The past, present and future of the U.S. dollar with David Cowen, President and CEO of MOAF

Joe Kornik: Welcome to the VISION by Protiviti interview. I’m Joe Kornik, Editor-in-Chief of VISION by Protiviti, our global content resource examining big themes that will impact the C-suite and executive boardrooms worldwide. Today, we’re exploring the future money and I’m thrilled to have David Cowen, the president and CEO of the Museum of American Finance, join me today. David is going to walk us through a brief history of money in the United States, or what would become the United States way before we even had the U.S. dollar. The museum has amazing historical collections from those days, and David will be sharing those in just a moment. The Museum of American Finance, by the way, was a big source of historical reference for Lin-Manuel Miranda when he was writing Hamilton. Following David’s presentation, I’m going to ask him a few questions about a very uncertain financial future. So, David, thank you so much for being here, and let me turn it over to you to begin.

David Cowen: Joe, what a pleasure to be back here with our friends at Protiviti. We’re going to be talking a little bit about money, as you know. As the museum, if you don’t know where you’ve been, how do you know where you’re going? So, we want to turn the clock back just a little bit to set the stage for a flavor of what money was at the beginning of our country, trace it very quickly to today, and then maybe we will do that little Q&A you mentioned about.

The first thing to talk about is the Revolutionary War. We’re not a country yet, but under the Articles of Confederation, the 13 states are banded together, and take a look at this note. By the way, all of these are from the museum’s collection. We have literally, thousands of documents. This is paper, this is money, and it’s dated the 10th of May 1775. This is the first day of the Second Continental Congress. The fighting started a few weeks earlier, April 19th, Lexington and Concord. But what does your Continental Congress do on the very first day? They turn on the printing presses.

This is very elaborate. Let’s take a quick look at this. It’s got some marbling, which is attributed to Ben Franklin, who was a printer, of course, and its anti-counterfeiting. And there’s always these Latin words of encouragement. This one means “energy,” and then this is in Spanish milled dollars. We don’t have U.S. dollar at this point, but you could potentially turn this in for some Spanish coins. By the way, foreign coins are going to be legal tender in the United States until 1857. It’s not until those gold rushes where we get enough of domestic source of gold, and then eventually, silver, that we have our own currency backed by our own gold and silver. On the back, it’s quite elaborate. I like this where it anticipates the fighting. That’s a Latin for “homes will cease to be quiet.”

But it’s not just the Continental Congress that’s issuing money. This is a note from Georgia. And in Georgia, you can take a look here, that it’s backed not by gold or silver or something like that, silver in the case of the Continental, but by money arising from the grabbing of the states that were loyal to the crown. You needed to have something backing your currency. Well, that’s all well and good, but unfortunately, we lose Savannah, and so what was backing this currency isn’t going to be there. So, it’s states as well as our nation, which is issuing currency. The problem with this is there’s hyperinflation at that time. It’s not just Germany. When I went to school, we learned about the textbooks and the wheelbarrow’s worth of money to buy a loaf of bread. It’s happening right here in the United States. That Continental currency I showed you, is going to depreciate and sell like a penny or two pennies on a dollar, giving Americans a terrible aversion to paper money. By the way, this inflation is so bad, George Washington writes a letter in the middle of the war saying, “A wagonful worth of money won’t buy a wagonful worth of provisions.” So, who is going to straighten all of this out? Well, we become a nation officially, April 30, 1789. George Washington takes the oath of office in New York City, and then he brings on Alexander Hamilton to be the secretary of the treasury. He’ll be in the office for six years. He’s going to write three monumental state papers. He’s going to write others, but let’s focus on three really quickly.

The first is the report on public credit. That is going to straighten out and untangle all the leftover debt from the Revolutionary War. It’s the first-grade bailout, because we’re going to assume not just the Continental Congress’s debt, but all the state debt, and reassure a new U.S. debt, U.S. securities, of which there was a direct line to today’s national debt. The second one is to create a quasi-central bank, a central regulating monitory authority, and that is accomplished for 20 years. The third is to establish the U.S. dollar, and at that time, set it against certain levels of gold and silver. All of these have to get through Congress. Some of them have big fights, the room where it happened, the rap from the musical Hamilton, is about that whole assumption of the debts, but they all do pass.

But because we have this aversion to government-issued paper at that time, who’s issuing it? Most people don’t realize that it’s banks initially, from the start of our country, all the way through the depression, and then the government will get back involved a little bit later during the Civil War, but initially, it’s the banks that are issuing the currency. We have several notes here, a $1.00, a $2.00, and a $3.00 from the Bank of New York, which by the way, today, is still in existence as BNY Mellon. You can see that it was individual banks throughout the country issuing. Now, that was fine if you were in New York with your note, but what if you were traveling outside of New York, the Philly or Charleston? These notes will depreciate, and there would be registers and books, and they can also be counterfeited. A very messy situation, because you wouldn’t get a full dollar on a dollar if you were in another town. The next one though shows you that that first Bank of the United States—by the way, in its day, called the Bank of the United States, but looking back, because there was a second Bank of the United States, the second quasi-central bank, issued notes as well. This was the main circulating medium, because they had branches, eight of them, eventually, throughout the country. So, you could bring notes of that bank and they wouldn’t necessarily be depreciated if you brought a Boston note, let’s say, to New York or to Philadelphia. But that was also a government-owned only 20%, 80% by the public, so again, a quasi-bank that acted as a central bank.

Moving forward quickly to currency in the Civil War, this is where the government gets back into the business of printing currency. If you see the back, it’s all green, and that’s where the phrase “greenbacks” come from. Now, this particular note was not backed by gold or silver, but you’re going to see quickly that we do get back on the gold standard, but for the issues and problems of the war we have to get off gold. Here is a bank from Kansas issuing a $2.00 note. This is called the lazy deuce because the $2.00 is on its side. All the banks could still issue after the Civil War, but they had to hold 90% reserves at the Treasury Department.

Moving along. So, when the government also starts issuing, you can get Goldback or Silverback notes. Here’s an example where you could go back to the treasury, gold and silver are set at certain amounts, and you could turn your note in for specific amounts of gold or silver. But that’s all going to change once the depression hits. Now, remember, Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes into office, the Great Depression’s in full swing, there’s the initial bank holiday. Most people don’t realize that banks, all of them, closed for 100 days. There was a lack of money around, very difficult time, but there were so many bank failures that was in extreme measure that was taken. The second extreme measure most people don’t realize is all your gold was confiscated. This is for individuals who would have to line up then and turn your gold into the treasury, because if you didn’t, there were very severe fines for that. By the way, this is going to be rescinded in the mid ’70s under the Ford administration, and that’s why we all now can own gold. The other thing to know about those that the banks now are stopped out, they can’t issue their own currency, it’s all going to be by the government. One of the things to note was there were high-denomination bills back then. These are $500.00 and $1.000.00 bills. These were all stopped in particular because of the black market, the drug trade, to make it much harder to move cash around.

