And that’s where we’ve said we think that anywhere from, say, 3 to 5 points of growth should be enough investment on top of the existing investment capacity we already have which includes over 300 people who are focused on our platform today. And so that’s the model that we are projecting our business going forward.
Operator: Our next question comes from Gus Gala with Monness, Crespi, Hardt.
Gus Gala: Last couple of updates you talked about ramps coming down about 100 days. We’re here 1/3 of the way through the year. How are these sparing now? What are we making progress on tangibly that’s allowing this to happen? And last one I’ll layer in there is can you dig in on progress maybe penetration in Marqeta-in-a-box helping drive that down? I appreciate all the comments.
Simon Khalaf: You’re absolutely right. We’ve made a lot of progress and I’ll attribute all these to the Marqeta-in-a-box solution in addition to engaging our solutions team early on in the process and not when the MSA is signed. So in a more concrete way, throughout the whole thing, as like from the moment we touch a customer all the way to realizing the gross profit, we’ve made tremendous improvement north of 10% which is material if you actually look at how this compounds. And I’d say that there’s Marqeta-in-a-box that made a huge difference engaging the solutions team, working on a good blend between commercial and consumer, commercial moves much faster than consumer. And last but not least, focused on the, I’d say, more expansion into the existing base that reduces a lot of the upfront cycles.
So they know us. They’ve worked with us. Our bank partners know them. So I would say, overall, there’s tailwinds that are helping us because our customers land and we expand with them. But also, we’ve made significant operational improvements that have helped tremendously.
Mike Milotich: And the one thing I would add is the last several quarters, we’ve had a couple of flips per quarter. And where that helps is not only are those customers already very experienced, so they’re not learning as they go. They already know how to run the card program. But as the cards move, the volume obviously comes very quickly because they already have existing volume. And so that’s also something that’s contributing to the time it takes to realize that gross profit is collapsing.
Simon Khalaf: I’ll add one more thing is we’ve been able to do this without adding more operational expenses. And if we’ve had them, it’s extremely small; so it’s operational efficiency.
Operator: Our next question comes from Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank.
Bryan Keane: I wanted to ask about international. It sounds like Uber Eats expanded internationally. Maybe you could just talk to us about what you’re seeing in the pipeline and growth of TPV. Is it still Europe and Canada, the big opportunities you see right now?
Simon Khalaf: So look, there is demand everywhere but we have to remain focused. So there’s two parts of international. I’d say the first part is our domestic customers like U.S.-based customers that want to expand overseas. And we’ve done well there. Uber is just one example. And what is good news here is all of them want to go through the same countries. So it doesn’t give us that divergence in terms of where we need to put the effort. And then the second part of international is in the EU in which we see, I’d say, the base of innovation accelerating in Europe. And as a consequence of that, our volumes, albeit smaller than U.S. are outpacing the growth of the U.S. So I’d say those are two healthy trends.
Bryan Keane: And then my other question, you talked about adding value-added services, in particular, you highlighted compliance. Does that help with retention? Does it help with the gross margin and profitability? Just thinking about how you add on these products where we see it in the P&L.
Simon Khalaf: Yes, yes and yes. So I’d say in terms of retention, of course. I mean the more they engage with us, the better it becomes. And also from a gross profit take rate, yes, it does help. And examples would be managing disputes, whether it’s related to Reg E or Reg Z or 3DS which is related to factor authentication, they just file on to our gross profit take rates. And despite the growth in volume, it will either keep the gross profit take rate flat or inches it up. That’s how it will reflect to our bottom line. And the last thing is economies of scale. Our team has handled and managed disputes and the reduction of cost make it attractive for us but also attractive for our customers. So it’s kind of like membership has its benefits.
Everybody benefits from the economy of scale achieved by Marqeta. And that’s something that is extremely hard to achieve, especially on the consumer programs. So it might be easier on commercial programs but in order to get that economy of scale across both debit and credit on a global basis, it’s a huge moat for us. So we’re excited about it because it’s like a win-win-win. So we win, our partners win but more importantly, our customers win. And honestly, the embedded finance customers don’t want to deal with this at all. The fintech players like to dabble in these services but not with the economy of scale is going to be hard for them to beat our economy scale but the embedded finance services, I’d say from day 1, they pleased with us that they want this to be done by us and they’re happy to pay for it.
Mike Milotich: Yes. I think this is an area where everyone is in the market in the market’s focus on profitability is something that really helps us quite a bit because of that economy of scale advantage and expertise advantage. A lot of our even existing customers, like Simon mentioned, we have 20 programs that added some service in the quarter. Everyone is evaluating, are these really my core competencies? Should I really be doing these things myself? Or should I make this a variable cost and utilize someone who has more expertise and scale than I do. And as that continues to happen in the market, that should benefit us. And the more it happens, then we get even more scale and it becomes a sort of feedback loop.
Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Maurer with FT Partners.
Craig Maurer: My first is on earned wage access. Could you compare the unit economics of that business to your other lines of business and the upside to that over the long term from embedded finance. And second, we’re starting to see some improved performance out of the larger U.S. neobanks, at least the ones that are public. If you could update if there’s any renewed opportunity in the FI space for you?
