One Vision Podcast — Fintech, Banking, and AI with Theodora Lau

Digital only banks have been gaining popularity in recent years, especially in developing economies that previously lack formal financial services infrastructure. Apps such as M-Pesa (in Kenya), Alipay and Tencent pay (in China), and Nubank (in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico) provide their consumers with a convenient and cost effective means of banking via mobile phones. Even fintech startups...

Nothing like a natural disaster to bring us back to reality. Food, shelter, water … power and clean air - the basic modern day necessities that we need to survive. Things that we take for granted. When it comes down to it though, it is the human connection - the communities that we live in and the bonds that we forge, that matters. For most of us who look at new technology products day in and day...

Is there a growing fallacy around financial inclusion? Are we simply creating a new form of imperialism by taking financial services applications built in countries like the U.K. and attempting to export them to markets like Brazil, Uganda, India, and China? How inclusive is financial services if we are not considerate of differing economic conditions and the intricacies of daily life? Can we trul...

What is the future of financial services? By channeling the spirit of Schrödinger's cat, we must properly debate our industry’s purpose, we must showcase every issue and provide proper context. Is the industry losing sight of who we serve and our impact on society as we pursue profit? Have we lost something in the nuance between High Street and Wall Street and that of Main Street and real conversa...

Gender inequality is more than statistics or sensational headlines. It not only impacts women, but also their families, businesses, and society as a whole. When you uplift women, you inject more voices, ideas, and perspectives, in what we do and how we do things. As diverse as our customers are, how do we expect to understand their needs if we ourselves are homogenous? How would we bring innovativ...

All around us, examples of artificial intelligence and algorithms are not hard to find. Our homes and smartphones are equipped with personal assistants such as Alexa and Siri, listening in to our conversations and learning our habits. Our consumption of all things digital, from music to news and merchandise, are increasingly being analyzed and shaped by algorithms. Some schools have even begun exp...

Everyone should have equal access to the building blocks of prosperity. We must strive to create more opportunities for people to truly thrive, to create an environment without economically induced fears or setbacks. Simply being included in the formal banking system will never be enough. Being fully embraced by the full arsenal of services provided by the financial system is what is required. But...

Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem is one of the fastest growing in the world with over 3000 startups. It has a diverse mix of sectors, from fintech and ecommerce to advertising, software, and B2B, as well as a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, with 45 percent of them identifying as female and 35 percent of founders from overseas. The Greater Bay Area initiative, with the goal of developing an ecosystem to...

Japan is known as the most ultra-aged society globally, where one in four Japanese citizens are 65 or older. This fact, combined with healthy lifestyles and one of the world’s longest life expectancies, means that Japan must rapidly address longevity-related challenges alongside providing some unique lessons for our global society.  In this episode of Red Envelope, Theodora Lau and Bradley Le...

When apple announced their iPad, there was a discussion on how different it was from a laptop. It was indeed differentiated, and one major research identified that, accessing a large screen device at a simple press of a button is a major difference. This episode of Rhetoriq is slightly different, where Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer talk about the apple card. The launch of the Apple Card has caus...

Can regulatory policies make or break an innovation ecosystem? And how equipped are the research capabilities of regulators in large economies, to make some of those policies? Fintech has been a field where regulators have had a major effect on growth and maturity of innovative business models. In this episode of Red envelope, Nidhi Prabhu from Mumbai, joins Arun Krishnakumar and Theodora Lau. Nid...

We hosted Dave Isbitski, the Chief Voice evangelist at Amazon eight months ago. During the discussion, we asked Dave if Amazon was planning to focus on vernacular in Asia - particularly India. He mentioned it is a tough engineering problem to solve, and Amazon's focus is to ensure they get the English speaking markets right. Voice is the new UI, and in a country like India where a Billion people n...