So, that’s your rolling tour, Joe, of how we get to today and our current currency. I’m happy to field your questions now about any of these topics.

Kornik: Thanks, David, for that walkthrough of historical America and the origins of money and the origins of the U.S. dollar, the treasury. Fascinating stuff. I know the museum does a great work. It has all kinds of great information, a lot more than even what you shared here with us in that presentation.

Cowen: Yes. Joe, that was one of the quickest, if not, the quickest tour of all currency I’ve ever done.

Kornik: Yes. I’ve seen you do it and it’s much longer, but I appreciate you scaling it back for us here. David, I just wanted to ask you. I mean, you talked about the past, I wanted to push this forward a little bit and talk about the future. But first, I’d like to just know, what do you think Alexander Hamilton would think of the state of our national debt right now?

Cowen: Hamilton, as we’ve mentioned, created this national debt, and he actually said the phrase, “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be a national blessing.” By the way, his detractors often take out that middle line, “if it’s not excessive,” just to blame him for the debt. But in my opinion, he’d be spinning in his grave at this massive $33-odd trillion worth of debt.

Kornik: Right. What about the deficits that we’ve grown and accustomed to? I mean, it’s the highest ever outside of war time that we’re running right now. What do you think the Founding Fathers would think about that?

Cowen: Let’s contextualize a little about how much this really is. If we could bring up our debt clock, you can see that we’re currently at some $33-odd trillion dollars’ worth of debt, closing in on a $100,000.00 per citizen, and $258,000 per taxpayer. This is an incredible load of debt. So, the question is really, though, okay, can we service this debt? What are the ways to lower this debt? We’re at really extreme levels, 120%, roughly. It’s 123% of the federal debt. There’s several ways—the least appealing, of course, and that we don’t want to talk about is you could default on the debt, right? That’s a disaster and just a horrible scenario. You can raise taxes. That’s one way to get it down, but that’s a political hot potato. You can lower spending, equally a political hot potato, or the ideal one is to potentially grow your way out of it. That is the preferred scenario that maybe we get the economy cooking or chugging along at such a great pace that we’re able to help do that. The problem now is we’re in a rising interest rate environment. The highest level since roughly 2007. So, when the nation’s debt becomes due, we’re refunding it, refinancing it at a much higher level. We’re at 1%-1.5%, and now we’re closing in on 4.75%-5%. That spells trouble down the road.

Kornik: Right. And I should mention, we’re recording this in early October 2023. By the time some folks watch this, that debt unfortunately will be higher. [Laughter] Most likely, it will not be going down. It’ll only be getting larger.

Cowen: Joe, right. What we’ve witnessed in Washington lately is not a forum for getting together on ideas and moving forward.

Kornik: Right. So, David, how concerned shall we be, I mean, that could potentially, you mentioned, default. How concerned shall we be about the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating? Because we’ve seen that a few times.

Cowen: We have, most recently by Fitch, but they were just catching up to a dozen years ago when S&P made the original downgrade, and Fitch cited the two concerns you and I just talked about. They said governance and then they also said the rising interest rate environment. At the level it is, it’s still AA+, roughly, but it is scary if we start to go through more downgrades, but everything is relative, and therefore, what are your other options? By the way, the states are also awash in debt. They are equally profligate in what they have issued. Some states are a little better than others. As far as just saying though, default, just because we are mentioning it. Most people don’t realize that states had defaulted in the nation’s history in the 1840s. Several states with a bad economy defaulted. We certainly know municipalities and cities have. The United States, though, never has, never missed an interest payment, hasn’t done that, and we certainly pray that that never happens.

Kornik: David, what impact do you think the things that you’ve been discussing, that deficits and credit ratings could have on the future of the U.S. dollar status as the world’s reserve currency, and where do things stand, and what could theoretically happen if the dollar does lose some of its dominance?

Cowen: Let’s take a look a bit of a last part first, in a sense that some people will say, “Well, the U.S. dollar has lost some of its preeminence. It’s been devalued.” Why? Well, if you take a look from Alexander Hamilton’s day, $1.00 is worth $20.00 of gold. Now, $1.00, it’s $1800.00 worth of gold. So, you had a 90 times devaluation. People like Jim Grant of Jim Grant’s Interest Rate Observer say, “Hey, back in 1933 when we went off the gold standard, that’s actually a default.” But to really dig into this, you’ve got to say, are there other relative options? And certainly, nations that aren’t friendly to us would certainly like to replace the dollar. But remember, it’s so intertwined also with the international banking system, free capital flows, and if you look at what potentially could replace it, the Chinese renminbi? They don’t have free capital flows. Are you going to get involved with a country like that? Crypto has all sorts of its own problems. Gold, as we know, is just not elastic enough for this type of modern economy. So, while there all sorts of pressures on the U.S. dollar, I don’t see a viable alternative in the near future here.

Kornik: Yes, interesting. And I’m sure that there are business leaders who are watching this will be happy to know that, because certainly, they are rooting for stability and not chaos in global monetary systems.

So, David, you’ve taken us back a few hundred years today and we appreciate that, but I’d like to look forward. I won’t ask you to go out 200 years, [Laughter] but how about a decade or even a little further? Any thoughts on where we’ll be as a country, as a financial system in the year 2035 or maybe even 2040? Any thoughts?

Cowen: Well, I don’t have a crystal ball other than a look at history. The British, the pound, was supreme for about 150 years, with an inflection point roughly around World War I or so. If we use that as our guide, add a 150 years-ish on to the U.S. dollar, what does that give us? Roughly, another 30, 40 years or so of U.S. dollar. So, my best guess, and that’s all it is, is that old Mark Twain quote, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” So, let’s all hope that’s the case for several decades to come.

Kornik: David, thank you so much for that look back and that look forward. I really enjoyed our conversation today. Fascinating stuff.

Cowen: Thanks a lot.

Kornik: And thank you for watching the VISION by Protiviti interview. For David Cowen, I’m Joe Kornik. We’ll see you next time.

