Steve Ledford - Associate Principal

Steve Ledford leads McKinsey & Company’s Global Concepts team, which specializes in payments industry research and consulting. He has more than 25 years experience in the financial services industry. Mr. Ledford’s work has focused on payment systems and services in the US and international markets. He has provided consulting services to a variety of clients including technology vendors, payment associations and major banks in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia.
 
Examples of his payment systems consulting engagements include:
 
· Development of transaction processing and payment services strategies for major US banks, including conventional and image check processing, electronic transaction processing, payment migration and transaction processing platform evolution.
· Business case development for evolving payment technologies with the leading payments networks and industry consortia.
· Development of new cash management products with major US, UK and Canadian banks.
· Assessment of product opportunities, market size and revenue potential for international treasury services and cross-border payments for US banks and payment networks.
·  Development of comprehensive models to evaluate alternative check processing and distributed deposit capture configurations for major US banks.
·  Evaluation of market conditions and the competitive position of potential acquisitions targets for private equity firms and industry buyers.
·  Market research studies for a variety of financial institutions, technology vendors, third-party service providers and payments networks in the US, UK and Canada.
·  Benchmarking studies of check processing, ACH and cash management operations in the US, UK and Canada.
·  Market assessment and product development with check, ACH, cash management and E-commerce system vendors.
·  Development of a payment business profitability measurement methodology employed by several major financial institutions.
·  Payment technology deployment assistance for US and UK banks, including market assessment, product development, capacity planning, requirements definition, business case development and system acquisition
·  Development of a business case model, technical architecture, operating rules and pricing strategy for a major US check image exchange network.
·  Inter-bank data exchange (electronic cheque presentment) development with UK clearing banks.
·  Review and assessment of research and adjustments operations at leading banks.
·  Development and business case modeling of a state-of-the-art adjustments system with a major vendor and its development partner banks.
·  Application of advanced modeling and simulation techniques to payment operations at several major US banks to optimize staffing and performance.
 
Steve Ledford has been with Global Concepts since 1991. Prior to joining the firm, he was Senior Editor with the Lafferty Group, a London-based publishing and research firm specializing in international retail banking and payment systems. Prior to joining Lafferty, Mr. Ledford was Associate Group Executive for Research and Director of Technical Research with Bank Administration Institute and was their leading authority on payment systems and technology.
 
Mr. Ledford is a graduate of Wofford College with a BA in Economics.