Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:29:08 · Kate Moody
[00:29:08] S0: Before we get back to the news, we wanted to tell you about our next After Dark event, which is crazily only a week away now. Fintech Insider hosts David Brear and me, Kate Moody, will be joined live on stage Tom Eastby from HSBC Innovation Banking and Valerie Contour from Black in Fintech to record this very podcast and break down the biggest news stories of the week. It's taking place at Village Underground in London on Thursday, November 12, where we'll be recording a live Fintech Insider news show followed by drinks and networking with the Fintech community. Tickets are available now at learnfest.com/afterdark, and there's also a link in the show notes below as well. Don't miss out. Okay. Back to the news. And our final main story this week is taken from Fintechs, and it is Mastercard targets creators via MrBeast partnership. Mastercard has announced a partnership with Beast Industries, the company founded by YouTube star, MrBeast, to expand its presence in the creator economy. The partnership will include consumer and creator cobranded card programs, Mastercard prices, experiences, and financial tools and education designed to help creators build and grow their businesses. The company's aim to combine Mastercard's payments network, digital capabilities, and loyalty expertise with Beast Industries creator ecosystem. The deal follows MrBeast's acquisition of team focused Fintech Step earlier this year, marking another move into financial services. Matthew, come to you first on this one. It's it's pretty cool for Mastercard. Right? It's a partnership with one of world's biggest content creators to reach new new consumers. What... What's your take on it?
00:30:40 · Matthew Goldman
[00:30:40] S3: Yeah. I think we've all been waiting to see what will happen. We know that MrBeast trademarked, like, MrBeast Financial Services earlier in this year. And I've always thought that MrBeast is actually a product of financial services advertising. He made a lot of money from Honey in the early days, and Honey made a lot of users from MrBeast. And well, you know, Honey went on to be acquired by PayPal, and it was maybe thought of as shopping. It was really a financial services tool. So I think there's always been this alignment even if it seemed to be kind of underneath, maybe the... What the average consumer could see. What I think is interesting here is a couple of key things that one, you know, this is not just another celebrity card. There was an era of, you know, Kim Kardashian on the front of a prepaid Visa, and, you know, the product wasn't interesting. But we know that's not what will happen here. This is a much bigger deal. We know that MrBeast has done very, innovative things, whether it's the game shows or the or the videos or all these things that, know, the huge empire. They'll do something different. And, of course, MrBeast owns STEP, which was a teen focused Visa product. So I'm also very curious to see what will happen to STEP. It will presumably move to Mastercard. And MrBeast has brought appeal. This this is about his fans. They're not all 17. Some of them are probably 27 or 37. And, you know, there could be a lot of opportunity here because there's one thing I've learned in in working on credit and debit products for for twenty years is that every brand wants their own card. It's a really fun one thing, especially here in The United States where we have just an enormous selection of co brand credit cards. Everyone wants that. And so this is, I think, going to be something very different. I I can't wait to see what it is. It's not just gonna be three points per dollar on gasoline or or whatever have you.
00:32:32 · Kate Moody, Brad Wiskirchen
[00:32:32] S0: Yeah. I realized in trying to find out more about this story that I'm just not the audience it's aimed at, at all, in the sense that you do like a standard Google search, it's just really hard to find anything on the old fuddy duddy websites that I use. Obviously it's just existing in a totally different universe that I can't see. So yeah, it's really intriguing to see kind of how this how this shapes up. I mean, Brad, obviously you've been in payments a long time as well. What was what was your take on this? [00:33:00] S4: Well, I think it's... I don't disagree with anything that was said by Matthew. I mean, this is... MrBeast is nothing if not innovative, and I think Mastercard is nothing if not innovative. So you put the two of them together, and I think you've got a recipe for for exciting things. It's almost getting hard to figure out what MrBeast isn't involved with now. Buys chocolate bars. He used to deliver hamburgers. I mean, there's... Covers everything, has a good giant following, and with that comes an opportunity to change consumer behavior amongst a group that probably doesn't include me either, Kate. So... But it certainly includes my son. So so it'll be interesting to see what they do.