Innovation versus regulation and the future of digital banking with Blockchain Coinvestors CEO

Joe Kornik: Welcome to the VISION by Protiviti podcast. I'm Joe Kornik, Editor-in-Chief of VISION by Protiviti, our global content resource examining big themes that will impact the C-suite and executive boardrooms worldwide. Today, we're exploring the future of money. And I'm excited to welcome in Matthew Le Merle, managing partner and CEO of Blockchain Coinvestors, which he launched in 2014 with the goal of providing broad coverage of the fastest growth blockchain companies and crypto projects. I'm pleased to turn over today's podcast to my colleague, Protiviti Managing Director, Digital Assets and Blockchain Solutions, Lata Varghese. Lata, I'll turn it over to you to begin.

Lata Varghese: Thank you, Joe. And Matthew, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.

Matthew Le Merle: Great. It's great to be here, Lata. And I'm looking forward to speaking to your audience and to your questions.

Varghese: Sure. As we dive in now, Blockchain Coinvestors might be unfamiliar to some of our listeners. And, in fact, the whole space of blockchain investing might need a little more explanation. So, can you tell us a little bit more about it and your role at Blockchain Coinvestors?

Le Merle: Yes, I'm happy to. So, along with Alison Davis, I'm the founder of Blockchain Coinvestors. We had been investing in internet and fintech here in Silicon Valley for about 20 or 20-plus years. And about 10 years ago, we saw those two innovations converging on something new. And so, the internet and fintech came together to create something called Bitcoin, which was put on top of an innovation called blockchain. And we were very taken by the arrival of the world's first digital money that worked at scale. And there are some very important reasons why we thought that that was a transformative moment.

So, we pivoted to be 100% focused on investing in blockchain. And we've done that ever since. We're the leading and most diversified funder funds in the world in early stage blockchain investing. And so, that's what we focus on. We've backed more than 800 blockchain companies and projects at this point in Europe, North America and Asia. And we do not trade. So, just to make that clear, we're early-stage venture investors, but we are not public liquid crypto traders.

Varghese: Great. And I know Blockchain Coinvestors’ position is that the move to digital money’s, commodities and assets is pretty inevitable. And in order for all that to happen, really, all of the world's financial infrastructure must be upgraded. Now, in your view, Matthew, how does that happen? Like, who leads this effort? Is it public, private sector? If I look back at how the internet adoption was driven by a large part by government investment and mandates, and enterprises had the pull factor in past computing cycles, right? So, who does the heavy lifting for all of this to occur, right?

Le Merle: So, you just said something there, which isn't quite my memory. I believe that the rollout of digital communications and content on a global basis wasn't driven by governments at all. It was driven by innovators, and the world's most innovative companies, including, of course, the world's most valuable companies of today—the Apples, Microsofts, Amazons, Googles, Facebook, Alibabas, Ten Cents, Baidu's—those were the companies that brought digital communications and content to us. It actually took a while for the incumbents, the large telcos, the large media companies to embrace the internet. And in fact, if you go back to the 90s, most of them were resisting it, they didn't want it. Blockbuster famously told us all that we didn't need downloadable content at all, we could just go to a local Blockbuster store and pick up a CD or a DVD and they had a store on every corner.

So, my remembrance is that innovation is always driven primarily by disruptive innovative companies. And the large incumbents take a while to come on board. And in fact, they resist innovation because innovation disrupts their current ways of doing business and making money.

And so, now talking about blockchain or the digitalization, as you said, of money's assets and commodities, I think it will be exactly the same. I think the most important breakthroughs of this moment are being driven by the innovators. And that could be Coinbase, that could be Anchorage, that could be Tether and Circle. And then the incumbents, some of them are working very hard to catch up. And that's why PayPal has announced its stablecoin and why Citibank has just announced it will be using tokenization to drive payment transfers for its customers. But the majority of the world's banks and payment companies will be trying to slow all of this down in this timeframe because they're not ready for it.

And then governments, the role of government is always to create pro innovation regulation, in my opinion, since innovation is the driver of jobs, GDP, and economic growth in every economy of the world. And any economy and any government that purposefully tries to slow down innovation, always regrets it later. They discover that they lose ground on a global basis and they end up not capturing the jobs and the GDP growth, if they proactively try and slow down innovation, and that's just the way it always is. And I could be talking about life sciences, I could be talking about clean energy, I could be talking about enterprise software. It's true across all areas of innovation.

Varghese: Yes, thank you for that clarifying comment. Really, I think my question was about government setting the conditions for innovation to occur with active investments also in infrastructure and other related things, right? Of course, the companies are the ones who innovate, but you do need the innovation set up to be—set up in a way where companies can actually act with conviction that their products and services can get deployed in the market.

Le Merle: Yes. Well, so I—no, I don't agree. Governments do not create the backbone or the innovation infrastructure upon which innovators build. Time after time, what we actually see is governments waste enormous amounts of money, billions and billions of dollars on infrastructure that we end up not using. And if all they would do would be to get out of the way and set pro innovation regulation, the private sector makes it happen. And so, Tesla put in the fast-charging infrastructure of America at this point, and the government didn't do it. They could have done it, by the way, the government could have simply said that every transportation node in America should have fast electronic electrical supercharging in it, because of course, at the federal, state and local level, we do have a lot of transportation agencies in America; cars, trains, planes, and auto, etc., but they didn't do it. And so, Tesla's had to build it and others are now trying to catch up. And I'm just using that as an example. I don't think government is good at innovating. I don't think large established companies are that good at innovating—a few of them are. I think that innovative companies are very good at innovating, and then the rest of us figure out later how to take those inventions. And when I say the rest of us, I mean, established companies, figure out later how to take those innovations and embed them in their own businesses. And I think that's okay. I think the process of innovation has to be driven by people and companies that are unencumbered by other distractions. And government agencies are just not that good at innovation.

Varghese: Right. And their job is to provide the regulatory clarity so that innovators can do what they're doing.

Le Merle: Yes, preferably we prefer that, but it's difficult and I appreciate that. It's very difficult for a regulator to both maintain regulation of today's industries, businesses and activities, whilst at the same time, trying to figure out what a new body of innovative regulation would be for a future that hasn't yet occurred. And so, we always have that tension. Our preference is, as you say, Lata. I mean, as investors in innovation, we prefer to have regulatory clarity, but we also appreciate that that's very hard. The thing we don't want ever is anti-innovation regulation, right? So, if I had a choice between anti-innovation regulation, pro-innovation regulation, or regulatory confusion and lack of clarity, I would pick two out of three. The one I wouldn't pick would be anti-innovation regulation. And unfortunately—well, fortunately, in the internet years—America was a leader in creating pro-innovation regulation.

