Simply Keeping Software Payment Compliant with Fiska CEO Patrick Huyhn

Tedd Huff: 00:01:22

welcome to the show.

Tedd Huff: 00:01:23

Hey, Patrick, I appreciate you hopping on this show.

Tedd Huff: 00:01:26

I'm so excited to discuss how your passion for FinTech and payments is helping

Tedd Huff: 00:01:31

payment companies reduce churn, help software companies, integrate critical

Tedd Huff: 00:01:35

payments functionality without all the crazy operational compliance and overhead.

Tedd Huff: 00:01:40

Now, one thing that I've realized through a lot of discussions

Tedd Huff: 00:01:43

with people in FinTech, is it?

Tedd Huff: 00:01:45

Well, we don't really focus on becoming someone in FinTech.

Tedd Huff: 00:01:50

We kind of just fall into it.

Tedd Huff: 00:01:52

I would love for you to share your falling into FinTech journey and story.

Patrick Huynh: 00:01:58

First of all, Ted.

Patrick Huynh: 00:01:59

Thanks for having me in a show.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:00

it's awesome to talk to you first thing in the morning.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:03

My story in FinTech goes back over 20 years now.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:07

I've seen the evolution of, FinTech, especially in payments world, from the

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:11

early, late nineties, all the way to now.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:13

And, there's a real acceleration, in the mid two thousands with, PayPal

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:18

with, uh, square and fintechs.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:21

And now in late, call it two, two thousands 20 1920s.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:29

We're seeing a boom in the FinTech space.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:31

So I'm super excited to be in this space.

Patrick Huynh: 00:02:33

I think it's a point of a real pivoting point in this space for uh, for payments.

Tedd Huff: 00:02:42

So I have to ask what was your first introduction in

Tedd Huff: 00:02:47

FinTech and I, and you and I, go back about the same amount of time.

Tedd Huff: 00:02:51

So it wasn't really called FinTech back then, but now looking back with

Tedd Huff: 00:02:55

that moniker, what was that first experience like with you and what was.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:00

Look, I'll tell you.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:01

What I remember from those days is a little gray box.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:06

And for those that have been in the space, as long as I have, and you have.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:11

I think you'll know what I'm talking about.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:13

It's the Zon terminal, right?

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:15

And it's, this little gray box that sits on every single storefront on the counter

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:22

and it's been there for the last 15 years.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:27

So that was my first memory of of payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:03:31

And, that box has, had very long and fruitful life.

Tedd Huff: 00:03:37

Oh, my gosh I, still remember burning a new rom into those things.

Tedd Huff: 00:03:42

So yes it's, a little crazy that, something like that.

Tedd Huff: 00:03:49

Was the entry into electronifying the entire payments ecosystem.

Tedd Huff: 00:03:55

It used to be right before that device, it was still a piece of paper that people

Tedd Huff: 00:04:01

had to take to the bank and drop off.

Tedd Huff: 00:04:04

And we've been spoiled right now.

Tedd Huff: 00:04:08

So we're, getting money immediately in some cases, depending on the

Tedd Huff: 00:04:12

type of service that you're using, sometimes it's the same day.

Tedd Huff: 00:04:16

Sometimes it's the next day.

Tedd Huff: 00:04:18

When it's not next day, we think there's something wrong, which is so hilarious

Tedd Huff: 00:04:24

to me because it, we were lucky if we got it within seven days back when

Tedd Huff: 00:04:30

we were talking the, Zon terminals, as you were mentioning, it's crazy.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:35

Yeah.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:35

And I think that what we've seen in the last 15 years compared to the previous

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:42

50 years is, a complete shift in the payment technology side of things.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:50

That Zon terminal was the anchor of payments for such a long time.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:56

Yeah.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:56

And like you said before, that was just paper.

Patrick Huynh: 00:04:58

And then last 15 years we've seen the evolution of payments going from that.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:04

Gray box to almost transparent payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:07

And I think that's where we're going with this is that payments

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:11

is going to become transparent.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:12

It will exist, but it will always exist and more and more so in the background.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:18

And so the user experience will be less focused on payments and people won't

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:22

be looking at those gray boxes anymore.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:25

It will be just part of a commercial transac.

