The Green Room | Fintech Journeys in Asia

Welcome to the Green Room, a podcast where we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. In season 3 of the Green Room, we’ve expanded our scope beyond Southeast Asia to all of ASEAN and will spend some time going down the web3 rabbit hole with play to earn startups, NFT projects, and stablecoin...

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 scene...

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 huma...

In this episode, I speak with Abhishek Chatterjee, Founder and CEO of Tookitaki, a regtech startup that is focused on delivering a full suite of machine learning-based compliance solutions to banks and fintechs who are vulnerable to financial crime and increasingly subject to strict compliance regulation. Abhishek talks about the fact that only 1% of laundered money is recovered every year, how To...

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. We also have a discount code for those of you who still haven't gotten your SFF tickets. Use The Green Room's promo code GREENROOM50 at the SFF checkout page to get 50% off...

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 stra...

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 a...

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. Erudifi is a student lo...

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 s...

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 p...

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. CarbonClick is a green fintech, and they raised their seed round in October of 2020, and you can learn more about th...

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...

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....

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. Gojo invests in microfinance institution...

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. Flow uses AI to revolutionize the way financial service providers in Asia collect their debt. Instead of emplo...

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 orga...

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. Since interviewing Michele in July...

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-...

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, a...