Interview.
Al Grego:
I'm joined today by Brian Ford. He's the VP at ATB Business Solutions. And Victoria Clark, who's the Associate Vice President of Payment Product at ATB. Brian, Victoria, thank you for joining me today.
Brian Ford:
Thank you, Alan.
Victoria Clark:
Yeah, great to be here. Thanks.
Al Grego:
So I mean, Moneris and ATB have had a very long-standing partnership. Maybe we'll just start with describing what does ATB do?
Brian Ford:
We're a full service bank serving the needs of Albertans and it ranges from our retail consumer business, wealth management, business and corporate banking as well as a capital markets business. I think if I just deep dive for a second into ABT business, we really focus around delivering expertise, sector knowledge, with tailored financial solutions to Alberta business banking and corporate clients. We do have a real interest and passion for knowing our clients and providing specialized expertise. We try to take the time to understand our clients and find the best solutions for their business.
Al Grego:
So let's talk payment processing real quick. When it comes to payment processing, what do you see as some of the key needs that small businesses have today?
Brian Ford:
There's a couple of things that jump out at me. One is obviously from the perspective of the business, you want to make sure that if you think of payments being receivables and payables, you want to make sure that you have ability to collect your receivables as fast as possible. You also want to make sure that those receivables are good funds and you minimize chargebacks. On the payables side, you want it really around automation reconciliation. How do you make your business more efficient around both receivables and payables? You want multiple channels for your clients.
Al Grego:
You mentioned efficiency in payments. What role does digitization play in that?
Brian Ford:
Yeah, so a couple really good examples around digitalization. If you think about online banking, in the world we live in today with virtual work, working from home, it makes it much easier today through digitalization, to create entitlement rights, create admin rights, and to be able to process payments from anywhere where you work. So that is just something that where digitalization has made that easier. The other comment I'll say about digitalization is through reconciliation. So from the ability to integrate between your banking platforms, between your payment platforms and your ERP and your accounting systems, it's way easier today with digitalization to create a seamless reconciliation between various systems.
Al Grego:
You also mentioned the magic word, data, which is a theme of this month's episode. How are you helping your merchants with the use of that data?
Brian Ford:
So we would have a host of information on payment data that we could provide our clients. And whether that is through payment mechanisms such as EFT and wires or more so when I think about merchant and the world of merchant, the ability to provide data back to our clients around their merchant business and transactions. Payments carry data and data's really important to make your company make the right investment decisions and the right financial decisions. And if you think about that just for a second, as an example, your historical merchant information will give you an idea of what your volume is throughout today. So because of that, you can adjust staffing levels, you can adjust your inventory orders. All of that sits in your payment data. So what you want to make sure is that your bank as well as your payment providers are being able to provide you that data back so you can make the right business decisions.
Al Grego:
Now, Victoria, we're talking about digitization, we're talking about the use of data, we're really talking about the future of payments, going beyond cash. What do you see as far as the future of payments goes?
Victoria Clark:
I would build on Brian's comments around the future is so bright in terms of advanced data and then the advanced use of that data. What we hear from our clients we know isn't going to go away is that concept of what businesses need to grow. They need support from their banks and other partners to help them get there and do that. And exactly to Brian's point, we know that the more data we can provide them and package it in ways that becomes useful for them, we can help them find ways to grow their businesses.
Al Grego:
Can you share with us some examples of future payments, what that might include?
Victoria Clark:
So already what we're seeing, and I think probably a lot of people listening follow what's going on with Payments Canada and the modernization of banking within Canada as a result, what we're already seeing in Canada is material and significant changes to wires. So businesses still send a lot of wires in this country, and what we do know is now we can attach information to those wires. So where before, and this has been a challenge in reconciliation in the past, is that concept of "I'm sending you a wire, but what is this wire for."
Al Grego:
Right.
Victoria Clark:
"And what do I need to know?" And if you think about what businesses want to do and what they don't want to do, nobody wants to spend time on banking. They want to spend time on growing their business. So if we can make it simpler and easier for them to understand what the payment is for, how it was used, reconcile it for them automatically, and then take that data and share and show with them how they might do things differently as a business, we become more valuable and relevant to them as a bank. Because we're not talking about banking, we're talking about helping them grow their business.
Al Grego:
You make a great point about wiring, for example. It's almost a two stream process. You send the wire, but then you send an email or a phone call or a text saying, "By the way, I just sent you money and here's what it's for." It seems logical that all that information should probably go in one stream.
Cass McPhee:
For sure. And then we also say, "And watch out for it because I can't tell you exactly when it's going to be there."
Al Grego:
Exactly. Yeah. As you guys know, there's a lot of updates happening right now to the Canadian banking infrastructure, specifically around payments to make them faster, more data rich. This new system is called the Real-Time Rail. But with all of this advancement, the digitization, the modernization, comes obviously increased risks in fraud. What is ABT doing to help with that?