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:29

That's what payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:05:30

is.

Tedd Huff: 00:05:30

It is I would love to get, and I'm going on a little bit

Tedd Huff: 00:05:34

of a tangent here, but I'd love to get your perspective like yourself.

Tedd Huff: 00:05:39

I'm also an advisor and, a handful of VC funds.

Tedd Huff: 00:05:44

I'd like to get your perspective on like how you're seeing these investment

Tedd Huff: 00:05:51

groups look at FinTech and payments.

Tedd Huff: 00:05:54

Differently today than even what they were doing one or two years ago.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:02

The buzzword that I hear a lot in the VC world in the investment

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:07

world in general is frictionless payment or transparent payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:12

And people are looking to invest in companies that are providing a

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:18

payment infrastructure that allows the consumer to go through a commercial

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:24

experience without making a payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:26

Now take the example of Amazon go stores.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:29

You can walk into a store.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:31

You pick up your items, you walk out without making a payment, obviously

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:36

you've paid something or to someone, but it's completely transparent.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:41

Or, even Uber every time you take an Uber, the big difference between taking an Uber

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:46

and a taxi again from a payment experience is that it's completely transparent.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:50

You called the.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:53

With your application.

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:55

And once you've reached the destination, you walk out, you're not fumbling for

Patrick Huynh: 00:06:58

cash, you're not fumbling for your credit card and you're not swiping those

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:01

credit card machines stuck in traffic in in the middle of, at Manhattan, you

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:06

simply walk outta the car and that is it.

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:09

And that's what makes it beautiful transparent payments

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:13

completely frictionless.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:18

Full disclosure.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:20

I've known Patrick for a number of years.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:23

And I, had a very early experience with this company Fisk.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:31

So I've been able to see them grow and change and expand.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:35

But for those Patrick who haven't been able to, come

Tedd Huff: 00:07:39

along on that journey with you,

Tedd Huff: 00:07:41

help us understand why you started FISCA and what problem.

Tedd Huff: 00:07:47

That you saw that you felt like I've gotta solve this problem,

Tedd Huff: 00:07:51

help us understand that.

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:53

Yeah, absolutely.

Patrick Huynh: 00:07:54

So I spent last, like I said, the last 25 years in payments in fact,

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:00

most of my bulk my careers with one company in UVA, it's ISO or payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:05

processor based out of Montreal.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:09

And I, started with a company when or five, six employees.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:15

And so we're scrappy selling merchant services, selling those payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:21

terminals that everyone knows.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:23

And what we saw over, in, the early two thousands and early 2000 tens is a

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:31

completely, a complete shift in payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:36

Merchants were no longer looking for a simple payment solution that

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:41

works, that sits on the counter.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:42

That's reliable.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:44

What they were looking for is, was a software solution that

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:48

allows them to run everything through the centralized platform.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:52

And typically that would be their point of sale system.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:56

So you think of a small business.

Patrick Huynh: 00:08:58

First thing that they do is they get

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:04

software technology.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:05

SA technology has become a lot more accessible, so that's the first do.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:14

In the past, it used to be your merchant account.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:17

You would go to your bank, you would open your merchant account.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:19

And sometimes you would get a your point of sale system.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:23

And sometimes you don't.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:26

And so what we're seeing is a complete evolution in the

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:30

world of software as a service.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:32

And so that, that made the cost and the barrier to entry for small businesses to

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:38

get point of sale systems, a lot lower.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:41

And therefore that became the predominant top of mind solution that

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:48

a small business and no longer payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:51

And so what we saw is convergence of world, the software

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:55

world and the payment world.

Patrick Huynh: 00:09:57

And unfortunately, the world that I in the payment world becomes,

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:02

came secondary to small business.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:04

And so the only way that I think that we could continue to offer payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:10

solutions and in a relevant fashion to, to the business, especially small

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:15

businesses is by integrating and partnering with those software companies.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:23

Unfortunately it's the idea is great, but the execution is a whole different game.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:32

as, you integrating software to payments is not an easy task.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:37

So you have technological hurdles, you have compliance regulations, and let's not

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:46

even talk about interchange and pricing and the commercial aspect of payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:53

What we strived to do was to simplify that entire process.