Social isolation affects people both emotionally and physically, and older adults who struggle financially are at an even greater risk of isolation. In the next ten years over 11 million adults will stop driving due to age related impairments. Over 8 million have no smartphone and no experience with new technology. Many of them will be forced to rely on a patchwork of friends, family, community me...

How innovative and interesting would we be if we all think and talk alike? How would our actions and assumptions ever be challenged if we thought all the same? Diversity is more than gender - although that might be the one point of difference most talked about today. Diversity is also about age, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, beliefs, diversity of thoughts, and beyond. It is more than just...

Over the past few years, we have seen several senior execs in banks move into the startup/fintech community. Many made the transition from wall street to silicon valley. That journey is certainly not an easy one, especially when one serves at the highest levels in financial institutions before making that jump. Very few have managed it with the grace and success like Banesh Prabhu - our guest for...

“Innovation will continue to be a driving force in Asia as fintechs and banks both develop new platforms services for the increasingly connected consumers in Asia.” Asia has long been bustling with innovation - with Singapore and Hong Kong competing for financial supremacy for many years - the verdict on who got their nose ahead is still out there. In this episode of Red Envelope, we have Medhy So...

Several emerging economies have most of their population depending on Agriculture for their livelihoods. However, across the world, loss of food in the supply chain is still a major issue. Over $270 Billion worth of food supplies across the world could be saved by using technology. The other challenge with the food supply chain is that in most economies, farmers are often exploited by the other pa...

With Great Power come Great Responsibility. Especially when a business is dealing with a market with 1.3 billion people. The country has made massive strives towards financial inclusion: According to the Global Findex Database, over 80 percent of the adult population now has bank accounts. A series of efforts has helped drive such progress, including Aadhaar , a verifiable 12-digit identification...

In a world of algorithms and hashtags, true human connectivity is too often replaced by clicks. Our interactions and conversations are interrupted by digital notifications that long for our attention. Phone calls are replaced by messages on our friends’ digital walls and feeds; face-to-face coffee breaks yield to likes and retweets. In this episode of our podcast, Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer c...

According to CB Insights, there are 41 fintech unicorns valued in aggregate at US $154.1 billion. This includes 25 US-based startups, 8 based in Asian, and the remaining 8 split between Europe, Australia, and South America. Chinese big tech giants including Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, and Baidu are regarded to be highly innovative and successful companies. So what drives innovation success in China?...

In the first three months of 2019, VC-backed fintech companies raised US $6.3 billion across 445 deals globally. Challenger banks continue to spread globally, with N26 (a newly minted unicorn) and Monzo both imminently launching in the U.S. In this episode of the Red Envelope focused on Asia Innovation, Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer host Daniel Murphy and Jackson Meuller from the Milken Institut...

According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report, the Islamic Finance sector is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially in the Islamic financial hubs of the GCC, Malaysia and London, along with formidable new players such as Indonesia and Pakistan. The Islamic finance industry is forecasted to grow by 7.7 percent CAGR to reach US $3.8 trillion by 2023. With 1.8 billion Mus...

If the US is where technology innovation was born, Europe is where it is regulated best, and Asia (led by China) is where it reaches the masses and creates impact at scale. Digital innovation makes the time to market for financial services shorter than they have ever been in the past. China has created new fundamental lifestyle business models and have integrated Fintech services into them. They h...

Sharia-compliant banking assets make up 6% of the world’s banking assets. With Muslims accounting for a quarter of the world’s population and 80% of Muslims are not financially included , there are considerable opportunities to explore. The industry is projected to grow at 7.7% CAGR to reach $3.8 trillion in 2022. Interestingly, Sharia-compliant retail banks have been attracting quite a following...

When we think about fintech development in the East, our attention will likely go towards China, India, and southeast Asia (ASEAN) regions. But what about the rest of the Asian countries, such as Pakistan? Where do the opportunities lie in these emerging markets? In this episode of Red Envelope, a podcast series focused on innovation in Asia, Arun Krishnakumar and Theodora Lau talk to Rabeel Warra...