Right now, every other jurisdiction in the world is leading in establishing pro-innovation regulation for digital moneys, commodities and assets. And unfortunately, in America, we have a small number of people who believe that we should be killing this innovation. And they are a small minority of people, but they're working very hard to create anti-innovation regulation. And it's holding America back. And it's actually putting America on the wrong side of this innovation, which is very unfortunate. America has always been an innovation leader. America has also been the world's financial leader. And the danger here is that we end up being neither innovative nor a financial leader. And financial services is probably America's most important industry.

Varghese: You make some fair points there, it's just that the space is inherently complex, you're trying to upgrade infrastructure. And without clarity, it just kind of slows down the innovation a fair bit and incumbents who have their regulatory moats, protecting their existing businesses, find a little more time to sort of adapt, adopt, because this is we're talking about financial services and highly regulated industries.

Le Merle: So, in terms of corporate strategy, for many companies that are not very innovative, a good strategy is to try and slow down the external environment, because they don't have the ability to compete. So, I do understand that there are incumbents that would like to slow down innovation, but at the level of national economic strategy, i.e., at the level of the country, the United States, the EU v. China, for example, it's never a good strategy to be slow on innovation. And we know that, so if we can go back decades or even hundreds of years, and we can show the most innovative countries captured the lion's share of the global economic trade and value.

And so, in terms of the competitiveness of nations, you have to be pro-innovation, there is no alternative. And so, at the level of America, we have to be pro-innovation. And along the way, we have 5,000 banks in America, not all of those 5,000 banks will survive because they won't be able to keep up. And we've seen that in other countries that have many fewer banks. We have very large nations that have 20 and 30 banks, not 5,000 banks. So, I'm using that as an example. The fallout of innovation, especially global digital innovation, is that industries become larger, economies of scale and scope get larger, but we also have concentration. And concentration means some people fail. Within blockchain, specifically, we have a lot of disruptive companies moving fast in countries around the world. We have a few very large, innovative companies, and I'll use PayPal as an example, that are moving very fast. And then we have an awful lot of incumbents that are nervous and are trying to slow everything down. And I guess my bottom line is what I've already said, which is, if I was running the UK, the U.S., the EU, Switzerland, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, I would be passing pro-innovation regulation right now for digital moneys, commodities and assets.

Varghese: Absolutely. So, clearly, the underlying innovation for the blockchain, underlying Bitcoin, that led to all of this transformation of money and that will bring about a sea change in how we transact digitally as businesses, governments, people—granted, right?—but because it is so complex as money says a lot of options, the race for that digital currency dominance is on. So, there's Bitcoin, there's central bank digital currencies, there's tokenized commercial bank deposits, which almost is a reaction from the banks to the innovation. And as you quoted, the IUSD stablecoin launched now. All this, Matthew, to me seems to suggest that it is a transformative change in payment options, but then if you have one option, why can't you have multiple options? So, do we go back to the world of private tokenized money or probably sort of trading differently deflecting the credit quality of the banks issuing them? How do you see all of this evolve? Because it's something as complex as money and value.

Le Merle: Yes, it's a great question. And there's multiple components within that. So, for your audience, let's just unbundle it a bit. The first question—and I'm a bit of a fundamentalist around consumers and consumer benefits—so, let's just start there first. If we went back to the year 2000, and all of your listeners thought about how they did communications, how they got and shared and stored their information and how they did their financial transactions and investments. And now, if they thought about this year, 2023, and how they do all of those same things, and then if they rated them by speed, cost, accessibility, and ease, what you'd discover—everyone on this listening to this would discover—is that their communications and their information sharing have become dramatically better. The consumer benefit is demonstrable. It's almost real-time. It's almost no cost. It's ubiquitous. When Google told us they would make the world's information available to all of us in real-time at no cost, we didn't believe them, but they did. And not just them, obviously, a host of others. So, the consumer benefit has been demonstrable. And we all have benefited from it. And every industry and business has changed.

Now look at commerce, finance and investing, it hasn't changed much at all. We basically use the same approach to taking a loan, paying with a credit card, transferring money internationally, it's slow, it's expensive, it's painful. We have to answer telephone calls to confirm wire transfers. It takes a week. Our investments don't settle in t-zero, they settle in three days and four days. And if we want to buy a house, it can take 90 days just to complete the mortgage and the title transfer.

So, the financial industry has not provided consumer benefit in the last 20 years in a substantial way. And so, you have to begin there. And then you have to say, “Well, okay, how did we create that consumer benefit in digital communications and content?” And it wasn't centralized. It was diverse and decentralized. One day, you had Hotmail or you had Yahoo Mail, or you had Google Mail, and there were many of them and they were competing. But they were all better than you writing a letter, putting a stamp on it and giving it to the post office. And you started exploring with, “Oh, my gosh, I can communicate to people I want in almost real-time. And this is strange. They're not charging me anything. They're showing me an advertisement which I'm not sure if I like it or don't like it, but it's free. I'm getting free global communications. What's that about?”

When we digitalize moneys, do we think we'll have more or less? And will they be central bank only or will the private sector play? And how will that play out? And I guess my expectation will be, it will be a process of disruptive innovation. It will start out with more, and then some things will win, and we'll end up with fewer. The process of innovation is chaotic, confused, decentralized and disruptive. And then over time, we begin to figure out who the winners are, and we have less. So, I'm expecting the same thing. And I'd like to think that the digital dollar is a winner, and that we'll have both central bank digital dollar perhaps, but I'm expecting we'll have private sector digital dollars. And my bet is that they'll be issued by big banks and other financial players, but maybe there'll be a role for Circle and Tether as well. And the regulators will have to set the rules of the game. But if the regulators say there will be no digital dollars, they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater because the digital dollar is, from a consumer benefit perspective, it's real-time, low-cost and easy to use. That's why so many people are using Circle and Tether. They are superior ways of transferring money. Bank of America says the invention of the stablecoin is the greatest invention in the history of money. And it's because it is real-time, low-cost, easy to use money that can operate on a global scale. And that's the holy grail of payments.

