CFO: Stay Vigilant About Costs and Churn — Even When Things Look OK

With migrant workers consistently sending money home, the business of remittances tends to be more resilient than most during tough economic times.

Even so, Zepz CFO Robert Mitchell told PYMNTS that doesn’t mean they can stand still or take their eye off competitors or price-conscious customers who constantly shop for a cheaper or faster alternative.

“For us as a company, we’re always leaning into the product to make sure the user experience is fully enhanced and making sure we’re addressing any sources of customer churn,” Mitchell said, explaining that Zepz is the newly formed overseer of two global cross-border remittance brands WorldRemit and Sendwave.

While only at Zepz since July, Mitchell has years of experience from financial leadership roles that include being CFO at PayPal’s Venmo and at online checkout company Fast, which was acquired by Affirm.

Optimizing Cost Structure

In his new capacity, Mitchell has been tasked with fueling the company’s next phase of growth plans, Zepz said in a September press release.

Interviewed for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” Mitchell said that to address churn, Zepz works to make sure its pricing — including transaction fees and exchange rates — is competitive with other remittance platforms and that its know-your-customer (KYC) activities can be done beforehand so that it doesn’t require holds or declines.

Zepz also works with its debt partners to find the most efficient working capital solution to fund its daily remittances. The company is profitable and approaching cash flow neutral, so it is adequately capitalized from a funding perspective.

“We’re constantly looking to optimize our cost structure so that we can offer the best pricing available,” Mitchell said.

Making Data Available

Another task Mitchell has been handling involves the merger of WorldRemit and Sendwave into one company — Zepz. Much of his time has been devoted to ensuring that the right data is available across all functions and that teams are working cross-functionally.

For example, he’s working to make sure the teams are working together as one company, using data to optimize day-to-day operations, automating to gain efficiencies and plotting out the next six months and year for the company.

In terms of automation, Zepz is looking to automate the routing of funds to the right places as well as its accounting.

“We are starting to focus more on reconciling balances — both in flight with cash and to our correspondent partners — sooner than later,” Mitchell said. “We’re looking to do that on a monthly basis but ultimately to automate, driving it to more of a daily basis.”

Having Strategic Discussions

Moving ahead, Zepz is coming off a big year, so it’s looking to maintain that growth while also keeping costs in check so they don’t grow in tandem.

The company is evaluating digital currency, such as potentially the U.S. digital dollar, just as a transit vehicle.

“Our service for customers is really used for daily funding back to a family, and the current fiat currency schemes that are out there provide that service and provide assurances that a value will be brought forward,” Mitchell said. “There’s just right now way too much volatility in a cryptocurrency for our customers to anchor onto to send money back.”

With the company now at an inflection point where it has reached profitability, it’s an exciting time to be in the CFO role because there are long-term, strategic discussions about how to enhance the company, Mitchell said.

“We are looking also at potential M&A [mergers and acquisitions] opportunities to enhance the features of the service as well,” Mitchell said. “So there’s a lot that we’re excited about that I think you’ll see in the next 12 to 18 months or so.”