00:33:00 · Brad Wiskirchen, Kate Moody
[00:33:00] S4: Well, I think it's... I don't disagree with anything that was said by Matthew. I mean, this is... MrBeast is nothing if not innovative, and I think Mastercard is nothing if not innovative. So you put the two of them together, and I think you've got a recipe for for exciting things. It's almost getting hard to figure out what MrBeast isn't involved with now. Buys chocolate bars. He used to deliver hamburgers. I mean, there's... Covers everything, has a good giant following, and with that comes an opportunity to change consumer behavior amongst a group that probably doesn't include me either, Kate. So... But it certainly includes my son. So so it'll be interesting to see what they do. [00:33:46] S0: Yeah. I mean, I had the I had the same initial thought that, you know, Matthew, obviously, you had in terms of the Visa versus Mastercard dynamic. You know? What do you think this tells us, Matthew, about, you know, how Mastercard and Visa are approaching this creator economy? Because obviously, we... This isn't the first announcement we've seen about, like, the creator economy generally, but it's quite a significant partnership. So how do you think that tells us about how Mastercard and Visa playing out in this space?
00:34:12 · Matthew Goldman
[00:34:12] S3: Yeah. I think it's it's very interesting because there have been other companies. One that I have to use example is Karat Financial with a k. That's a creator economy kind of focused business card, and we've seen others that have not survived. There have been a number of startups in this space. What was announced or hinted at, right, there is no product yet. There is no launch date. There's no definition. This is a, you know, a partnership is really broad. I think it could be around both consumer and kind of commercial cards. I think, as as Brad said, like Mastercard, you know, they try to be very innovative. They are the number two network. Those are just the facts. And so they're always going to push harder and and I think be more willing to try new things. And there's a new generation of consumers always. Right? There's always new people coming up, and we know we need to market to them in new ways. Right? We don't acquire a cardholder today the way we did thirty years ago. And so I think it's it's really clever to try to learn from what the creator economy can do here and how enforcers operate. There is the corresponding concern. I mean, it's funny Brad mentioned the hamburgers, and, like, that went really poorly. I think the hamburger company, MrBeast, are suing each other now over, like, bad quality hamburgers. So, don't quote me on that. But, you know, basically, like, financial services is really serious, And MrBeast is taking a huge risk here. And I like that he bought Step, which was a well run company, I think. And he's not kind of, like, necessarily gonna figure it all out from scratch. But there is some element of risk of what if these cards don't work, if things don't go well. So I think Mastercard is is willing to take that risk to buy, you know, brand awareness in a segment of consumers that that are still migrating into their core business of credit cards.
00:35:59 · Brad Wiskirchen, Kate Moody
[00:35:59] S4: You know, the creator... I used to run a company as CEO in the creator economy in the early days of that economy, and it's a lot bigger than people realize. This this is a material percentage of the consumers in The United States that are gonna be impacted here. So I think it's a really smart move by both both MrBeast and Mastercard because the ability to market to that particular group and to influence that particular group is different than anything else anybody else has done. You look back on the days where Jerry Seinfeld was still in his gas tank for... On behalf of Mastercard on TV. That's not gonna necessarily resonate with this particular group, although it resonated with me back in the day. Great commercials. But but I think this is a really smart move to attack a a large and growing sector of of not just The US, but the global economy. [00:36:55] S0: Yeah. Dan, obviously, you know, create... I think one of the consistently talked about challenges that creators face is they, you know, we don't have a sort of typical financial life compared to kind of a individual or business. You know, often they have income streams coming from multiple different platforms. Know, their success is being measured by metrics that maybe traditional financial services products haven't been used to adapting to. I'm kind of interested to hear from your perspective kind of where you see kind of the main problems or issues in in this space that maybe someone like MrBeast could could help?