Patrick Huynh: 00:10:57

And we strived to become the bridge between the world of

Patrick Huynh: 00:11:01

payments and the world of software.

Patrick Huynh: 00:11:04

And that's how was born in 2019.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:07

That's awesome.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:09

One of the things that.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:12

That I want to understand is like you mentioned becoming and building out that

Tedd Huff: 00:11:18

bridge we can leave the pricing discussion over here, because that is if, people

Tedd Huff: 00:11:25

think that the technology integration is complex, you get into the costs

Tedd Huff: 00:11:30

and the commercial side of the house.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:33

It is a hundred fold,

Tedd Huff: 00:11:34

more complicated..

Tedd Huff: 00:11:35

But let's

Tedd Huff: 00:11:36

talk about the technical side.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:38

I believe when you look at things from a technical perspective, when

Tedd Huff: 00:11:45

you don't have a physical card present in your hand and, making that

Tedd Huff: 00:11:52

purchase as a consumer for software providers that simplifies the process.

Tedd Huff: 00:11:59

So many times, but as soon as you introduce that physical, payment tool into

Tedd Huff: 00:12:06

the experience, it complicates it even multi times over how, have you, and Fiska

Tedd Huff: 00:12:15

like leveraged that..

Tedd Huff: 00:12:16

Cause I

Tedd Huff: 00:12:17

know you guys are omnichannel or right.

Tedd Huff: 00:12:20

Multichannel, or I don't know what the new buzzword is this week.

Tedd Huff: 00:12:25

You, guys.

Tedd Huff: 00:12:27

Help the software providers, both with the card present and the card, not present

Tedd Huff: 00:12:31

consumer, not present, help us understand, like how are you helping that convergence

Tedd Huff: 00:12:37

and really taking a lot of the operational and compliance pieces off, their plate.

Patrick Huynh: 00:12:44

Look, like you said, like you hit the nail in head in a cart,

Patrick Huynh: 00:12:47

not present environment, whether it's eCommerce or to a mobile application.

Patrick Huynh: 00:12:54

It's relatively easy for software company to connect to the payment network.

Patrick Huynh: 00:12:59

There are a number of different payment gateways that makes that

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:03

innovation relatively simple, right?

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:07

Where it becomes somewhat complex is the addition of those physical terminals

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:13

and the physical checkout process.

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:15

And I'll tell you what we found out is that the legacy terminal companies.

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:21

Those terminals were built essentially as a standalone solution.

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:26

It was never built so that someone, a software developer in his or her

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:31

basement could integrate as a very easy API or, SDK that they could

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:39

work on and integrate overnight.

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:42

And so the complexity to integrate and to connect to those payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:46

terminals is extremely high.

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:49

And so the approach that we took is that we're essentially replicating

Patrick Huynh: 00:13:57

the cart, not present gateway model, where we take the heavy lifting.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:04

Of doing integration into the payment terminal.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:08

We pre certify that integration.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:11

, Tedd Huff: for those folks who haven't had

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:14

industry, what is certify actually mean?

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:16

What's the difference between a, certification, a pre-certification

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:19

and non-certified what is that?

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:21

What are the differences between those three?

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:24

Thanks for asking that question.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:25

I've spent so much time in this industry that in my mind, everyone,

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:29

should know what certifi means.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:32

But certification.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:34

So you have multiple.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:36

Think of it this way, right?

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:37

You have multiple devices.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:39

So terminals those physical devices that sit on a retail or,

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:44

restaurant counter, and then you have multiple payment processes.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:48

Unfortunately, the payment world is not as unified as it should.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:53

For example, you, first data, you have vent.

Patrick Huynh: 00:14:57

If you.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:00

Plethora payment processor, payment networks to connect to.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:04

And in addition, you have multiple payment devices that need to connect to each one

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:09

of those networks in order for those.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:14

Terminals to work.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:15

And in order for them to be able to connect you to payment networks, they

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:19

have to adhere to certain protocol both in terms of technology and

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:26

security compliance to ensure that the transaction is running through and not

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:31

only correctly with passing through the right data, but also in a secure way.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:39

That's somewhat of an over implication of the process.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:43

for someone who's never done this certification process could take , six

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:48

to 12 months and, can be extremely challenging, unless you've done

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:54

this multiple times, which we have.

