The Green Room | Fintech Journeys in Asia

In this final episode of Season 2 of The Green Room podcast, we’re going to be talking about green finance with those involved in this year’s Global Fintech Hackcelerator.

For those not familiar, the Global Fintech Hackcelerator is a hackathon that happens in the lead up to Singapore Fintech Fest every year. If you listened to our episode with Pat Patel from Elevandi where we went behind the scenes of Singapore Fintech Fest, one of the highlights that he mentioned was the Hackcelerator. The theme of this year’s Hackcelerator was “Harnessing Technology to Power Green Finance.” 3 winners were announced during the festival - out of 20 finalists and nearly 500 submissions.

Today, I’ll be speaking with Tek Yew Chia, Vice Chairman of Oliver Wyman about OW’s role in organizing the Hackcelerator and how they view the sustainable finance ecosystem in Asia.

We also have Puneet Chaddha, CEO of Global Initiatives and Advisor to RootAnt, who actually participated in the Hackcelerator. We’ll hear about his experience and the solution that the team came up with. Big congrats to Puneet and the team for being the Hackcelerator winner!

In this episode, I speak with Nirali Zaveri, co-founder and CEO of Friz, a fintech for freelance workers. Nirali, who previously worked at Mastercard, talks about starting Friz after realizing that freelance workers are completely undserved by banks due to their project-based income. We talk about Friz’s word of mouth go-to-market strategy across Southeast Asia, and Nirali tells me about “the human cloud of the future” and her new year’s resolutions.

This week, we have a special Green Room episode for you. We are going behind the scenes of this year's Singapore Fintech Festival with Pat Patel, General Manager of Elevandi, the Singapore Fintech Festival's new parent company.

In this episode, I speak with Pablo Alonso Caprile, CFO of iCare Benefits, which provides buy now pay later services to low-income factory workers, particularly women, in Cambodia and Laos. This isn't your typical point of sale BNPL model, but for iCare's customer base, this model makes a huge difference in their monthly purchasing power.

Pablo talks about the history of BNPL in Cambodia, the strategic advantage of going deep in a customer segment rather than having massive scale, and how NGOs and investors have played a pivotal role in shaping the local market landscape.

In this episode, I speak with Gustaf Agartson, founder and CEO of BIMA, a microinsurance and healthcare provider. Gustaf talks about seeing the need for e-wallet enabled financial services, launching BIMA in Ghana 11 years ago, and leading the company's emerging market expansion across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, as well as branching out into new customer offerings like tele-medicine and health screenings. Gustaf also talks about how BIMA's insurance can cost as little as 2 USD cents per day.

In this episode, I speak with Ketty Lie, co-founder of Erudifi, a student loan fintech that allows students to pay their tuition in installments to their schools. Ketty talks about moving back and forth between Southeast Asia and the U.S., her work in economic development and social impact, and her conviction that an educated workforce is critical for an economy to succeed.

In this episode, we speak with Tobias Fischer, co-founder and CEO of wagely, an earned wage access fintech that helps employees access their wages before payday. We hear about Toby's journey - as a student in Germany learning about Southeast Asia's opportunity for financial inclusion from afar to venturing to the region himself and paving the way for new credit models through his work at several startups. Toby also gives us a detailed understanding of the earned wage access model and employee financial health.

Welcome to the Green Room, a podcast where we talk to fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Southeast Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir.

In season 2 of the Green Room, we are exploring even more fintech hot topics like buy now pay later, regtech, microinsurance, student loans, and alternative credit models. We go behind the scenes with some pioneering founders to learn about their journeys and their work that is driving real societal change.

We are sponsored by the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (or AFIN), Oxygen by APIX, and open banking fintech Brankas. Big thanks to them for supporting us!

In this episode, we talked with Dave Rouse, co-founder and CEO of New Zealand-based CarbonClick.  We hear about Dave's journey from pilot to green tech, joining CarbonClick after hearing the team's carbon offsetting pitch, and the convergence of fintech and green tech in ANZ and SEA.

In honor of International Women's Day in March, we spoke with Debbie Watkins, CEO and Co-Founder of Lucy to share about her career beginning in the UK and shift to focus on financial institutions and startups in Southeast Asia. We talk about the unique challenges that women face in accessing financial services, especially in emerging markets and the surprising lack of private sector focus on this customer base. Debbie also shares some of her secrets for women working in male-dominated spaces.

In this episode, we speak with Payal Patel, Chief Compliance Officer of APAC at BitGo. At the time of this interview, Payal was Managing Director of FINTRAIL Asia, and we spoke about her series of career shifts, ultimately leading her to fintech compliance in Asia. Payal shares her experience starting her own financial crime consulting firm in Singapore and synergies that led her to join FINTRAIL. We also discuss the risks posed by innovative financial solutions, the importance of having a robust compliance function, and why working with regulators is critical to fintech success in Southeast Asia.

In this episode, we speak with Taejun Shin, Co-Founder, Representative Director & CEO at Gojo & Company, Inc. about his experiences growing up as an ethnic minority in Japan, starting Gojo and its strategies for supporting Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Asia, and the future of the microfinance industry globally, especially in light of Covid-19.

In this episode, we hear from Arun Pai, Chief Sales & Strategy Officer at Flow about Arun's career path in SEA, from options trading to joining early-stage startups, the value proposition for artificial intelligence (AI) in fintech, and how Flow uses AI to personalize debt collection.

In this episode, we hear from Niki Luhur, CEO and Founder of VIDA and Chairman and Co-Founder of the Indonesia Fintech Association, or AFTECH. We learn about Niki's journey in Indonesia - from joining payments company Kartuku and its acquisition by GoJek to spotting digital identity needs and founding VIDA. Niki also shares the parallel story of the Indonesia Fintech Association, an important organization in driving fintech policy and industry collaboration in Indonesia.

In this episode, we speak with Michele Ferrario, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based wealth management fintech StashAway. Michele talks about how founding StashAway was a blend of his experience in the finance and online retail sectors, the impact of Covid-19 on saving and investment in Southeast Asia, and the importance of culture in a growing fintech startup.

In this episode, we hear from Arvie de Vera, SVP & Fintech Business Group Head of UnionBank, and Todd Schweitzer, CEO & Founder of Brankas about open banking in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines. Arvie and Todd talk about key inflection points in their careers that have led them to their current work in fintech, opportunities for banks and fintechs to collaborate, and how Covid-19 has accelerated digital adoption in the region.

Welcome to The Green Room, a podcast where we talk to fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Southeast Asia about their careers and industry insights, hosted by Amrita Vir.

Southeast Asia is an incredible theatre for fintech. It's huge, it's diverse, and there's a growing middle class where people are digitizing quickly. This dynamism and potential is what drew me here from the US in 2019, and we'd like to share it with you.

Join us on season 1 of The Green Room where we delve into fintech hot topics like open banking, green finance, crypto, wealth management, and banking the unbanked - as well as some lesser known topics like ethical debt collection, financial empowerment of women, and working with regulators.

We not only talk about the industry, but the unique journeys and decisions that brought these entrepreneurs and thought leaders to where they are today. The Green Room goes behind the scenes of the Southeast Asian fintech stage to understand what motivates them and how they see the future. Finally, we are sponsored by the ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN), Oxygen by APIX, and open banking fintech Brankas. Big thanks to them for supporting us!