PayPal and the Poor

PayPal CEO Dan Schulman ‏with Michael Milken at the Montgomery Summit today:

“It’s expensive to be poor. The poor in America spend 10% of their disposable income on fees and transaction costs that the rich don’t pay. That’s the same amount they spend on food. $140B per year in unneeded fees. We can reduce those fees.”

“Bank closings tend to be in poor neighborhoods.”

“When we lend to these people, sales grow 22% versus a control group at 1%.”

“From my time with Richard Branson, I learned that business must be a force for good.”

P.S. I last attended the Montgomery Securities conference 23 years ago! The format is the same, and it works well, with 140 private companies sorted into tracks based on stage of growth.