eXponential Finance

Dotin  taps into the subconscious mind through colours and contrasts to develop personality profiles that create greater certainty in hiring decisions, identifying top talent within the organization, and help the organization develop the right professional development plan around an individual, all based on science originally developed in Japan in the mid-1980s, and still in use at all major...

David is the Group CEO of 11:FS, a challenger consultancy that builds and launches next generation digital propositions for some of the biggest banks in the world.  They believe that digital banking is 1% done and that digital reform is needed to improve systems and services for banks and their customers. David's co-founder was part of the founding team at Monzo and Starling, and 11:FS has wo...

We refer to Shibata-san as the "Godfather of FinTech in Japan", not in a Mario Puzo sense (you won't find the head of a horse next to you when waking up), but because of the influence Shibata-san had in shaping many careers and mentoring so many of the startups in the overall ecosystem. Also a sought-after speaker and panelists at conferences in Japan and abroad, we were delighted that the pandemi...

For the first time, we welcome two guests to the podcast: Haichao Zhu, Associate Director at the Algorand Foundation, and Alex Hui, Director at Moonstake and Co-Founding Chairman at the APAC Blockchain Association. With Haichao, we discuss Algorand's Pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol, the features of Algorand 2.0, namely Algorand Standard Assets (ASA), Atomic Transfers and Algorand Smart Contract...

Kyle Ellicott is a Founder, Investor and Analyst deeply involved with Blockchain and Open Finance. We had such an extensive conversation that we will publish it in two parts. In this episode, we round out our discussion on digital identity & authentication, debate friction vs frictionless financial services, and cover robustness and resilience in light of the Robinhood and MakerDAO issues duri...

Kyle Ellicott is a Founder, Investor and Analyst deeply involved with Blockchain and Open Finance. We had such an extensive conversation that we will publish it in two parts. In this episode, we cover some of Kyle's background, his perspective on the evolution of the FinTech and Open Finance ecosystems over the last decade, the case for targeted efforts on financial literacy, and the urgent need f...

We welcome our first returnee to the podcast, Benjamin Tsai, President & Managing Partner at Wave Financial, a digital asset management company based in Los Angeles.  Having been a close observer of the Japanese crypto markets, Ben shares his perspective on the developments in the securities token market in Japan. We then discuss Wave's second product launched in November 2019, the Bitcoi...

In our latest episode of the Tokyo FinTech Podcast, we welcome as our guest Michael O'Loughlin, the token Irishman in Berlin. Actually, the Token Irishman in Berlin, where he is the Managing Director of Global Solutions, putting a bank in every app.  Founded by Steve Kirsch, who invented and patented an early version of the optical mouse, and had his biggest exit as an entrepreneur with the s...

Mohamed Roushdy is among the most well-known Chief Information Officers in the Middle East, and after having previously achieved "CIO of the Year" honors, was just recognized as a "Digital Leader" by CXO Insights. Mohamed has built multiple banking startups, and is currently the CIO for Dubai Asset Management, a holding company focused on developing, acquiring and managing a diverse portfolio of f...

Before founding Zweispace, Kameta-san was CEO of ARK Asset Management, the fund arm of Openhouse, and previously at the legendary Century21 world wide #1 real estate company in Tokyo's Shibuya district. With Zweispace, he looks to digitalize the real estate industry, by applying analytics to the valuation process, assessing earthquake robustness with IoT sensors, and putting the necessary document...

Charles Hoskinson, CEO of Input Output HK and creator of the Cardano blockchain protocol, had a passionate response when asked about his Twitter fights with Dan Larimer during a recent Tokyo FinTech Meetup. This is only a short excerpt of almost two hours of opening comments and Q&A, which you can find in full length on our YouTube channel. We had the honor to host Charles three times in Tokyo...

Having come to Japan initially as an 11-year old on a school exchange program, Arne has been an admirer of Japan all his life. An illustrious career as submarine officer, shipping executive, FinTech founder & investor later, he has just spent a week in Tokyo, joining a Nordic delegation also including members from Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and Finland, to take a closer look at the startup &...

