Money movement is no longer about how fast funds travel between accounts, but how much value can be built around it. FIS Global Head of Money Movement Jon Briggs told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster that the conversation about moving money used to focus on speed alone. But now the focus is very different.
Transcript
This is Monday Conversation, a PYMNTS podcast. Karen Webster sits down with the visionaries behind the trends for the story is shaping what's next in payments and commerce. In this episode, FIS Global Head of Money Movement, Jon Briggs tells payments CEO Karen Webster that the conversation about moving money used to focus on speed alone, but now the focus is very different.
Karen Webster:Hey Jon, it's great to see you today. I'm looking forward to a very robust conversation. Not to set the standards too high, but a very robust conversation about money movement. And that's particularly relevant given your role at FIS as the head of Global Money Movement. So I'm looking forward to the chat. Thanks for making the time.
Jon Briggs:Thanks for having me. And it's uh as always great to see you again.
Karen Webster:So you and I go back to your key bank days when you were living the reality of how hard it is to move money efficiently. And that was from the perspective of being inside a financial institution. You're on the other side of the table now at FIS and helping banks reimagine money movement as their technology partner. And it's it's a role reversal, but also sort of a big shift. And I'm curious, just between us, Jon, what's that been like for you? How is your view of money movement, what's possible, what's really hard changed since you're now the one building the platforms instead of using them?
Jon Briggs:Yeah, it's um it's it's fascinating. Uh what I would tell you is uh I've gained a far better appreciation for what it what it means to be on the other side, you know, as uh from operating within the bank, dealing with some of the largest technology providers in uh in the world uh to try to deliver outcomes for your end clients, you know, you'd oftentimes have this uh this notion of, well, isn't this you know standard standard product? Um you get on the other side of the table and you know, dealing with thousands of different banks, um, I'm still in search of you know the standard bank, um, if you will. Um, so as you and I have talked about in the past, you know, banks are uh they've been around a long time. A lot of the technology they've been using has been around uh a long time. Um so sitting on this side of the table, it it's giving given me a far better appreciation of the complexities of being able to deliver in those types of environments.
Karen Webster:So it I think everyone talks about modernizing legacy, right? That just seems to be the standard theme. We've chatted about it. I know it's it's it's sort of the headline in so many of the articles we publish and others do as well. But but what really makes what FIS is doing differently? What's the unique levers that you are able to manage and navigate that really helps modernize the legacy infrastructure that financial institutions are dealing with?
Jon Briggs:Yeah, so um you're you're spot on. Um modernization itself has become standard or table stakes uh language. Everybody says it, everybody's aspiring, you know, to do it. And and for us, it's it's more than um you know a cloud migration strategy or API enablement. It's about uh building platforms that financial institutions can actually adopt and adopt without ripping and replacing everything they've built over decades. So it becomes a you know a story of interoperability um and building technology um that isn't uh massively disruptive to their operations, but also helps them modernize in in key ways. So give you an example, um, we're we're building um you know what I believe to be the uh the future of uh money movement platforms. We call it uh money movement hub. And it was specifically uh designed as you know, plug and play architecture for smaller institutions that are often constrained uh by uh a bunch of legacy constraints in terms of technology, um, constraints around you know, um people and and process, regulatory pressures, you know, tight margin. And so our strategy here here has been let's deliver um a hyper uh modern piece of technology that allows them to consolidate all of their uh their payment activity and uh in that process modernize it and give them a foundation at which they can leverage uh for the future of money movement, which you know we we think that centers around data, it's centered around AI. Um, it's about uh better understanding uh your your business as a bank as well as your customers leveraging in that inf all that information. Can't do it without uh a strong modern foundation.
Karen Webster:Is it as easy as it sounds to uh to connect to?
Jon Briggs:Well, nothing's ever as easy as it sounds. Um, but it is uh it is uh pretty, I mean, just to give you an example, a client uh that is uh standing up um the money movement hub for uh instant payments, send and receive. We're talking zero to uh go live in as little as 45 days. Um so it is, yeah, um, it is it's pretty remarkable uh what we've been able to do and the outcomes we've seen.