Varghese: Right. And because payments and transactions are moving across, so don't you then think that having some standardization on how these digital dollars, or types of it, is created is important because it's almost like if every bank has its own sort of ways in which this is ledgered or on crypto rail, so to say, a digital dollar, if there are different points of view on how that should get created, then what does it fundamentally sort of solve in terms of an efficiency play?

Le Merle: Yes, but you see, you can't standardize innovation. That's the equivalent—if in the Betamax-VHS moment, the government had said, “Okay, we're going to pick a standard,” which one would they have chosen? The answer was Betamax. Betamax was the superior technology. So, from an objective perspective, if you had chosen to stop innovation in that moment, we would all be on Betamax and we wouldn't never have had CDs, DVDs, or downloadable content because we would have made rigid a set of standards that said the chosen way of storing and sharing data is on Betamax tape. And governments make that mistake all the time—you can't set a standard in a moment of time when you have rapid innovation occurring because the next innovation may be superior to anything you understand today.

I think that standards are very dangerous in a world of innovation. I think that what a regulator has to do is to create a dynamic, flexible regulatory structure that provides some clarity, but still permits additional waves of innovation, and it's very difficult. So, what does that look like? Right now, what that means is what MiCA is, it's what the UK and the Swiss have done as well, other geographies are doing, which is you need a market structure bill, which basically sort of says, “We believe the shape of the industry is the following. We think the shape of the innovations is likely to be the following. And we think the likely participants of it is supposed to be the following. And we'll set some guidelines around that.” And then you need some specific clarity around definitions of what we're going to be building, which I believe digital moneys, you can call those stablecoins, if you wish. The stablecoin is a little bit of a bad name because they don't have to be stable to be digital moneys, so, that's a bit odd, but call it stablecoins. And then you need some frame of reference for digital assets. What are digital assets? And what is the process of tokenization and where do you draw the line? And Gensler was asked in Congress, he was asked, “Is a Pokémon card a security?” And he said, “No, it's not.” And then he was asked, “If I tokenize a Pokémon card, is that a security?” And he said, “I need more information.” Well, he's the regulator. So, he needs to set out the digital asset, a regulatory framework that draws the parameters. A Pokémon card is not a security, a digitalized tokenized ownership record for a Pokémon card doesn't make it a security. But if it's bundled up into an investment contract, and you're selling a large batch of Pokémon cards, and you're guaranteeing a financial return, you cross some lines, right? I mean, I can turn a Pokémon card into a security if I say certain things about it. That clarity—market structure, what's a digital money, what's a digital asset—most financial centers in the world are putting that in place. And so, that's what the UK has done, Switzerland's done, Europe's done, or at least they're close to finishing. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Singapore, now Hong Kong, are moving very quickly to clarify those parameters.

Varghese: I don't disagree at all, Matthew, my only pushback would be if that standard is slow in emerging and if different forms of innovation come, then the efficiency that is touted by having money that moves across ledgers, both private public ledgers is able to transfer as a digital asset, where the asset is intelligent. It just takes a little more time and then there's a whole lot of other existing world processes slapped onto this, then I think it also adds cost on the infrastructure side, right?

Le Merle: Yes. Yes. So, I agree with that but that's why earlier on, I told you, I would take pro-innovation, dynamic regulation first. And then I would take no regulation and regulatory lack of clarity second because that still permits innovators to innovate. And the worst thing is anti-innovation regulation, which kills—throws the baby out with the bathwater. And the issue with that is that the world's a big place and there’s many jurisdictions. So, the danger of anti-innovation regulation is that all the innovators go somewhere else, and you lose your competitiveness of nations. And unfortunately, America is losing its competitiveness in this race to be the future of the financial system. I want America to be the global innovator and I know that we have to be the global financial hub. And if we lose the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency, I think that we have very serious issues because we have an enormous deficit, we rely upon other people to buy our treasury securities. And if they don't want to hold dollars, we're in a very bad place.

Varghese: You actually answered the question I was going to ask you directly that do you see that rise of all these other currencies impact the U.S. dollar’s positioning as the world's reserve currency?

Le Merle: How could it make sense for China—to use China as an example—how could it make sense for China to do all of its global trade in dollars? Because China does about 30 to 35% of the world's exports, and I believe about 15 to 20% of the world's GDP. And when China trades with Brazil, Brazil's denominated in reals, and China uses renminbi or yuan, so wouldn't it make sense for, when China gives billions of dollars to Brazil, Brazil buys billions of dollars of Chinese equipment, China buys billions of dollars of commodities and Brazil buys billions of dollars of finished products from China, that they would not be denominated in dollars. They would be netted out at the level of the nation on a ledger that China and Brazil would have between the two of them. And they would maybe denominate it in real, but realistically, they would denominate it in Chinese currency. So, it would not pass through the dollar. I mean, that obviously makes sense, but the state of the world for the last 75 years, since we went off the gold standard at Bretton Woods, is that we have actually denominated Chinese global trade in US dollars, and it passes to a large extent on the Swift network. And if you're the head of the Chinese government, or the Chinese Ministry of Finance, you're going to say, “I can't have that. It's a question of national security because I just saw the U.S. turn off swift for the Russians, as an example. So, I need—as a matter of national security—I need an alternative way to transact with Brazil, all right?”

So, now you just roll that forward, and you sort of say, “Can we sit…”—“we” being Americans now— “Can we sit on our laurels and presume that the U.S. dollar and the US dollar international remittance system will always be used by everyone?” And the answer is no, we can't presume that. So, now it's about competitiveness. Now it's about—well, if the if the U.S.-based global remittance system was fast, cheap and easy to use, would it have the right to win in international trade? And the answer might be yes. But on the other hand, if it is slow, costly and hard to access, then of course people would abandon it in favor of digitalized, faster, better approaches.

And so, I come back to the earlier point, which is China, and Russia, and the euro and the EU, as examples, are preparing digitalized versions of monetary systems. And if the U.S. presumes that it can kill all that innovation, and just say, “You have to stick with dollar on Swift and you have to answer your telephone call when someone calls you up to confirm the transfer,” that we're going to lose.

Varghese: So, that potentially might be what worries you about this digitized future where the U.S. is not leading with pro-innovation regulation because then that digital channels and corridors of trade across the world are happening in other digital currencies, which the U.S. doesn't have to be in the middle, sort of, establishing trust.