Brian Ford:
We spend a lot of time educating our clients around fraud. And a couple messages that I would speak to is just be aware of cyber fraud and cyber crime and understand how you can protect your business. The most common instance of fraud today is entering credentials in to fake websites.
Al Grego:
Right.
Brian Ford:
Clicking on text messages, entering credentials, receiving, responding to fake calls from the bank, and sharing one time passcodes. We see a lot of fraud right now, both phishy, and it's really important for you as a client to understand how a breach can impact your business.
Al Grego:
Would you be able to provide our listeners with a few good fraud prevention tips?
Brian Ford:
So I think if I just had to give you three or four fraud prevention tips, one is never share your online banking username or passwords with anyone. Don't write it down. It's unique. Keep it confidential. Always keep in mind, your bank will never ask you for a password or a 2FA code. So if you get an email or a phone call from a text from a bank asking for this information, don't respond to it. Call back using the trusted phone number either from the back of your card or from the bank's website. Don't respond to any emails asking for personal information. Do not click on those links. That opens you up to phishing.
Al Grego:
Right.
Brian Ford:
Do not enter any personal information or online banking credentials into web pages without verifying that the URL is legitimate. There's one more other very common fraud out there, we call it business email compromise. And if you think about, and maybe another term for it would be invoice fraud. That is when a business receives an invoice from what you think is a trusted vendor or third party.
Al Grego:
Right.
Brian Ford:
And what happens is that it's not. And what's really important is business email compromise fraud is quite common. So really important that you confirm the email address of the party that's sending instructions and really validate that as well. So validate it from either a phone call to the company.
Al Grego:
Right.
Brian Ford:
Or really a validation of your contact at the company. So I just really want to make sure that everyone realizes that's another very common type of fraud out there is invoice fraud.
Al Grego:
So we've done a great job of listing all the challenges and drawbacks to digitization. What can Canadian businesses look forward to with the future of payments?
Victoria Clark:
We know that the businesses are always looking to grow their business and that they are truly challenged by the cost of cyber crime and fraud and dispute management and support. And in that same timeframe, they're also looking almost counterintuitively for how do we create more seamless and flexible payment solutions for clients?
Al Grego:
Right.
Victoria Clark:
And those don't necessarily always work easily together. It's hard to create flexibility when you're worried about costs of fraud. And so I think what is a really good news story in terms of what's happening around the world is we look to the convergence of the role of digitalization, the role of identity becoming digital, and the concept of fraud management and mitigation while trying to look to create better client experiences. And we can already start to see that happening.
So we have new what we would call form factors or ways in which we pay at the point of sale. So the evolution and advancement of the point of sale and how it works and runs, like a major retailer, well, worldwide retailer who is trialing out the ability to pay by palm.
Al Grego:
Right.
Victoria Clark:
Which we know is unique to the individual, which is flexible, simple, and easy for the consumer, and at the same time supports the retailer in terms of their ability to reduce their fraud and fraud costs because they know that the client who's paying is actually the client that they say they are, which is pretty incredible next steps.
Al Grego:
If I wanted to learn more about your bank and the services you offer, where would I go?
Brian Ford:
ATB's always here to support Alberta business. If we can ever provide advice or solutions to your company, to business in Alberta, you can find us through atb.combusiness or as well directly on LinkedIn.
Al Grego:
Perfect. Thank you so much Brian and Victoria for your time today.
Victoria Clark:
Thank you.
Brian Ford:
Thank you.
Cass McPhee:
Good news for business owners. Moneris has partnered with Wix to launch an all-in-one e-commerce solution built to help you grow and scale online. With the new Moneris online, you can combine Wix' website builder with Moneris' payment processing expertise to effortlessly build an online store that is optimized for business and designed to dazzle. Launch your online store today and enjoy no monthly fees for three months and eight free hours of website creation support, a savings of up to $764. To learn more, visit go.moneris.com/monerisonline.
Speaker 3:
By The Numbers.
Al Grego:
I'm joined by Sean McCormick today. He's the Director of Business Development Data at Moneris. Sean, thank you so much for joining me again.
Sean McCormick:
My pleasure, brother.
Al Grego:
Well, the theme for this month is right down your alley. It's How Businesses Can Use Data. And I feel like every month during this podcast, we provide some useful data for our small business merchants to use in their decision making. So what do you have for us? I mean, we're halfway through summer now. Do you have some consumer spending data for summer related MCCs?
Sean McCormick:
Yeah, sure. And benchmarking is a really common interest among merchants of all shapes and sizes, especially small businesses that might not have access to market intelligence like some of the larger national chains. Something interesting that is happening with apparel, and I see this personally as a decision that consumers are making as it relates to inflationary pressures, year over year spend on apparel is down for the 11th straight week as of the last week of July.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Sean McCormick:
And that's a long time for it to be down. And this is a category that we saw enormous gains in the end of last year and even into the first part of this year. And I think people are starting to make some decisions around what they do with their disposable income.