Patrick Huynh: 00:15:58

So what we've done is we've taken all those terminals and we've gone through

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:02

all the banks and processors in Canada and the us and we've pre-certified.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:09

And so we've done the integration.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:12

We have received certification both in terms of technology, connectivity as well

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:20

as security with the payment processors.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:24

So we're doing the heavy lifting and our customers, the software

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:28

companies that connect to our APIs and SDKs benefit from a pre-established

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:36

connection, pre-established certification and surreal plug and play model.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:41

and so a process that could take six months will take two to four weeks

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:48

by connecting through this and, the.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:51

Benefit that our customers get from this is that they get one to many connections.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:57

And so they connect to Fiska.

Patrick Huynh: 00:16:58

They do their integration, they have, one connection Tosca, and then we handle

Patrick Huynh: 00:17:04

the multiple branches into all the different terminals, terminal types, as

Patrick Huynh: 00:17:11

well as all the different processors.

Patrick Huynh: 00:17:13

And again, across than us.

Tedd Huff: 00:17:21

Wow, this sounds very complicated.

Tedd Huff: 00:17:24

and it sounds like it could take Weeks if not months, to be done through

Tedd Huff: 00:17:29

Fiska and I've actually had to do the certification you were talking

Tedd Huff: 00:17:32

about directly with the payment providers, multiple payment providers.

Tedd Huff: 00:17:36

And, there were times where, when things didn't go just right or a regulation

Tedd Huff: 00:17:42

changed, it went from, it took up to 18, 18 months or so, It sounds complex.

Tedd Huff: 00:17:48

It sounds like it's gonna take forever.

Tedd Huff: 00:17:50

How long does it typically take for someone leveraging Fiska from the

Tedd Huff: 00:17:54

time that they start the process to the time that they actually have the

Tedd Huff: 00:17:59

payments embedded in their software?

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:02

Yeah.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:02

I'd say, it varies between number of days and weeks.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:06

and so what we do is we provide a complete set of API SDKs.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:10

We have a full development and testing suite, including, a mock.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:15

POS that allows our customers to run their entire test without

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:19

affecting their own production code.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:23

And this entire process test takes, some of them, some of our customers within

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:27

a amount of days, and was super easy.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:29

And the other.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:30

Point also.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:30

and I think you, you alluded to this is that the connection Tosca

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:34

allows them to be Futureproof.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:36

And so whenever there's an update, whether it's a technology upgrade,

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:41

a software upgrade or regulatory change, we handle all that.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:47

So you can connect tos.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:49

And everything that happens behind the scenes, where there's a new

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:53

terminal that's coming to market, or the terminal has a new software.

Patrick Huynh: 00:18:57

we handle all the integration, the certification, and any change

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:01

that may be associated with that.

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:02

and so we're essentially also future proofing that connect.

Tedd Huff: 00:19:07

So we've talked a lot about getting it connected and

Tedd Huff: 00:19:11

maintaining and reduce lifting a lot of that off of their plate.

Tedd Huff: 00:19:16

But what does that open them up to being able to do in addition?

Tedd Huff: 00:19:21

So if I'm able to take away a lot of the heavy lifting, what are some other

Tedd Huff: 00:19:25

things that, that I, as a software provider can do with the data that

Tedd Huff: 00:19:29

I get from Fiska in order to help my customers grow their business.

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:36

Yeah, that's near aspect of business today.

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:39

And especially when it comes to small businesses, they, think about business, a

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:44

small business owner, She does everything from opening the doors in the morning,

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:48

all the way toing floors at night.

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:53

And they don't have either the bandwidth or the financial

Patrick Huynh: 00:19:56

resources to have all these big CRMs and data and analytics suites.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:02

what we've done is we've taken all the payment transaction data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:05

So we're very fortunate to be sitting between the software

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:08

and the payment world.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:10

And so we're capturing a bunch of data, including skew, transaction skew.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:15

Very detailed order information, what items you're purchasing at, what price.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:19

And then on the end, we're also capturing the payment data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:22

So we have the cart data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:23

We have the consumer information, we have the authorization number and so on.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:28

And then we triangulate all that data set and provide customers with actionable

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:34

insight through a very user friendly D.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:38

And so essentially what we're doing is we're doing BI on

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:41

behalf of a small business.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:44

And we go from taking very raw data and we have billions of data points

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:49

that come into our system and that flow through our system every day.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:52

And then we transform that into information that they can, Take action on.

