Richard Fairbank
Management
Okay. Yes, Don. Thank you. So, let me talk about tech and the tech hiring. Winning in technology really kind of begins and ends with one thing, hiring world-class tech talent. And it is the easiest thing to talk about and possibly the hardest thing to pull off in business today. As -- you know, because while this principal is -- this talent principle is true in any business. It is profoundly true in technology as the demand for world-class tech talent vastly exceeds the supply. So, we've built a tech brand and have had great success in attracting top talent. And we're competing head-to-head with the leading technology companies in the US. And we've been leaning into tech hiring for years and this is a strong year of hiring. Most of the new roles we're hiring for are engineering roles in software development, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning. And these are the most sought-after roles in the world and we're getting real traction here. But essentially, if you pull way up and we -- it's more than just words when we say it, we've really been living this which is to from the ground up build a technology company that does banking essentially, what Capital One is. The technology and data are increasingly what the business is and at the heart of that journey is the tech talent. I also mentioned one other thing, Don, is that the cost of technology talent is visibly moving upward right in front of our eyes and I wanted to flag that to investors. That is just something that -- again, it's the natural consequence of the demand greatly exceeding the supply. But -- so I think it's going to be hard for most companies, for all companies to do hiring and get the numbers that they want. We are leaning into that. I think we're in a very good position. But it's -- we're going to need to pay appropriately for that talent. Don, you asked about FinTechs and what we feel about FinTechs, and possibly a comment on the regulatory side. I just have a tremendous interest in FinTechs, maybe that's because Capital One was an original FinTechs before there was such a word. And I look at the FinTech marketplace and I think some of these FinTechs are bringing great innovations to the market. And we very carefully study these innovations and I think that we look at these both as threats to our business, we look at them as opportunities. Maybe we can partner with the FinTechs, in some case, their acquisitions associated with that, and in some cases what they are doing as beacons of opportunity that we can pursue. The FinTechs today, I think what banks have to stare at is that FinTechs today are benefiting from their modern cloud-based technologies and their innovative and entrepreneurial approach to disrupting markets, the tremendous amount of funding that is out there. I mean for example, these days, the venture capital funding going into FinTechs is close to I think, I don't have this data right in front of me, but it is close to double the next category in terms of the amount of venture funding going into this. So this is pretty electrifying. And the FinTechs benefited from a lower level of regulation than financial institutions have. Now, I don't think, right now, the success of FinTechs that one can look at FinTechs and say the primary reason they're succeeding in areas, sometimes more than the banks are, is because they are less regulated. I think they are succeeding for the factors that we talked about. I think when you look over time and envision these FinTechs with tremendous growth and being large disruptors, it is an elephant in the room relative to what's the regulatory context, the capital that they're going to be carrying, the regulatory requirements, and the levelness of the playing field. So, we certainly have a watchful eye on that. But when we look at the FinTechs, the success we're seeing in them, to me is indicative of the opportunity that exists to re-imagine banking. And that's what we've been focused on for years. And then if we kind of take our focus off of Fintechs for a minute and think about Capital One, like the FinTechs, we have a modern technology infrastructure based in the cloud. We also have other benefits they don't have. I have mentioned most of them. We have tremendous customer scale, a powerful brand, and literally decades of underwriting and banking experience. So, when I pull up, I think we and the FinTechs are well-positioned for success in some ways for the same reasons, in some ways for different reasons. But I think the biggest takeaway of all of this is that the banking industry is changing on an accelerated basis. The competition is unbelievably and increasingly well-funded and we look at that and we say it indicates the magnitude of change, the magnitude of the opportunity, but it also is a -- indicates an imperative that we need to make sure that during the windows of opportunity that we lean in and invest where we need to invest, because these opportunities won't last forever. Thank you, Don.