On the topic of disposable income, airlines, which was just on an absolute tear for the better part of the last eight to 12 months, well over the last four weeks, what we're starting to see, I wouldn't call it a trend yet because it is only the last four weeks, but we're starting to see that the growth has flattened.
Al Grego:
Right.
Sean McCormick:
In fact, it is flat for the last four straight weeks in terms of year over year growth in dollar volume. And that's a category that was up 60% or more year over year during the spring and then it started to tail off a bit closer to the summer.
Al Grego:
Right. We had a lot of people excited for going on vacation again, so that probably accounted for that spike.
Sean McCormick:
Yeah, I mean, all you got to do is one flip through your Instagram feed, and it seems like every friend you have is on vacation.
Al Grego:
Right.
Sean McCormick:
We know that that's not true.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Sean McCormick:
That's how the Instagram algorithm, that's what they would love you to believe. But we definitely have seen growth in airlines normalize over the last four weeks.
So when we look at things like household spend is another one. Year over year spend, has been flat for six weeks. Saw enormous growth during the pandemic on household. Household are things like appliances, home renovation, home improvement.
Al Grego:
Sure.
Sean McCormick:
Furniture, these types of things.
Restaurants, everybody eats in restaurants.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Sean McCormick:
This is a very popular category, get asked about it all the time. And year over year spend at restaurants has been flat for eight straight weeks. This is a category that was up 10 to 20% consistently during the first part of the year. And average transaction size seems to be flattening for restaurants as well, settling in at about $25 per visit per transaction.
Al Grego:
Right. A lot of people kind of concerned, I guess, with talks of recession and also raising interest rates. So I guess it's kind of all bearing out now in the numbers.
Sean McCormick:
And small businesses are the ones that feel it first. They're the ones, it's those neighborhood stores that people are going to when they're walking around on their main streets and doing business. They might just decide to hold off on that purchase for another month.
Al Grego:
Right.
Sean McCormick:
It's not that they're not going to make the purchase eventually.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Sean McCormick:
But I think some of those impulse purchases are maybe starting to be curtailed a little bit.
Al Grego:
Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sean, and I hope you enjoy the vacation you're about to take.
Sean McCormick:
Thanks, brother. I'll let you know how it is when I get back.
Al Grego:
All right, thank you.
Speaker 3:
Save The Date.
Al Grego:
I'm joined by Ella Urquhart. She's the Events Manager at Moneris. Ella, thank you so much for joining me today.
Ella Urquhart:
Thanks so much for having me, Al.
Al Grego:
So we're talking about the August calendar. What do you have for us?
Ella Urquhart:
Well, our August calendar is really just ramping up for Elevate Festival, which is happening in September this year.
Al Grego:
Okay. And where exactly is that happening?
Ella Urquhart:
That is taking place at Meridian Hall here in Toronto, and it's taking place from September 26th to 28th.
Al Grego:
I look forward to this event every year. So what can we look forward to this year?
Ella Urquhart:
We are a founding sponsor for the event. You'll also find us as a presenting partner of the Scale Up Stage, and we'll be around the Startup Lounge and the Tech Talent Zone this year. So we're really excited to be a part of it.
Al Grego:
And usually they have some pretty good keynote speakers.
Ella Urquhart:
Yes, we're really excited this year. They have Lisa LaFlamme, they have Arlene Dickinson, and they have Chris Hadfield, who is not only a famous astronaut, but also the Elevate Co-Chair.
Al Grego:
Amazing. So if I wanted to attend this festival, where would I go?
Ella Urquhart:
You can visit elevatefestival.ca to purchase your tickets.
Al Grego:
Great. And if I need any more information?
Ella Urquhart:
You can check out our social channels. We'll be doing some ticket giveaways until the event starts.
Al Grego:
Thank you so much for your time today, Ella.
Ella Urquhart:
Thanks Al.
Al Grego:
And that's all we have for this month. I hope you found this episode informative. If you haven't already, check out Moneris' other award-winning podcast, Yes, We Are Open! I'm starting work on season five as we speak, but there are four full seasons for you to binge on right now. Here's a little teaser.
Success in business doesn't come without moments of struggle. Moments when you had to face your challenges head on. When you overcome these moments, what you're left with is not just success. You're also left with a story, a story of how you did it, a story to inform, inspire, and be proud of. At yes, We Are Open! It's our business to tell these stories and we're kind of good at it. Subscribe now to season four of the award-winning, Yes, We Are Open! Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Tobii Sanwo:
If you haven't already, you can subscribe to this podcast and Yes, We Are Open! wherever you get your podcasts.
Al Grego:
If you'd like to support this show, share this podcast with your network or review us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And finally, if you have any payment related question you'd like to submit to one of our experts, you can email us at podcast@moneris.com.
Tobii Sanwo:
Join us again next month for more expert insight and data to help grow your business.
Al Grego:
Thank you so much for co-hosting, Tobii.
Tobii Sanwo:
Thank you for the invite, Al.
Al Grego:
On behalf of Tobii, myself, and the rest of Moneris, thank you for listening to Shop Talk. Talk again in September.