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:57

So for example, how are they doing?

Patrick Huynh: 00:20:59

How is the business trending it up?

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:01

Is it down?

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:02

But even at a deeper level, we can show you how your customers behave.

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:08

Are they coming in, frequently?

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:10

how much are they spending in your shop?

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:12

And then even more interestingly, what we do is we also acquire third party

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:19

data that allows us to have a complete view of what we call a share of wallet.

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:24

So we also know that your customer is spending X amount of money in

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:30

your shop, but are they spending more or less at a competitor's location?

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:37

And so that's really valuable data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:40

That allows, our end users, the retailers to take, meaningful

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:44

action to grow their business.

Tedd Huff: 00:21:49

So as a software provider, do I have access to that data or is

Tedd Huff: 00:21:54

that only through your, user portal

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:58

only through our user portal.

Patrick Huynh: 00:21:59

And I'll tell you why.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:00

there's a big.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:02

Complying and, responsibility that we have.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:06

obviously we can't divulge, personally identifying well

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:10

information, what we call P a PII.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:12

so we anonymize the data on behalf of the cardholders, unless we get explicit

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:19

consent from them to provide that or share that information with the retailer.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:23

and then in addition to all this is that there is a big analytics engine,

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:28

or if you are machine learning engine, that, Transforms those data points

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:32

into actually meaningful information.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:35

and I, and I believe that's an expertise that we've evolved over the years.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:39

and so this is a solution that we provide is a.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:43

A white label solution to our software companies where they can take our full UI

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:50

and embed that into their own platform.

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:53

So without having to do heavy lifting of, parsing the data, analyzing the

Patrick Huynh: 00:22:58

data or transforming data into insights and then, and, building that UI

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:02

interface, that's easy and user friendly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:05

we provide that as a package to the software company.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:08

They embed that in, into their own software.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:10

It's a white label solution.

Tedd Huff: 00:23:13

So it sounds like you've taken this expertise and then expanded

Tedd Huff: 00:23:20

that out in more of a, I hate to call it white label approach, but more of a.

Tedd Huff: 00:23:27

A branded approach where they can leverage the expertise in a way

Tedd Huff: 00:23:32

that makes it easier for them to deliver value to their customers.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:37

Yeah, absolutely.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:38

We believe that software companies, should focus on their core business.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:43

they don't, they shouldn't have to worry about payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:45

They shouldn't have to worry about the complexity, especially

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:48

the complexity around payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:49

And so what we've built is essentially infrastructure that allows them to

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:54

integrate, manage and run payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:23:57

In a very easy and seamless way.

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:00

and we don't want, and we don't need to see our brand out there.

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:04

we're happy when users are able to benefit from that.

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:08

but we are essentially just a plumbing behind the scenes.

Tedd Huff: 00:24:12

So if I'm a software provider, what would you say are.

Tedd Huff: 00:24:18

And I know you've probably already covered it, but I wanna ask it this

Tedd Huff: 00:24:21

way as a software provider, what are three reasons that I should be coming

Tedd Huff: 00:24:27

to Fiska versus maybe some other well known entities out in the marketplace.

Tedd Huff: 00:24:38

And I'm gonna, I'm gonna say their names.

Tedd Huff: 00:24:39

I'm gonna say like the Stripe, the square, the world pays the first

Tedd Huff: 00:24:44

datas, those types of things.

Tedd Huff: 00:24:46

why would we want

Tedd Huff: 00:24:46

to come to Fiska instead?

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:49

Well, the first two names that you've, you've mentioned are.