Karen Webster:You know, the thing, the the thing that you and I have also talked about is there's so there's one thing to move money, there's another thing to think about creating new value associated with that money movement. So making money move, but also creating and building ecosystems that have value that create money mobility inside of a financial institution rather than always outside of the financial institution when money is moving from point A to point B. Is that still something that you talk about, think about, and think about building for as you contemplate the roadmap for money movement?
Jon Briggs:Yeah, so this is where I think things get really exciting, uh especially uh for the seat I sat in today. And and frankly, what's possible for the folks that you know sit in the seat that I used to uh sit in? So for years the conversation was about speed. Um, you know, can we move money in real time? Can we settle uh faster? Can we integrate FedNow and RTP without breaking existing uh systems? Um and those those questions aren't go aren't gone, uh, but they're no longer the only goal. Um so they're they're simply the the starting point. So back to kind of the state table stakes comment I made earlier. So what financial institutions realize now is that payments is it's about the data, as I I said earlier. So every transaction it has a has a story to it. Who's paying whom for what, when, why. You know, the uh the data, when harnessed correctly, becomes a foundation for building ecosystems and and ecosystems that can better serve uh your clients. Take AI and machine learning. Um the sh uh the shift from moving money to building ecosystem is really about unlocking that money and and putting it to work. It's about turning payments into a strategic asset that gives you insight into your business, whether you're the bank or you're the bank trying to serve your clients better and help them run their business uh better. So it's no longer just this operational function.
Karen Webster:It's also about new business models and thinking about the payment, as you point out, in very different ways, more strategy than transactional. And I'm curious, as you talk to bankers about this, have they bought into the fact that there is an exciting new business model innovation that can help to unlock these opportunities?
Jon Briggs:Um, I what I would tell you is they all see the uh the potential and realize, especially, you know, with AI, you know, just brings enormous uh potential for uh for banks to transform uh their businesses. Um and it's it's changed, you know, the art of the possible. So I I remember um, I mean, this is this is dating, you know, myself, but um when new business intelligence you know platforms, you know, uh were coming out and you would consume all this data and you would cut it a bunch of different ways to be able to drive insights. Um, now you can drop a large language model onto that same set of data and ask it, like, hey, who were my top five suppliers um uh last year? Who, you know, um, and simple questions that help you um understand and gain intelligence uh the out of the data become unlocked. And so um the conversations with banks is there they see the potential uh there. And it's about making decisions now on investments that create the glide path for them to be able to get there. And it and it starts in some of their foundational capabilities, uh, like modernizing their payment stack, unlocking the data that they have to be able to move into that next frontier of banking.
Karen Webster:What's the trigger for these conversations, Jon? Is it about um competitive parity with other financial institutions? Is it competitive excellence against the you know the digital platforms that are emerging? And it's not just digital banks, it's digital platforms that are enabling accounts to be opened and balances to be stored and and and and new opportunities to be created within those ecosystems and those platforms themselves. Is it just I I can't do what I need to do to serve my existing customers given the constraints that I'm that I'm working within? Maybe it's a little bit of all of those, but I'm just curious to get your take on that.
