How this self-proclaimed 'PayPal for businesses' is helping clients pay tariff fees

Introduction tariffs resulting from the us-china trade war and brexit are adding costs for small and medium-sized businesses doing business in Asia and in the UK blockchain enabled global payments company v ms covering up to $10,000 us on behalf of its clients for a closer look at the business model and growth strategy we're joined by VM CEO Marwan fors Lee thanks very much for joining us thank you for having me small businesses have been telling you they're struggling with tariff costs how high are those costs when it comes to tariffs the impact on small business yes let me give you a little bit of context on what VM is so we do we make it really simple for businesses to pay and get paid around the world it's kind of like PayPal for businesses the customers use us as a wire replacement service and stop being cheaper faster than Bank wire so we because we we have about hundred fifty thousand businesses that use us we survey them all the time we talk to them and there's quite a bit of concerns around the tariffs and specifically the uncertainty of the terrorists what is it going to do to their business think of tariffs like a new tax to these guys and they're trying to figure out what to do with this new tax and so they're thinking about how do I reconfigure my supply chain how do I deal with the new tax I pass it to the customer that I take the hit and it affects my margin and so given all the uncertainty they're looking for help and that's why we put together this tariff relief program to help them out and your company itself is a small office in Shanghai as well so you've got feet on the ground when you hear from these small businesses regarding these issues surrounding China what are the what are the main concerns for some of those businesses yeah what to do with the new tariff but what amount I might have I have to pay do I pass it on to the customer I take the hit and effects my margin how do I find new suppliers around the world I don't have resources to find new suppliers these are common themes that the businesses talk about is there any particular kind of company that ends up being more affected by some of those issues than others some depending on the sector that you're in some are affected more than others but in general there's a fairly wide concerns around the impact of tariffs on themselves on their business and more generally on the economy you know the small business is a key contributor to GDP and employment numbers and I think these guys are not equipped to deal with these new taxes that come to them in its southern because they're not used to it they have to deal with it on the spot now we Who pays the bill talked a lot about when it comes to something like tariffs and and who pays the bill for that with with retail businesses right are they gonna pass it on to the consumer are they gonna eat the cost themselves we don't usually talk as much about what's happening behind the scenes what puts you in a position where where you can assist with those bills on the tariffs with clients yeah we're always service serving the customers we're talking to them we're looking at data we know there's patterns because we're dealing with payments around the world and so we can have points of view on what's going on with the macro-environment and that becomes helpful to the business also because we operate on hundred and ten countries and we have customers and you know various parts of the world and so customers when they're looking for different types of suppliers for example we can help them look at different markets to get them you know a new set of suppliers to their business so was it possible like just to say that some of these small businesses you're working with in the past if they were trying to move money or do different things around the world like they might go to their local bank to do this and now they're working more with you just because there's more flexibility sort of different pricing all that kind of stuff yeah you know it's all of the above you know these these businesses are not resourced like big companies where they have planners that think of their supply chain so they look for modern tools to work with and we are one of the tools that they have access to in addition to other things that they would research on their own all right and so I guess like you don't Blockchain use Bitcoin but no but just I guess in terms of blockchain and what that means in terms of you know how it works and and where crypto currencies actually fit into that story long what would you say about that yeah so when we actually move money from one country to another we have a concept called Multi rail and think of it like a router that routes between different ways of moving money we use our own bank accounts and a number of markets we use the blockchain we use where to use different payment providers think of the blockchain as a way to cross from one currency to another without going through intermediary banks it's a really interesting really clever way to bypass intermediaries and when you do that you're really cutting down costs and you're simplifying the process and you're reducing time for the customer the other thing that's interesting about the blockchain you do it 24 by 7 there's no banking hours and then you can track transactions quite a bit of detail is as the money moves from one country to another you you almost watch the money go real-time in front of you it's kind of like you know when you order an uber you see that driver coming to you is the same idea you watch money coming to you and that's something that's brought to you by new technology that's different than what you get from existing established payment methods so you have Canadian customers a presence in Silicon Valley you also have a presence in Ottawa which which obviously has a pretty large tech community as well are you finding that some of the issues that some of your Canadian customers would have are similar those US customers that you have yeah I mean the customers from Canada from Europe from the US they all have common issues to them they're all looking for simple ways to pay and get paid they're all looking to figure out how to deal with uncertain issues that come their way tariffs brexit they all have common patterns demands to them and they find Veen to be a helpful tool that's going to help them no only with the mechanics of moving money but generally with the way to run their business and what's it Expanding in Canada been like for you running a business in expanding in Canada also having a presence in the US how how has it been for you operating in the Canadian market Canada is a great market to be in and so we've been focusing on Canada and only to have an office here but to grow the footprint on the Canada side and the business has been awesome and we doubled the size of the network the accounts on the platform almost in one year so growth has been great and and how does Regulators it work with regulators here and you know I'd assume there's some traditional Canadian banks that would have done some of these services for customers in Canada in the past you're able to jump into this market and just get down to business essentially yeah we we are a money service business regulated in the US and every state and we help our businesses with a simple process that's what really attracts them to beam the simplicity of the experience that's the primary driver the second second sort of attributes are you know cost savings tracking transparency but the fundamental thing this is a really simple experience for the businesses to use theme to move money around the world that's what they come and join the platform all right Mauro and thanks for your time appreciate thank you for having me or unfortunately the CEO beam joining us here in studio