Raise launches mobile payments app Slide

Jay Klauminzer, CEO of Raise, joined The Final Round to discuss its new mobile payment app Slide and consumer spending habits amid COVID-19.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to "The Final Round." For a look at the state of retail and consumer spending trends in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we want to bring in our next guest. We have Jay Klauminzer. He's the CEO of Raise. It's a mobile payments company. And Jay, just give us a sense of the spending trends right now. We saw a rebound in retail sales in the month of May, in the month of June, but what have you seen in July and so far this month? I guess are people continuing to spend, or are we seeing that begin to level off a little bit?

JAY KLAUMINZER: Yeah. It's a great question, and the answer really varies across categories. I think general retail is continuing to hold the trend we saw last month, especially as back to school starts to pick up. Even if students aren't going into the classroom, they still need supplies and clothes for home. Where we have seen actually a bit of a pull-off is in the travel category, as you can imagine. When the shelter-in-place had started to be lifted, we saw travel start to bounce back. But unfortunately, I think people are just really reluctant to book any big trips going forward. So I think we're going to see a big pullback in that sector this month.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Jay. It's no surprise that we're seeing people spend less on travel. But what about just this shift in consumer behavior and how people are spending their money? Have you realized or noticed any sort of difference there from your different payment apps?

JAY KLAUMINZER: Yeah. I think in general it's not surprising what's happened. Brick and mortar has taken a massive fall-off, and people are shifting their spend to online. We're also seeing a couple of other interesting trends that pop up-- the do-it-yourself category and home entertainment. Well, you think about it, and it's not that surprising. People are spending more time at home. They're using that extra time they're not spending commuting to actually improve their house. And, of course, on nights and weekends with nothing else to do, we see the entertainment sector picking up significantly.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Jay. It's interesting when you look at what your company has done over the last couple of months because you recently launched Slide. And it's this contactless payment product. And from my understanding, I guess users can link it with their credit cards, also with Apple Pay and Google Pay. But my question to you is it's a relatively crowded space, so how are you attracting customers? And what's the reception been like so far with this new product?

JAY KLAUMINZER: Yeah. So first, Slide is our first new standalone app in several years. And it's focused on, really, the convergence of mobile payments and loyalty. And so it enables contactless checkout and savings on every purchase you make. And the kicker is you get immediate 4% cashback, which you can then export to your Paypal or Venmo account.

So what we're really doing is, you know, we saw this trend coming, mobile payments and loyalty. We knew that it was going to be a big trend. And then COVID not surprisingly has pulled forward that trend and created a tipping point, I think, several years beforehand, before we would have otherwise expected it. And so what we've seen is actually beyond our expectations in these early days.

We're a couple of weeks into our national launch, although we [INAUDIBLE] testing ahead of that. And we have users that are just using it everyday not only because it's incredibly easy-- it's actually faster than using your credit card at check-out. It's contactless. You hold up your phone, and it gets scanned at the register.

And you're getting the 4% cash back on top of it. So as people want to have their dollars go further amidst the uncertainty in the economy, it's really hitting all of those. It's convenience, it's contactless, and they're getting cash back. And so that's how we've really differentiated.

- Jay, to your point, you know, we've seen a lot of these trends accelerate throughout the pandemic. Contactless is one. And yet, I think back to the debate that was happening before in terms of, you know, increasingly going cashless. The question about inclusively-- those who don't necessarily have that technology in place, you know, with stores increasingly not wanting to use cash-- I mean, how are you thinking about that as a company in terms of how to broaden out the technology or broaden out the reach of your technology?

JAY KLAUMINZER: Yeah. I think the biggest way we're thinking about that is acceptance methods. And so right now, you can link any of your credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. But we are thinking through additional channels to actually fund your balances with cash and use other debit products, which are coming to market now for the underbanked or unbanked, for that matter. And so I think for our point, we've got a product that works great when you're ready to check out. We're doing more to actually make sure more consumers could use our product.

- And Jay, you also have the Raise gift card app as well. So what trends have you been seeing there during COVID-19? And are you seeing more selling of gift cards just to get cash?

JAY KLAUMINZER: We are. I mean, I think we've always had this great value proposition. There are tens of billions of dollars of unused or unwanted gift cards. I know before I joined Raise, I looked in my drawer and had literally 10 or 12 cards ready to go. And I listed them. And they sold it in a day or so.

And so I think what we're seeing is, you know, we've historically done really well in the consumer-to-consumer space. But we're seeing people who are in uncertain times, that they don't think they're going to use that card in the next six or 12 months. They're coming to our site to list it. And so we have seen an uptick of thousands of new sellers on our platform.