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:53

I would say the, the most well known FinTech companies out there, Stripe is the

Patrick Huynh: 00:24:59

poster out of, FinTech and so is square.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:02

So we have, we have significant and stiff competition.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:05

what we are different from them is that we only work with software

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:10

companies as a payment infrastructure.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:13

So we don't provide merchant services or merchant account directly to the users,

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:19

what we call in our industry merchants.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:21

So that's a big difference.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:22

with Stripe, for example, anyone.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:25

Can go to Stripe, open up a merchant account and use Stripe as a merchant

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:31

service provider, that's taught us you're merchant and you want

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:34

merchant account, you call Fisk.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:36

We just can't service you and we don't service.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:40

So that's number one.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:40

our business model is purely payment infrastructure to assess C.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:45

Secondly, we focus in, specialized version segments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:49

you had, another interview on your show recently with a company called flexible.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:54

I'll just use flexible as an example.

Patrick Huynh: 00:25:56

We provide very specialized payment solutions that can, that's very modular.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:01

That can be customized for vertical segments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:04

So Stripe and square is out there.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:07

they service every industry, every single segment across the world.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:12

what we strive to do is we go after small to midsize software companies

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:19

that may not have the expertise or the resources to integrate and manage payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:24

And so we provide a turnkey payment infrastructure to them so that

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:28

they integrate the third point and not the least, or I'd say

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:32

probably the most significant one.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:34

And you touch on this very early on, on the show.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:37

Commercial side, when you look at Stripe and when you look at square,

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:42

they don't provide a revenue share.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:44

They don't provide, a revenue stream that is significant for

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:48

those small software companies.

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:50

They'll partner with the big POS platform, or software platforms

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:54

like a Shopify, for example, But the small to midsize software companies

Patrick Huynh: 00:26:58

don't get that same level of tension.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:01

And so very often they don't see any commercial benefit they can integrate

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:05

to Stripe or a square, but beyond that, they don't see any revenue.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:08

Ted.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:09

The software world is changing and it's also changing very rapidly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:13

And in order for them to compete, they need that revenue line and

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:16

payments is a crucial revenue line.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:18

And that's what we offer to those companies as well.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:21

So we provide, a very significant revenue share so that the, software

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:26

companies can earn, that extra, income, And that's an important point because

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:30

if you look at a company like Shopify, over 70% of their total revenue

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:34

today comes from merchant services.

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:36

It's no longer software billing, it's merchant services, right?

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:41

And our goal is to level that playing field for the small, medium size

Patrick Huynh: 00:27:45

software companies so that they can also earn and compete against big guys.

Tedd Huff: 00:27:52

What have been the major hurdles in order to be able to deliver

Tedd Huff: 00:27:56

this level of complexity in a simplified manner, out to these software providers?

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:05

Look, I'm shaking my head because it hasn't been, an easy

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:09

role to get to where we are today.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:12

the world of payments is changing very quickly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:15

And the role of a payment processor and a payment service provider

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:19

is also changing very rapidly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:21

we had to keep up with those changes, even the payment terminals that, that I

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:25

wish I could say that payment terminal that we talked about, the gray box design.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:29

w would still be here and still be the pre prevalent, payment terminal,

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:33

but it isn't, there are so many new terminals that are coming to market

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:36

Android based space solutions.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:38

So we constantly have to adapt our technology in our

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:41

software to the chain landscape.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:44

that's that's number one.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:44

and that means it's a continuous effort on our end to maintain this payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:50

infrastructure and to Futureproof the payment, solutions for our clients.

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:54

Secondly, when we started in, in, or we started building the platform in,

Patrick Huynh: 00:28:58

we, we went to every single payment processor and banks across us and Canada

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:05

and said, here we are a little scrapy little startup we want to integrate.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:08

And with you, they're first of who are you?

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:12

and why are you talking to me?

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:13

and it's probably what our clients would have to do themselves.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:16

and, just being able to engage with them, to be able to get the data spec,

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:20

to be able to start doing that technical integration and then getting ourselves.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:25

Up there in the, priority list of certification was not an in the hurdle.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:30

we had to do a lot of discovery.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:32

there is no standardization across the industry, so every single

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:35

payment network, every single payment terminal had different.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:38

technical specifications.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:39

and we had to do to them do those integrations one by one and one by one.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:45

And a lot of times, it was research and development and testing and, through

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:50

trial and error, every single step of the way we filled, we've covered

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:54

a broad base in the market today.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:56

and that, that initial hurdle, is.

