Kopi Time podcast with Taimur Baig

Eswar Prasad, Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University, returns to Kopi Time to talk about the USD, China, cryptos, and CBDCs. We go over the state of the global financial system, the legacy of USD weaponisation, innovation in fintech, the state of cryptos, the potential of central bank digital currencies. Eswar’s book, The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transf...

Santiago Millán, Macro Strategist at Wellington Management, one of the largest asset managers in the world, joins Kopi Time to talk about China. Whether it is the macro outlook, space for further stimulus, policy stance, state of financial markets, regulatory framework, great power rivalry, tech war, green transition, or the overall investment thesis on the country, Santiago has nuanced insights t...

Helge Muenkel, Chief Sustainability Officer at DBS, responsible for developing the bank’s overarching sustainability framework, joins Kopi Time. We begin by talking about current state of climate finance, the magnitude of funding needed to carry out meaningful green transition, and the various source of funding in the pipeline. Helge walks us through the key pillars of climate finance, including b...

Mustafa Chowdhury, who has held senior positions at Voya Investments, Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns and Freddie Mac, brings his deep fixed income expertise to Kopi Time. We start with his takeaways from the debt ceiling drama, which Mustafa argues left President Biden the winner. He however remains unconvinced that a meaningful debt consolidation is likely in the coming years, given the ballooning e...

This series began right before the 2020 global pandemic, and at that time the idea was to record chats with thinkers I meet during my travels. I really doubt if I’d have a hundred episodes under that model of operation. But once the pandemic broke out, remote recording with guests all over the world became acceptable, and away we went. Now 100 episodes is a lot, and there have some really memorabl...

Kopi Time hits 100 episodes! Raghuram Rajan, Professor at the University of Chicago, former Governor, Reserve Bank of India (2013-16), former IMF Chief Economist (2003-06), returns to our podcast to talk about the risks building up in global finance and economy. We begin with duration mismatch risks causing a rise in vulnerability among banks and nonbank financial institutions in the US. Is this a...

Dr. Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and Director, Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, returns to Kopi Time. Recorded in New York City on April 15, the discussion begins with the war in Ukraine and the Middle East’s complex relationship with Russia. Prof Haykel then elaborates on China’s role in the region, especially the rece...

Prem Bhatia, co-founder of Graas, a tech solution provider for e-commerce, joins Kopi Time to talk about the direction of data driven e-commerce and issues facing start-ups at the current macro backdrop. He draws on his decades-long experience as an entrepreneur and investor to make the case for data and artificial intelligence-driven solutions in the fragmented ecommerce markets in India and Sout...

I sat down with former Finance Minister of Indonesia, Chatib Basri, at the DBS Indonesia Asian Insights Forum 2023, held on March 15. During the conversation, Mr. Basri provided a brief presentation about the outlook for Indonesia in the context of global macroeconomic developments. He explained the Indonesian economy’s middle path, neither high- nor low-single digit growth, by taking into account...

Greg Wells, Chief Operating Officer of TIGER 21, a peer membership organisation for high-net-worth wealth individuals, joins Kopi Time. He provides an overview of this collective (minimum member wealth of USD100mn), in which members learn from one-another the risks and opportunities worldwide. An internally transparent and yet confidential organisational structure brings together 1200+ wealth crea...

Shaokai Fan returns to Kopi Time to talk about gold’s recent journey through inflation spike, war in Ukraine, weaponization of the USD, monetary policy tightening, and soaring interest rates. We talk about supply conditions, ongoing reforms to add greater transparency and sustainability, and the structure of the gold market. Shaokai then sheds light on the evolving nature of gold demand, both cycl...

Dr. Krishna Srinivasan, Director of the Asia and Pacific Department, International Monetary Fund, breaks down the prospects for the region. We begin by talking about the coverage of the department, which is 37 countries, making up of half the world’s population. We then dive into the 2023 balance of risks, which the IMF sees still tilted to the downside, but with a welcome decline in adverse risks...