Jon Briggs:Yeah, uh it's a great question. So um five years ago, you know, the primary focus was hey, can my platforms handle real-time payments? Uh, can it, you know, integrate with ACH and wire systems? Can it scale to be able to uh meet this around the clock uh demand? And and it's I think you said it at the beginning of our conversation, you know, the the shift from batch to to real time and and a lot of these capabilities, they're they're you know, they're expected, they're they're table stakes, um, where a lot of the conversation or or the impetus for modern modernization that we're hearing from our clients is is centered around two two areas. Um the first is is resilience. Um so this is payments and is um equals deposits for banks, payments, you know, uh equals the the the lifeblood of business activity for uh banks clients. So it's grown and important, and it's got to be an always-on um capability. And the second one um, you know, uh we've we've talked about is intelligence, you know, it's it's leveraging it as a strategic asset to better understand your business, better understand your clients. So resilience, it goes beyond mere uptime. Um it involves creating systems, you know, that can handle uh or endure a regional outage, cyber attacks, an unexpected transaction volume, you know, uh surge without any disruption. Um financial institutions are no longer asking, will your system go down? It's more a conversation of, hey, when it uh does go down, can you tell me how quickly you're gonna recover and how how will it recover? What will it look like? And hey, there's been recent, you know, examples that have uh have brought this uh to the forefront. Um, you know, and the second area around intelligence, like I said, it's more than just processing transactions. Uh banks now seek platforms that can learn, adapt, and improve, you know, over time. This involves leveraging, you know, new programming languages uh like uh like AI to be able to predict fraud before it even occurs, um, or optimizing, you know, payment routing based on cost and speed and customer preference to enabling more personalized experience to keep your and customers engaged. All of this, you know, is is uh what's behind, you know, when clients say, hey, we need to modernize, these are the things, you know, that are that are top of mind for them.
Karen Webster:But modernization, innovation, but also in a highly regulated environment where you know there are a lot of dynamics now associated with regulation and compliance and and what's um you know which way the regulatory winds are blowing, how does that factor into the conversations you're having and the systems that that you're building?
Jon Briggs:Yeah, that's a um that's a great question. And and I think, you know, given the um my my background having sat in that seat, I think it gives me um a good um helps me, helps folks on our side better appreciate what banks are dealing with, you know, and and thinking through. So um banks, they oftentimes underestimate, you know, the sheer complexity of of building platforms uh that work at scale across multiple payment rails, multiple, you know, jurisdictions. Um so for example, you know, we we support over uh over 50 different payment schemes. That's crazy, you know, um, and that brings a lot of different regulatory uh regimes to the table. Implications around uh, you know, 24-7 become you starts to mean something fundamentally different uh when you're delivering at that type of scale. So it's not about just writing the code, it's about architecting systems that are resilient, secure, uh, but also flexible enough to adapt as the industry evolves. And it's it's doing it all while meeting strict, the strict compliance standards and managing massive amounts of data and volume. Um on the flip side, you know, technology providers sometimes underestimate the the operational realities inside a bank. Um, it's it's easy to say, just you know, just move to the cloud. Um and um, you know, you you and I know that there's a there's a human element involved here. It's not about just adopting, you know, a piece of technology, it's about changing processes. Um there's uh you know, there's multiple stakeholders in an institution that all have different motivations and outcome and constraints that they're they're trying to deal with. Um and so that's it's a lot to navigate. And so I think that's where uh have been helpful in kind of building a bridge and and hopefully uh helping folks drive to more of a consensus.
Karen Webster:When when you think about the payment hub, which is the innovation that um you're looking at modernizing, scaling, and innovating, you say you support 50 different payment methods. How do you decide like number 51 or number 52 or number 53? Is this based on what your banks are asking for, what you're observing at a macro level and saying you should be prepared to support? Maybe it's a little bit of both, but I'm just curious to get your thoughts on how you think about the the innovation around the payment methods themselves that you support.
Jon Briggs:Yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a bit of both, uh, to be honest. So it's part strategy in terms of, hey, where um where are the clients that we want to serve, where are they operating and building towards that future. Um and then it's also a good old, you know, fashion uh client-centered product, you know, management where um, you know, we have um a bunch of very good, large and growing institutions that are are never afraid to um help point us in a direction of where um they need us to help help them go. Um so those are kind of the two things at play that help help us think through what's what's next.
Karen Webster:I was gonna ask whether 50 goes to 48 or 37, but I know we never get rid of things in payments.
Jon Briggs:We just kind of yeah, no. Uh unfortunately that's um we would, by the way, we would love uh for that to happen. Um it would massively simplify things on our end, but um it uh I don't think that's in the near future.