Le Merle: Yes. Well, I do worry about it, but not as much as you might think because I do believe that American software engineers are the best in the world, and they consistently have demonstrated that. Now I do think there's a lot of great innovators in other places, in Europe, in Asia. There are many in India—there are many places in the world where there are great software engineers who know how to write great code. But America has been, and I believe still is, the world's greatest concentration of talent. And all we're really saying is “Government, please help us continue to maintain…”—we're early-stage venture investors. So, just to be clear, we back hundreds and hundreds of blockchain engineers that want to build software on top of distributed ledger technology and innovation. And they do great things with it. And those great things, on the one hand, some of them are well known like Coinbase and Kraken, and a lot of them you've never heard of, and they're coming fast.

Varghese: Absolutely. So, zooming up, taking out a decade or more to 2035. What can we expect? Any bold predictions?

Le Merle: Yes. Well, I don't feel that they're bold predictions, Lata but I think that this is the vision. Just go back to 2000. Remember how you did your communications and how you shared information and the devices you used and the formats you used. You were still probably using tapes, you may have transitioned to CDs and DVDs, you were using email, but it was not that great. Roll forward to today—I mean, don't forget the Apple iPhone wasn't even invented until the end of the zeros and we didn't have iTunes or apps until the end of the zeros. So, a lot of the innovation that we take for granted today is a relatively recent invention. That's called real-time free communications. It's easy to do, it's easy to use, and so is the same of every other content-based industry today.

Well, imagine that financial services was the same. What would that look like? And what it would look like was, you can transfer money to anyone in real-time, and you don't have to pay anything for payments. I think payments will become free. There won't be any friction. Retailers will not be complaining because they have a 3 or 4% margin and they have to pay one or 2% to MasterCard or Visa each time they enable the transaction. They won't be paying anything for payments, payments will be free, it'll be ubiquitous, it'll be real-time.

But then think about investments, right? Today we sort of have digitalized public equities, but it's not very good technology, it takes several days to settle and it's expensive and it's not very accessible for most people around the world. Very few people actually can buy and sell public equities easily. Well, imagine that 8 billion people have access to any investment in the world in a low-cost fractional way and they can transact in almost real-time at almost no cost. And so, investment markets become huge, liquidity becomes massive. And if we go back to what happened to public equities, we end up also with derivative products that are easy to create.

So, imagine everything, every asset in the world is digital. The state of today is most of the real estate, most of the funds, and most of the private investments are paper-based. Imagine, in this day and age, 2023, most of our investments are paper-based. So, by definition, they are slow, expensive and difficult. Well, now that's in 20.., whatever the year was, you said 2035. That is all digital. So, it is ubiquitous 24x7 trading, low-cost, easy to fractionalize, price discovery is hopefully efficient, and we can easily build derivatives and drive additional liquidity. That is the future world of investment.

Varghese: Great. Fantastic. On that note, Matthew, thanks again for doing this. I really enjoyed our conversation and that little bit of debate around sovereignty over currency and how infrastructure and all of that. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Le Merle: Thanks a lot, Lata. And for your listeners, what I do want to leave them with is what you said at the beginning. This is inevitable, we will have digital moneys, commodities and assets. And it will be beneficial for every consumer and user. It will be hard and it won't be easy. It will take time.

Varghese: On that note. Thank you again, Matthew, and back to you, Joe.

Kornik: Thanks, Lata and thanks again, Matthew. And thank you for listening to the VISION by Protiviti podcast. Please rate and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to visit vision.protiviti.com for all of our latest Future of Money content. And be sure to subscribe to sharpen your vision. Thanks for listening. I'm Joe Kornik.

Joe Kornik: Welcome to the VISION by Protiviti podcast. I'm Joe Kornik, Editor-in-Chief of VISION by Protiviti, a global content resource looking to the future to examine big themes that will impact the C-suite and executive boardrooms worldwide. We're discussing the future of money and its implications globally. And today, we're focused on Africa. We have three outstanding financial executives from across the continent joining us today, and I couldn't be happier to welcome in Charity Chanda Lumpa, member of the Supervisory Board of Oikocredit Netherlands, and VP of the Institute of the Directors of Zambia.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much.

Joe Kornik: Also joining us today is Sepo Haihambo, executive officer of commercial banking, FNB Namibia, and former head of global markets for Rand Merchant Bank.

Sepo Haihambo: Thank you for having me. Excited to be talking about the future of money.

Joe Kornik: And we're joined by Faith Khanyile, director of companies, and former CEO of WDB Investment Holdings, as well as the former head of corporate banking at Standard Bank Group.

Faith Khanyile: Thank you very much for inviting me, looking forward to the discussion.

Joe Kornik: Well, we've got, believe it or not, more than 75 combined years of finance, banking and business experience on this panel today. So, I'm really excited to get started. I wanted to start sort of from the macro perspective and talk about where we are today, with the many disruptors facing the financial sector right now, specifically in the fintech space, with digital payments and cryptocurrencies, and now, even generative AI is into the mix. What do you think it all means for the future of the industry?

Sepo Haihambo: So, look, I think three things come to mind. I think one, as money becomes more digital, you're going to have greater integration in terms of people's everyday lives and how digital payments assimilate into that. Right now, a lot of it is maybe very business-to-consumer, but over time, it will also become business to business. This is going to mean that as banks, we're going to have to look at faster speed of integration as innovation continues into our existing business models, which means continuous investment and capital expenditure to make sure that we're ahead of the curve, maintaining the existing legacy models, but also building into the future with the investment in technology. So, expensive from an investment perspective, but really going to require faster adoption, given the speed of change.

Faith Khanyile: Maybe if I may add to what Sepo is saying, I also think there will be opportunities to promote more inclusive finance, especially in emerging markets, like, for example, in South Africa and African continent, where we still have the big part of our population having challenges accessing financing, accessing credit. But at the same time, we do have a high adoption of, for example, smartphones. And now, also data is becoming more accessible and more affordable. So, I definitely think that AI, and specifically, fintech, can promote more inclusive financing. And also specifically for small businesses, which require credit, and the old traditional way of accessing credit via banks has been quite expensive and also just not that friendly to small businesses.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: The future I have in mind is trending towards what I think Sepo talked about in terms of digitization. It's more about convenience, making it convenient. I don't know what paper money will look like in the future, if at all, but certainly, digitization is going to run out the number of ATMs that we have because of that particular instance. And even payment systems themselves will continue to be more and more cashless as we go, so that we can see that there'll be more focus on convenience, more focus on inclusivity, and that will also require much more security in terms of our banking systems or whatever system we're going to use, to use money on the global platform, even locally, domestically.