Patrick Huynh: 00:29:59

Behind us.

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:00

but there is a continuous amount of work that we need to put into to maintain

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:04

this platform and to ensure that it's Futureproof and the other point also is

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:09

that the commerce landscape is changing.

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:11

You mentioned multichannel, omnichannel, Customers are expecting they,

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:16

they don't care about the concept of multichannel or omnichannel.

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:20

What they're expecting is that they can go to a website, purchase something,

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:24

then go to the retail store, return that item because it didn't fit or

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:28

exchange that item, retail location, or they go to a retail location and they

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:32

expect that there's the same inventory and the payment transaction in all.

Patrick Huynh: 00:30:36

This has completely seamless.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:37

They're looking for that unified experience, To them.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:39

It isn't about commerce.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:41

It's about the experience.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:43

Do I get the same experience online?

Tedd Huff: 00:30:45

Can I take it to offline?

Tedd Huff: 00:30:48

Can I blend the two together?

Tedd Huff: 00:30:50

Can I buy online return to the store?

Tedd Huff: 00:30:52

Can I buy at the store and return online?

Tedd Huff: 00:30:55

To them, it's not an experience.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:57

It's different.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:57

it is.

Tedd Huff: 00:30:58

It is my experience with X, Y, Z company.

Tedd Huff: 00:31:01

that's right.

Tedd Huff: 00:31:02

And the payment side of it is you stated earlier, is seamless.

Tedd Huff: 00:31:06

and I'm gonna use my terminology as like it's invisible to them at that point.

Tedd Huff: 00:31:12

Now it's just a matter of did I get what I needed to get out of this?

Tedd Huff: 00:31:16

And so that's a huge piece of it.

Tedd Huff: 00:31:17

That unified experience.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:21

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head right there.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:23

And so just when we thought that our job was done after doing all the integrations

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:27

with the S and everything else, we had to unify the online, the cart, present the

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:33

cart, not present, transactions and look, it's been a trend for a couple years now,

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:39

but with COVID that accelerate that trend and change the consumer behavior forever.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:45

And so we are constantly having to adapt to those changes, not just in

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:51

the world of payments, but also in the world of commerce in general.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:55

And, we, like I say, we do the heavy lifting.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:57

That's what infrastructure is.

Patrick Huynh: 00:31:59

and we have to future proof.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:00

And so we had to integrate, we had to unify the payment experience, and we

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:04

had to update and upgrade constantly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:07

so to answer your question there's a lot of work that took to get off

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:10

the ground and there's continuing, a good amount of work that,

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:12

that, that goes into maintaining.

Tedd Huff: 00:32:15

So without giving me the secret sauce, how have you simplified the

Tedd Huff: 00:32:21

unification of that online and offline?

Tedd Huff: 00:32:24

Like what does that, if I'm the software provider, if I'm a merchant that have

Tedd Huff: 00:32:28

multiple software providers, how have you simplified that experience for them?

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:32

that's a great question.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:33

I actually don't think there is a secret sauce in all this.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:36

there's no magic wand.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:37

what we provide is a unified API in the first place.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:42

And our transaction comes in, whether it's a card present

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:44

or present over Tosca, back.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:48

We then parse the transaction and, saying this is all happening in real time.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:52

So it's a fraction.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:55

Where we're parsing a transaction.

Patrick Huynh: 00:32:56

If it's a present transaction, it goes to a e-commerce gateway.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:01

If it's card present transaction throughout that, to terminal all that

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:06

sits inside of our, the back end.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:09

And so the data, the transaction, the authorization, we tokenize

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:13

those transactions as well.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:15

So the card transaction or the card data is stored in a secure vault.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:19

And for your listing, maybe not.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:22

Familiar with the concept of a token.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:24

what we essentially do is we take the sensitive data, which is the cart number.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:29

We mask that cart number and we return a false value.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:34

That is not a card number, and that could be anything, could be an ABC, or

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:39

any value that our customers choose.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:42

And that our customers, the software companies will store on their end and

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:46

they can reuse to either refund, rebuild someone, run an authorization and so on.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:51

So on.

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:52

And so going back to the example that you gave earlier, when someone goes

Patrick Huynh: 00:33:56

online, makes a and get into a store.