Karen Webster:Yeah, that's uh that's you're probably right about that. Um so so as you think about the evolution of money movement and all the things that we talked about in terms of transaction to strategy to ecosystems to adding more value to thinking about payments as kind of the core for enabling all of those things. What do you see as as next and and where is the market going, the next inflection point about to pop? And what is what is the FIS role in making all of that real for the institutions that you support?
Jon Briggs:Yeah, maybe I'll answer your the first part of your uh question first is um I want us to be at the center of all of it.
Karen Webster:Um and I think we have I'm not shopped to hear you say that.
Jon Briggs:And I think we have the you know the right and and the opportunity to uh to be there as well. Um so the look, the the next inflection point, um, it's it isn't about choosing between you know connected platforms or embedded payments, you know, topic you and I spent a lot of time on in the past or data modernization modern uh monetization. Um it's it's about integrating all of these things into a cohesive strategy. Um, because much like in payments, we don't think of um in silos of you know wire or ACH, RTP, card, all those things, you know, they've they're more and more blending together in the eyes of our um customers. Um and we've got to evolve you know our strategy and our focus the same way. So um connected platforms, uh they're essential because they enable interoperability. Uh financial institutions can't afford to operate in silos anymore. They need to connect to payment networks, fintechs, merchants, um, ERPs, um, and other banks seamlessly. Um, I still uh believe uh that we're in the early days of you know the software uh revolution and in embedded payments. Um they are the future of customer experience. I think we'll see more and more consumers and and businesses adopt technology to run their businesses. Um and I think they want payments to be able to happen in the background and and as frictionlessly as possible. That means for us, you know, we've got to make sure we're delivering for financial institutions the APIs, the SDKs that they need to let developers embed payment fund uh functionality into all these different applications. Um, and then on the data monetization uh front, um, that's that's where I think the the next frontier is and and where there's an enormous amount of value. Um, institutions that can harness that data to deliver personalized uh experience, predict their customers' needs, and optimize operations, those are gonna be the the institutions that have a competitive advantage. Um and then uh lastly, and and this I think connects back to uh where maybe where we started about um uh modernization, uh, which is you we can't do any of this um unless we have the right foundation in place. Um and so um it's on us to continue to advance our capability set and deliver uh modern uh modern solutions uh to our clients to help them grow and adapt in this new new environment.
Karen Webster:Is that what's missing? I mean, when you think about the the number of years we've had this conversation about modernization and the opportunities around payments, is that the missing ingredient? Is it is it is it the data? Is it the mindset? Is it literally the the infrastructure that is just not capable of supporting these innovative ways of moving money?
Jon Briggs:I think it's it's it's a bit of all of those uh things. Um as you know, technology is just one piece of the puzzle. Um so yes, you have to have the right technology to enable some of these um uh or harness some of these uh new uh opportunities. Um, but you also have to have that right mindset to be able to uh to do it as well. And that mindset, you know, drives changes in um changes in processes, you know, within institutions to adapt to this new modern uh modern uh technology, as well as change in, you know, mindset around talent that's required to be able to build these future uh business models. So it's I don't think you know it's a it's a I don't know how many legs uh there are to this stool, Karen, but there's um there's another long bench, I think.
Karen Webster:It's a long bench with a lot of I like that.
Jon Briggs:I like that. It's it is a very long bench. Um, so but it's not one thing, it's it's many have to happen to have it go right.
Karen Webster:Jon, thanks so much for a great conversation. Good to catch up and looking forward to all the great money movement innovation coming out of FIS under your leadership. Thanks. Thanks for your time.
Jon Briggs:Thank you so much, Karen.
Narrator:That's it for this episode of the PYMNTS Podcast, the thinking behind the doing. Conversations with the leaders transforming payments, commerce, and the digital economy. Be sure to follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also catch every episode at pymnts.com/podcasts. Thanks for listening.