Nicolas Michelon is the Founder of Asia Intelligence Advisory and an Editor of Asia Power Watch. He is speaking frequently at conferences and corporate events about geopolitical trends, economic power and competitive intelligence, with a specific focus on Europe/Asia relationships.  In this episode, that as an exception is neither Fin- nor -Tech, we evaluate the Carlos Ghosn case from an econ...

This session of the Global FinTech Index Briefings features FinTech Australia, FinTechNZ and Tokyo FinTech. Re-broadcast with kind permission by Findexable.   In December 2019 Findexable launched the Global FinTech Index City Rankings 2020, the first fully global ranking of FinTech ecosystems – across more than 230 cities, 65 countries and over 7,000 fintech companies.  Join the GFI Brie...

Nir Netzer is the Chairman of the Board for FinTech-Aviv, the Israeli FinTech Association, a highly valued Community Partner for Tokyo FinTech. With their Annual Summit just behind them, it was an excellent time to catch up with Nir and to discuss: - Startup Nation Israel - The strength of the Israeli FinTech sector, also in comparison with startups in other industries - How Israeli startups are l...

On January 16, the FinTech Association of Japan held a meetup with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the financial regulator in Japan. The FSA updated on a variety of regulatory initiatives, including cryptocurrencies, ICOs and STOs. This presentation is in Japanese The slides accompanying the presentation are available from our Medium Publication: medium.com/tokyo-fintech/meetu…slides-82705607...

Yuki Kishi has been the FinTech Director for Plug and Play Japan since its inaugural startup batch two years ago. Since the beginning of 2020, he is also responsible for Brand & Retail. Listen in on this episode to learn... - Yuki's advice for startups entering the Japanese market - What to expect when working with Japanese corporates - More about the startup that Yuki found most impressive ov...

Ryan Lackey, Chief Security Officer at the Tezos Foundation, came straight from a red eye flight from Bangkok to talk to us about his career, the role of the Tezos Foundation, governance in the crypto/blockchain world, and some of the largest projects that are under way with Tezos in Thailand and Brazil, for example. Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to...

Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the financial services regulator, kindly gave us the opportunity for a brief interview during his recent visit to Tokyo. We talk about the FinTech innovation ecosystem in Singapore, ASEAN and Japan, the upcoming Singapore FinTech Festival, APIX as an open innovation platform, and how regulators might respond to the dec...

With So Saito, one of Japan's most prominent FinTech lawyers supporting several high-profile blockchain & crypto companies, as well as other startups, we discussed ICO and STO regulation in Japan, stablecoins and Libra. There are significant changes coming in the regulatory environment over the next nine months, so please tune in! Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an in...

The cashless payment wars are on. Millions are being spent on rewards and loyalty programs, in Japan and in markets across Asia, by the competing payment platforms. pulse is an identity platform that provides seamless customer recognition, payment geo-validation & contextual engagement for banks, telcos and media organizations, allowing them to differentiate themselves. With Alex Topaloski, Fo...

The accelerator program by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), the FinTech Business Camp Tokyo 2019, is open for applications until July 5 at the following link: www.senryaku.metro.tokyo.jp/bdc_tokyo/e…intech2019/ Jose Casanueva from Electronic IDentification has lead the company's effort as part of the 2018 accelerator program, and shares his experience. You will not be surprised to hear tha...

Benjamin Tsai is the President & Managing Partner of Wave Financial, a Los Angeles-based asset management firm focused on the cryptocurrency space, providing asset management products for high net worth and institutional investors. Ben shares his view on how the development of the crypto markets will mirror traditional markets, which requires the development of passive strategies and derivativ...

Thomas Glucksmann is the Head of Data Management Solutions at Diginex, a leading provider of enterprise blockchain solutions, where he is focused on product management for a suite of blockchain enhanced Data Integrity solutions for corporations, governments and NPOs. Going beyond the hype and the crypto markets, our conversation centered around real-world use cases that government agencies and cor...

Takemiya-san is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Soramitsu, the gem among Japanese blockchain companies. Founded in 2016, the company's blockchain technology, Iroha, was accepted by the Hyperledger under the Linux Foundation's governance by November that year, complementing Fabric, Sawtooth Lake, and other potential projects by creating reusable components in C++ that can be called from...