Joe Kornik: Right. And I heard you all in some way, shape or form, talk a little bit about equity. I think one of the promises of the future of money is that it perhaps will create a more equitable global environment for the financial sector. Do you see that as a real possibility and one of the opportunities in the future?

Charity Chanda Lumpa: I think it's a yes and no question, because basically, leveling the playing field would be tantamount to people having the same opportunities, equal opportunities, and equal access to finance. Yes, as much as the level playing field will be there in terms of the mode of using this money digitally, there will be some areas where there'll be less equity than others. And especially when you look at the South-South divide, or the first world and second world, definitely in more African countries, we'll see that cash is more of a leveler than it is elsewhere, where you find that you can't even pay using cash, you have to have a card. You have to have a debit card or a credit card. So, it's a yes and no question, depending on where you are.

Faith Khanyile: Yes. And I think to add, I think we do have to also deal with some fundamental issues around the allocation of capital, because I think right now, we do have issues around the diversity, sort of like the profile of the allocators of capital and then the managers of capital as well. And I guess also within this, we've got still, sort of like old ways of really looking at who gets capital. So, I think technology, fintech alone cannot solve some of those fundamental issues around who is allocating capital, and to whom are they allocating capital. Because I think one of the biggest challenges that globally we still have is that we have not really had the kind of transformation that we need at that level of capital allocation, and capital and fund management, which then can trickle down to making sure that we then achieve equity in the access to finance.

So, I think we do need to deal also with that issue, because then, if we can deal with that issue, then we can hopefully see more equity in who is accessing finance, be it women or small businesses. But I think as long as we don't have that, and then also if we don't deal with some risk appetite issues, I think we will have a challenge. But I think obviously, fintech and technology or the digital revolution will definitely open up opportunities, but we do need to deal with some systemic issues as well.

Sepo Haihambo: So, what I would say is I agree with Faith and Charity that at the end of the day, digital money is still money, so it must be earned. And if the earning potential of the individual, the company of the country isn't enhanced, then it doesn't necessarily increase access. However, having said that, I think with the increase in digital solutions, you're going to have more straight-through processing and real-time settlement of transactions. And this being done by people's cell phones, et cetera has led to new credit models that perhaps wouldn't have been used even five years ago. I've read case studies where they look at the behavioral pattern of when a person buys data for their mobile plan. Are they responsible? Do they wait until they finished every last bit of data and voice time before they top up? Are they very prudent, and like when they’re 50% utilization, they go and they top up, and they’re using alternative credit models that weren't available to us before we had AI as an input into credit models. But ultimately, we still need to solve in tandem, for the quicker, better, faster solutions. We need to, in tandem, solve for the income potential of the individuals, the companies, and the countries, et cetera. Otherwise, you build for a very limited market.

Joe Kornik: I think we're all in agreement that money is going digital. Clearly, the future is going to be some sort of digital currency, which opens up all kinds of new issues potentially. I mean, there are opportunities, certainly, but then there are also some challenges.

Sepo Haihambo: A hundred percent cashless society would need—for that to be adopted, you need that to be government led. So, I suppose there are valid concerns around the privacy, and the conversation will probably be based on the analysis of the positives and the negatives on a whole, and on a balance, what society seeks to gain if we go fully digital with no cash, globally. I mean, like, for example, I think enhanced revenue—tax revenue collection, could be one of the possible gains. But with regards to the privacy concerns, what I find interestingly enough, is that this tends to also be linked to generational concerns. You find that the younger generations from your Gen Z's and below are not as concerned about sharing their data. There's more of an interest in understanding why their data is being taken and what it would be used for, but happy to share the data if there's understood benefit for them at an individual level. So, I think as time moves on, the adoption of fully digital money will probably get easier as the younger generations come into the active economic workforce.

Faith Khanyile: Yes, I think one of the other considerations is obviously, on regulation. I think governments really need to get their heads around how do they regulate this new unchartered territory to protect the privacy of the individuals, as well as, obviously, the data that is being shared.

Joe Kornik:You've all touched on banking, and we have so much banking experience here on this call, I just wanted to ask a little bit about the future of that sector and what do you see as the major challenges in banking.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: I think for me, banking especially is a very highly regulated sector, and that always causes problems for banks, especially when it comes to meeting some regulations that actually negatively or adversely impact the ability to provide great service to customers. So, regulation needs to be measured, because keeping up with these regulations can be a challenge. It's a cost, especially for smaller banks. So to overcome this, a bank needs to implement really robust risk management systems, and also invest in technology that supports their regulatory reporting, but that tends to be quite high. And really, having a proactive stance when it comes to compliance; it's quite a cost in terms of a bank to meet all these regulatory requirements. So, yes, for me, that's one area that I see is quite a challenge for the banking sector in years to come.

Sepo Haihambo: I would add that the significant cost of compliance is definitely a key item, and I agree with Charity on that. And then, you also have the cost of guarding, protecting your client's money because of the cyber risk investment that has to happen alongside with a large capital expenditure, that banks will continuously need to plow into their systems to make sure that they've got fast adoption of new technology as it is developed. It's making the cost of doing business relatively high. So, what I expect you'll see in the next 5 to 10 years is a lot of consolidation. I think we're definitely seeing that in the African banking context. So, lots of consolidation, fewer players, but bigger players because of the cost of business in banking continuing to escalate with compliance and investment in technology required.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: We have seen changing customer behavior and expectations in the face of what we just discussed, security and cybersecurity threats. So, with the increasing trend of technology, digitization of financial transactions or banking transactions, the risk of cyber threats, even data breaches, becomes a really significant concern for banks. And to keep their customership, they must now continue to enhance their security stance, their security measures, and implement stringent cybersecurity frameworks that are not cheap, they're quite costly, and ensure that there's also a very robust, what I would like to call “incident reporting systems,” to allow customers feel that, yes, when it does happen, the bank will be there to help them. But all these are actually quite costly investments for the bank.

So, collaboration is going to be very key between the banks, between regulators, law enforcement agencies in terms of combating cybercrime. And then, customer behavior also needs to be factored in because the banks need to transform their experience of their customers by providing seamless, personalized, and omnichannel services, because really, it's not just in the good old days you go to the bank and then you get served. Now you have to get your banking wherever you are, and mostly, it's on your handset. So, banks now need to adopt a more customer-centric digital strategy when it comes to leveraging the data analytics to understand customer preferences, behaviors, whilst ensuring that they're protected.

