DigFin VOX

The co-founders of Hong Kong personal-finance app Planto discuss how they’ve expanded to B2B.

Herston Powers is co-founder and partner at 1982 Ventures, a Singapore-based venture capital firm that focuses on fintech. Herston says now is a great time for seed investing into new fintech companies in Southeast Asia. He is backing the next wave of founders, many coming out of the region's giant e-commerce businesses. He discusses what sectors of fintech are attractive, the state of fund-ra...

Sell-side firms are coming to grips with fees and expenses by gaining visibility over their trading costs.

Sam Rhee, co-founder of Endowus, discusses fund raising, growth versus profits, and disrupting private banks.

PropTech venture investor Ariel Shtarkman talks ESG, wealthtech and tokenization in Asia real estate.

Bancassurance is all about selling insurance products through banks. The banking channel has become extremely important to insurers throughout Asia. We are seeing the first steps toward digitizing bancassurance, which means end-to-end automation and personalization of the selling of insurance products to bank customers. George Kesselman, Singapore-based founder of Asia InsurTech Association, tells...

DigFin teamed up with Guillaume Huet to explore how ChatGPT can help fintechs with business ideas. Guillaume Huet is an A.I. and data specialist and consultant. We asked ChatGPT to recommend the optimal business model if we were to launch a fintech startup today, with the goal of reaching $100 million in annual revenues within five years. Huet used his prompt process to get a deeper, more insightf...

Fintechs often need to change business strategy to survive. Co-founders Victor Lang and Ray Wyand discuss how they realized their earlier versions of their fintech, Gini, was not working – and how they eventually found a product that could scale. Wyand and Lang tell Jame DiBiasio the issues they have faced in both B2C and B2B markets, the challenges of going market by market, and what kind of reve...

Maaike Steinebach is founder of Femtech Futures, a Hong Kong-based venture investment firm supporting startups in the tech space dedicated to women’s health and wellbeing. Steinebach tells Jame DiBiasio about her journey from fintech to femtech, and how they are similar. She discusses the opportunity set, including backing B2B and B2C startups, and where she sees the space headed. She puts femtech...

Paul Harapin is APAC leader at payments fintech Stripe. He discusses two topics: how Stripe is leveraging artificial intelligence, and its roadmap in Asia Pacific. Harapin tells  DigFin ‘s Jame DiBiasio that Stripe is incorporating ChatGPT and other language-learning models. This is partly to support clients such as ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, but also to help derive better outcomes in Stripe’s bus...

Gourab Mukherjee is co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based insurtech Aktivo Labs. Aktivo provides wellness apps to insurance companies and reinsurers that are meant to help change people’s behavior. As Mukherjee explains to Jame DiBiasio, about 30% of longevity is within people’s control. Smoking, substance abuse and poor diet, versus good diets, exercise, and getting a decent night’s sleep all imp...

Naveen Mallela of JP Morgan explains how tokenized deposits will enable commercial banking on blockchain.

Emmanuel Daniel is author of "The Great Transition: The Personalization of Finance is Here". He discusses the themes of his book (reviewed  here ) detailing how technology renders financial intermediaries unprofitable, and the need for both banks and fintechs to reassess what value they deliver to customers. "ED" is founder of  The Asian Banker , a Singapore-based business magazine...

Alice Chen and Julian Kwan are co-founders of InvestaX, a Singapore-based fintech focused on digital-asset tokenization. Chen and Kwan discuss the evolution of tokenization, as a concept and a real-world activity, and how that is different from crypto markets. They discuss the future of financial intermediaries and the role of smart contracts. They also talk about Asia’s return to the spotlight in...

Dušan Stojanović and his colleagues at True Global Ventures invest in blockchain and artificial-intelligence companies, backing many businesses in Web3 and metaverse-themed businesses. He spoke with Jame DiBiasio about the convergence of generative AI models (such as ChatGPT) and Web3 businesses as a medium-term play. In the short term he is investing in AI businesses that sell to non-tech compani...

Bertrand Billon is founder of Singapore-based fintech iLex, which is pioneering a digital platform for syndicated loans and other forms of private debt. Loans, unlike bonds, are designed to be bespoke, and traditionally have been difficult to trade. iLex is trying to foster a digital marketplace among private capital players and banks, to create new sources of liquidity in loans. Billon speaks wit...

Ambre Soubiran is founder of Kaiko, which provides market data on crypto to institutional investors. She talks about the impact on the digital-assets industry from the closure of crypto-friendly banks in the US, why banks are still building infrastructure for digital assets, and the promise of smart contracts for traditional structured products and derivatives. Soubiran looks at challenges such as...

Monica Jasuja is an engineer and product manager who has led payments teams at PayPal, Mastercard, GoTo and elsewhere. She is one of the most knowledgeable people in the region when it comes to fintech. Jasuja speaks with Jame DiBiasio about the key trends in the post-Covid era. Her analysis is balanced, noting the failure by many fintechs, banks, and governments to change consumer habits away fro...

 CUSTOMIZE Kevin Kang, co-founder of payments fintech Reap, discusses the trends behind virtual cards for SME and enterprise users. This is a segment of the fintech segment industry that brings credit-card like features to businesses using credit to manage working capital and cash needs. How big is it, and how disruptive? Kevin discusses with Jame DiBiasio the market’s trajectory post Covid, compa...

Helene Li is co-founder and CEO of GoImpact, a startup advisory and investment firm focused on sustainable finance. She spoke with  DigFin ‘s Jame DiBiasio about the state of ESG in Asia, the role of fintech, and reasons why financial institutions will be able to manage ESG exposures more effectively. Timecodes 0:00  – Helene Li, GoImpact 1:33  – State of ESG in Asia 2:46  – The different roles of...

Benjamin Quinlan of Quinlan & Associates argues that Hong Kong’s incumbent insurance companies are now at risk of losing market share if they do not adopt digital, direct-to-consumer businesses. Quinlan discusses the rise of virtual insurance companies, which are bringing policies to market that are cheaper and sometimes better. He speaks with Jame DiBiasio about the costs of maintaining the s...

Ganesh Rengaswamy is managing partner at Quona Capital, based in Bangalore. His VC firm has just raised a fund focused on fintech in emerging markets. Rengaswamy speaks with Jame DiBiasio about why invest in fintech now, making decisions in the new macro environment, and what fintech business models look attractive – and which do not. He also discusses how fintech can scale across the region, the...

Andi Taufan, founder and CEO of Jakarta-based fintech Amartha, discusses financial inclusion and creating digital financial services for the unbanked. Many of his customers (both individuals and small businesses) in Indonesia don’t even own a mobile phone, let alone have a bank account, and they depend on cash. How is he building a digital world for them? Taufan talks about his hybrid business bet...

Mark Munoz is managing partner at Vectr Fintech Partners, a global venture-capital firm based in Hong Kong. Munoz speaks with Jame DiBiasio about the new, challenging macro conditions for startups and VCs, the new landscape for valuations, and his approach to investing in fintech companies in Asia. Munoz also discusses his take on digital assets, artificial intelligence, and what he’s looking for...

How are the global payments companies, which built their legacy business on credit cards, growing in Asia? Ari Sarker, president for Asia Pacific at Mastercard, tells Jame DiBiasio what opportunities are emerging for his industry. He discusses the economic outlook and managing the risks of deglobalization, along with the opportunities of e-commerce and digital economies in Asia. He says debit now...