Bert Hofman, Director of the East Asian Institute at National University of Singapore and former World Bank Country Director for China (2014-19), provides a sweeping overview of China’s outlook and key risks ahead.  We begin with several nuances to the evolution of China’s zero-Covid policy and economic policies in the near term. Bert then offers insights into the property sector, and fiscal-struc...

Welcome to 2023, dear Kopi Time followers! We kick off the new year with a chat on markets with seasoned trader and strategist, Archana Parekh, head of Asia Equities, ex-Japan, Balyasny Asset Management. We begin the discussion on the inevitability of market selloff in 2022, dragged by rates increases and lofty valuations. Archana does not think the highly correlated selloff across asset classes r...

Caution: You may need a strong cup of Kopi after listening to our year-ending podcast with Dr. Nouriel Roubini, an economist and market analyst, who famously called the severity of the sub-prime crisis back in 2008 and has been warning about the fragility of the crypto ecosystem in recent years.  But it is essential listening, as a recent review of his book, MegaThreats, points out: “Roubini’s war...

Dr. Torbjörn Becker, Director of the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, joins Kopi Time to discuss the economic dimensions of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict. We begin by going over Ukraine’s economic size and structure, followed by the depth of the economic and societal damage inflicted by this conflict. We then talk about the massive short- and medium-term funding needs for Ukraine...

This podcast was recorded in early November, on the sidelines of the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. It was fitting in the spirit of the event to have Stuart Haber join Kopi Time. Dr Haber, along with Scott Stornetta, co-invented the blockchain technique in 1990, which was later adopted by Satoshi Nakamoto as the basic mechanism for data integrity in Bitcoin. We begin the conversation travelling...

Dr. Lynn Loo, Professor in Engineering at Princeton University and head of Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) in Singapore, joins Kopi Time to talk about international shipping’s transition to a low-/zero-carbon future. Shipping accounts for 90% of global trade and is the sixth largest carbon emitter as a sector, hence the stakes are high. Dr Loo talks about the targets in place at...

This 10-minute commentary summarises my key impressions from the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. Held amid the background of rising interest rates, currency market volatility, developing country debt distress, great power rivalry, war in Ukraine, and risk of financial instability, the mood was largely grim during the meetings. Silver linings include relative re...

David Marsh, Chairperson of Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) joins Kopi Time to go over the UK’s recent bout with extraordinary currency and rates volatility. Mincing no words, David provides a strong critique of the policy choices and communications that have pushed the UK economy on weak footing, leaving it vulnerable to financial stability risks. We talk about past cas...

Ila Patnaik, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group, joins Kopi Time to discuss a number of pertinent aspects of India’s economy. We talk about the current macro situation in the face of rising interest rates and tensions in the currency market. We then move on to India’s somewhat restrained policy response during the pandemic, and the expedited embrace of digital payments and service delivery. Ila i...

Thewokesalaryman handle on Instagram has over 357k followers; on Telegram, it has nearly 37k subscribers. It is a highly popular social media platform on financial literacy, using original, witty cartoons to impart critical life lessons on career building, savings, investment, and just living worthy lives. He Ruiming and Goh Wei Choon, the creators, join Kopi Time to share their motivation, conten...

Munib Madni, CEO of Singapore-based Panarchy Partners, returns to Kopi Time to talk about the fast growing world of climate investing. We go over the realities of climate change hitting home, numerous changes in the regulatory environment globally, and the deepening zeitgeist around investments in the context of climate mitigation. We then get into the thorny issue of how to deal with climate scep...

Carin Smaller, Executive Director of the Shamba Centre for Food & Climate, joins Kopi Time to talk about global food security. As per the United Nations, after three decades of steady decline, the number of people who suffer from hunger began to increase again in 2015. Current estimates show that nearly 690 million people are hungry, or 8.9 percent of the world population. Compounding this tre...

Robert Dekle, Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California, joins Kopi Time. Robert’s speciality is Japan, so we start there, going over his views on the yen’s rapid depreciation this year and the sustainability of yield curve control going forward. Robert thinks that there may still be some time left for BoJ to stay with its ultra-easy monetary policy stance, but the clock is t...