Faith Khanyile: Yes. And also, I think the other one is that definitely banks are being disrupted by fintechs. I mean, it's that being disrupted left, right and center. Yes. And you can see, banks are now entering the fintech area, and they've got this legacy systems and costs that are just difficult to dissociate from. So, I think that's definitely—I think that trend has been going on now for the past five to 10 years. So, that is a real reality. But you see banks partnering with fintechs or investing in fintechs. It's actually fascinating to see what's happening in South Africa at the moment.

Joe Kornik: So, Faith, play that out for me, over the next three to five to even 10 years, how do you see that sort of—those partnerships and those collaborations, how do you see those impacting the sector, the industry?

Faith Khanyile: I think the industry is definitely going to be totally, totally different, because it's not just the fintechs that are playing in this sector, we also are seeing telecoms companies also. Because they've got the customer, they've got the data, they really have got the cream that you want, to then offer financial services into this huge untapped market on the continent. So, I think it's going to be a totally—I think over the next 10 years, your traditional banks, like your standard bank, your net bank, they are going to be—yes, I think it's going to be very tough for them because I think they're going to be meeting competition from all angles, from their own clients, from their service providers. So, it's going to be quite different, and I guess the regulations must obviously keep up with the changes. I think what we're seeing in South Africa is that the regulations are a bit sluggish, but that is not stopping innovation. I mean, even retailers are offering financial services to their clients. So, it's going to be a totally, totally different industry over the next 10 years.

Joe Kornik: I wanted to talk about Africa a little bit. It wasn't too long ago that some were predicting that Africa could be the next China, but economic growth has slowed post-pandemic. But key demographic changes still signify a lot of economic opportunity, and since we've got three different countries represented here, I did want to ask a little bit about, from a financial standpoint, from an economic standpoint and its positioning on the global stage, where is the continent today, and where do you three see it going in the future?

Sepo Haihambo: Africa is a very diverse continent. I believe at any given time, there's always pockets of growth in the continent. What you do find, though, I think there is still lots of potential untapped opportunity in the continent. I think following COVID-19, with the supply chain delays that were experienced globally, this trend towards reshoring is making a lot of manufacturers and countries reconsider how they acquire raw materials, which I think is creating more direct demand for a lot of the raw materials that are produced in Africa, and also the move towards renewable with these rare minerals that are required for batteries, like lithium, as an example. So, I think from that perspective, there's definitely another growth wave that will come through in the African context.

And then you've got the added complexity of these conversations around the dollarizing trade in Africa, which then could also be very beneficial towards the value of these African currencies. And then, at the same time, you've got African leaders coming together, having a conversation about the Africa free trade continental agreement, which would enhance trade, South to South trade on the continent. So, I think those opportunities do exist, but it would be irresponsible for me not to highlight, though, that the issues and the challenge in adopting new technology is being outpaced by the speed at which we're developing our skills and infrastructure to be able to support that future. So, it's almost like the two things need to happen in tandem for that full potential of the continent to be realized.

Faith Khanyile: Yes. I mean, I think, to say, first one, the opportunities are definitely still there. And I think if we look at the latest AFDB Africa economic outlook for 2023, it's very clear that Africa has definitely been resilient. Again, here, we need to understand that Africa is not one country, but just a macro. The continent has definitely been resilient post-COVID, and the economic growth has recovered completely. I think for 2023, the growth is still projected to be just close to 4%, actually—I have not seen the latest IMF outlook, but that was from the AFDB. And then, for 2024, the continent is projected to grow by 4.3%. And then, we talk about, obviously, the population and the youth dividend, those opportunities definitely have not gone away. But obviously, I think we've had headwinds due to the war in Ukraine, which has led to high food and energy prices. Most of the countries in Africa are battling very high levels of inflation, then we've had the increasing interest rates in the U.S., and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar have definitely impacted those countries that have borrowed heavily from, using U.S. dollars. But I think the key opportunities right now, actually, that we need to leverage as the continent revolves around what now is being termed the “green economy.” And then, I mean, the numbers are just staggering. I mean, apparently, the opportunity ranges anywhere between $2.6 trillion to $2.8 trillion that is required by 2030 to take advantage of this green economy. Anywhere from investing in renewable energy, investing in water infrastructure, obviously, health and education, are still big opportunities on the continent.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: Africa is the happening place. I think all major developments will take place in Africa, if I can say so. Why? Because we have a very youthful population in Africa, a growing middle class, and we have abundant natural resources, increasing urbanization, which may be good or bad, depending on how you handle it. All these actually are significant opportunities for economic growth in the next five to 10 years. We need to make progress as Africa at both country and continental level in terms of infrastructure development, because as we have seen across Africa, many countries are investing heavily in infrastructure development, which will include energy transportation, the green economy that I think Faith was just referring to, and telecommunications.

But we also need to improve connectivity to facilitate trade and ensure that we attract direct foreign investment. When you look at Africa right now, just across from Zambia to Malawi, I had to go to Johannesburg. Okay? So, that interconnectivity is not dead. For me, I cannot jump on a flight to then go straight to Nigeria, for example. I have to hop onto another flight, get to another airport, and sometimes even go to Europe to come back down to Africa. So, interconnectivity needs to be sorted out, especially when it comes to regional integration. In order to boost our inter-African trade and increasing investment flows, that will foster economic cooperation.

If we can also ensure regarding renewable energy investments, that this focus in Africa should be driven by the need for sustainable development in terms of wanting to mitigate adverse climate change developments. As you know, we have vast renewable energy potential, especially in solar, wind, and even hydroelectric power.

So, I think Africa is the happening place. Really, our economic trajectory is going to be influenced by a lot of combinations, such as domestic and global factors, and with the right leadership. I can't overemphasize that. We really need bold leadership that will look inside Africa for African solutions that will be provided by Africans within Africa, with as much help as they can get. But really, we can't keep running to the first world for help when we have significant resources, both human capital and otherwise, on the continent, that can come up with African solutions.

Joe Kornik: Faith, Charity, and Sepo, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate the conversation.

Charity Chanda Lumpa: Thank you, Joe. It was really good talking to you.

Sepo Haihambo: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Faith Khanyile: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you.

Joe Kornik: And thank you for listening to the VISION by Protiviti podcast. Please rate and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts, and be sure to check us out on vision.protiviti.com for all of our content around the future of money. Thanks for listening. On behalf of Faith, Sepo, and Charity, I'm Joe Kornik. We'll see you next time.