The Leadership Brief

Dating from a time when financial executives were far less likely to reveal their opinions, Schulman has not been shy in stating his, about everything from discriminatory bank practices and wealth inequities. That, he says, has meant putting his views into reality in the way he leads PayPal. In 2019 he raised wages and cut health-care costs for lower-pay employees.

He spoke with Vivienne Walt about how his very public commitments to social justice mesh with the way he leads PayPal’s 26,500 employees.

You talk a lot about equity. A lot of companies talk about equity, ESG goals. How do we trust that companies are actually doing what

they claim to be doing, when there’s no real way to measure it?

1. I think that companies have an obligation and the CEOs who run those companies have an obligation to stand up and address the societal issues that are around us.
2. Otherwise, it's just propaganda and employees, and customers and share holders see through that

What’s the biggest problem with the way the financial industry is set up?

1. It’s expensive to be poor. The less money you have, the more it costs you to do basic transactions.
2. If you want to cash a check, and you’re part of the banking system, it’s simple and easy. It’s usually free of charge.
3. But if you’re outside the system, you need to stand in line waiting at a cash checking location, and pay.
4. You’re waiting in line, you’re losing money on every transaction, and then if you want to pay a bill, you need to stand in line again, and pay a transaction fee to pay your bills. This is the kind of system we have today

When will central banks actually start using digital currency in great numbers?

1. About 80% of the world’s central banks have some kind of studies or limited experiments underway.

There’s clearly an understanding that the world is moving more and more to digital forms of payments.

Central banks are looking towards all forms of digital currencies, for efficiency sake and lower costs, but also, the digital economy is upon us now. And clearly the pandemic accelerated that.

Is paper money really dying out, or is it just us sitting in Europe and California who think that? If you travel around Africa, no one takes a credit card.

1. Many people have forecasted the death of cash and been wrong, and I don't want to be another in that long list! But everyone has a smartphone.
2. It is becoming ubiquitous, and wireless connectivity is becoming more and more ubiquitous.
3. The ability to leapfrog into the next generation of payments, that’s more efficient, faster, with less cost, is something governments are eagerly looking at.

It just makes sense for them to do that for their citizens.