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:00

They're returning that, that pair of pants because it doesn't fit

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:04

well, through our platform, what they're able to do is purchase

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:07

that item online, go to the store.

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:10

We provide the token to the software company, And the software company

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:14

at that point in inside of a retailization can use that token sure.

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:18

Refund against that same transaction that took place.

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:23

And we provide on the backend, a backend service that unifies the, and the

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:29

transaction and a single, so customer ISVs or software companies only have one

Patrick Huynh: 00:34:36

single, and they only have one to maintain

Tedd Huff: 00:34:44

that simplifies the process a ton for.

Tedd Huff: 00:34:48

And Patrick, I appreciate you diving into these details.

Tedd Huff: 00:34:52

we've covered such a huge swath of information.

Tedd Huff: 00:34:57

Is there anything that you wanna share with the listeners and the viewers

Tedd Huff: 00:35:01

before we say I do for the day?

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:05

Yeah.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:05

firstly, thanks for your time.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:07

Really enjoyed your conversation.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:08

It's always nice to geek out on payments.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:10

our vision.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:11

spends further than just payment.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:13

we're in a very fortunate position where we're also capturing tons of data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:19

And so we sit as a hub right between the software companies, the payment

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:25

world today, but let's not forget.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:28

There is also consumer that's also part of that transaction.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:32

So we strive to provide a complete commerce.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:37

What we call a commerce.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:38

Experience.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:39

So we focused firstly, on the innovation to payment and which we think is core.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:45

There's no payment, it's not a commercial transaction.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:47

in the future.

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:49

We are looking to integrate other financial services, solutions or services

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:55

so that our software companies can continue to provide those solutions

Patrick Huynh: 00:35:58

to their base, which again, we're still targeting small, medium size

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:02

businesses in a seamless fashion.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:05

For example, lending.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:06

Small businesses need instant access to cash, integrations into your

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:11

accounting platform and reduce the time that it takes to reconcile

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:15

payment transactions, for example.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:18

And so what we strive to become is that hub that allows our customers to

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:25

deploy multiple financial services.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:29

In a super easy way and for their customers to be able to consume

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:36

those services in a super easy way.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:39

And on top of that, because we sit in the middle of all this, we capture so

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:44

data and that we can add an enhance, a payment transaction through additional

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:50

data, or, a financial service, a financial transaction, through additional data.

Patrick Huynh: 00:36:58

And I think that, that our goal is to provide those tools and those technologies

Patrick Huynh: 00:37:05

so that ultimately the small businesses can have better solutions to manage their

Patrick Huynh: 00:37:11

business and to grow their business.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:15

Now that's fantastic.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:16

it's interesting how, once you start to go down the rabbit hole of payments

Tedd Huff: 00:37:21

and you start to look at how all these different things relate to each other,

Tedd Huff: 00:37:25

that you're like, okay, well, if I put that and that together, And that will

Tedd Huff: 00:37:31

solve this problem over here and just really how you can piece the things

Tedd Huff: 00:37:36

together to start solving problems.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:39

And I think that's one of the really interesting things that I've on.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:43

Many of the discussions that I've had is really nobody's

Tedd Huff: 00:37:47

trying to reinvent the wheel.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:50

They're just trying to figure out a way to make the wheel more efficient.

Tedd Huff: 00:37:54

Maybe look a little bit better, maybe be easier to change, but they're not

Tedd Huff: 00:37:59

trying to create a brand new wheel.

Tedd Huff: 00:38:02

They see that wheel works and let's just add additional value to it.

Tedd Huff: 00:38:06

So I commend you on continually finding all these little areas in this ecosystem

Tedd Huff: 00:38:12

to pull together, to provide value.

Patrick Huynh: 00:38:16

You've summarized it perfectly.

Patrick Huynh: 00:38:18

And, thank you for having me on your show,

Tedd Huff: 00:38:21

Patrick.

Tedd Huff: 00:38:22

Thank you again.

Tedd Huff: 00:38:23

I can't wait to see what else Fiska brings to the market and I look forward to, to

Tedd Huff: 00:38:30

bringing you back on later, when you guys have the next big thing in the market,

Patrick Huynh: 00:38:34

Tedd, it's been super fun.