Money Majlis

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of Season 2 of Money Majlis, we bring you a priceless conversation with Mark Mobius, the “Indiana Jones of emerging markets investing”.   Is the asset management industry in decline? How have ETFs revolutionised investing? Why is active investing better than passive? What matters more for an asset manager - size or speed? How does private equity feed into pub...

Send us Fan Mail In this last episode of Season 1, Suvo Sarkar is in discussion with Craig Moore, founder and CEO of Beehive, the leading P2P platform in MENA.  Does P2P lending have the potential to disrupt banks? Will open banking force banks to collaborate with fintechs? And can the USD 250 billion funding gap for SMEs in the region be solved by the P2P model?  Moore explains how Beehive hones...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to another episode of Money Majlis focused on consumer marketing. Suvo Sarkar is in conversation with a doyen of the Indian business world, Bharat Puri, managing director of Pidilite Industries which owns the famous adhesive brand Fevicol, a case study on branding in many business schools.  Why does a low-involvement brand like Fevicol dominate the Indian consumer psyche o...

Send us Fan Mail In this insightful episode about the business of Corporate Venture Capital (CVC), Suvo Sarkar is in a deep discussion with Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, the much-awarded CVC arm of TDK.  What are some of the factors that are driving legacy corporates to invest in start-ups? Why does innovation have to be external as opposed to internal? Do CVCs turbocharge innovation...

Send us Fan Mail In this fascinating episode, Suvo Sarkar talks at length with a leading investment expert from India, Bharat Shah, executive director of ASK group, about the future of the Indian equity market.  Is India over-valued compared to other global markets? Will it continue delivering double digit returns in the next 10 years? Which sectors will outperform?  Bharat and Suvo, friends for 4...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to this New Year 2025 special episode of Money Majlis XTRA, celebrating good food. Suvo Sarkar is in conversation in Mumbai with the talented young restauranteur Sameer Seth of Bombay Canteen fame.  What inspired a young banker to move to the intensely competitive F&B industry? How are the trends of eating out changing with millennials? Is consistency more important th...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to this episode of Money Majlis where Suvo Sarkar debates the impact of “The Great Wealth Transfer” with two leading professionals from the industry, one an incumbent and the other a challenger: Maurice Gravier, chief investment officer, Emirates NBD and Mark Chahwan, founder & CEO of Sarwa.  Are millennials more interested in good advice for investing, or in best-in-c...

Send us Fan Mail Continuing on the XTRA series of non-banking topics, Suvo Sarkar interviews successful Indian author Amish Tripathi, of the Shiva trilogy fame, to talk about his professional transition from banking to writing.  What prompted Amish to take up mythological fiction? What genre is he taking up next? Why do most authors not make money? And how should parents train their children to be...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Money Majlis recorded in front of a live audience of CEOs and fintech leaders in Singapore, we look at the differences in the growth paths of fintechs in Asia versus the Middle East.  In a debate with two senior leaders from Mastercard, J K Khalil, Division President of East Arabia and Yunsok Chang, EVP of Market Development, Asia Pacific, Suvo Sarkar compares t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Piyush Gupta, the inspirational CEO of DBS Bank, tells us how a Singaporean bank raced ahead in innovation and digitisation to be crowned the world’s best digital bank.  Is Technology the new “front office” of a bank? Will pure-play digital banks ever succeed against digitized incumbent banks with scale? How should a traditional bank build a fail-safe culture of i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, H. E. Ahmed Al Naqbi, CEO of Emirates Development Bank, explains the key differences between a commercial bank and a development bank, and argues that social objectives make a banker's life more enriching.  How does a development bank carry out financial underwriting to optimize approval decisions? How are employees measured? Does social impact trump profit o...

Send us Fan Mail In this unmissable episode, Suvo Sarkar is in conversation with Arvind Krishna, Chairman & CEO - IBM.  How does IBM re-invent itself every decade? Why are IBM employees so loyal? And is IBM on the path to becoming an USD 1 trillion company?  In a free-flowing conversation with Suvo Sarkar, Arvind Krishna answers these and other consequential questions on the future of Gen AI,...

Send us Fan Mail In this technology-special episode, Suvo Sarkar is in discussion with John Duigenan, the General Manager - Global Financial Services Industry at IBM.  What do banks get wrong in transformation programs? Is hyper-personalization the future of customer service? What technologies will impact the banking industry most profoundly in the next decade? And why do most banks work in silos?...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second edition of Money Majlis XTRA where we cover topics outside banking and finance. In today's exciting episode, we talk to Carla de la Vega, ex-CNN anchor, author and a strong advocate for women's empowerment, about the challenges and opportunities of achieving gender parity in the workplace and at home.  What are the biases men have about women? Why are...

Send us Fan Mail In this GITEX-special episode recorded on the sidelines of the Expand North Star expo, Suvo Sarkar talks to Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of PayTM, the leading payments app in India that powers over 20 million merchants and businesses and is used by more than 300 million Indians. Will super-apps like PayTM take over the world? Why are fintechs the “best friend” for banks? What...

Send us Fan Mail Will crypto-currencies replace fiat currencies in the next decade? Will blockchain technology make life easier? Will traditional finance and decentralised finance converge soon? Suvo Sarkar poses these and other consequential questions to Phil Sham, the founder CEO of Aquanow, one of the leading crypto-currency infrastructure companies of the world. With a telecom giant in UAE lau...

Send us Fan Mail In this “Marketing special” episode of Money Majlis recorded in New York, Suvo Sarkar speaks to Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing & communications officer of Mastercard, to explore the latest challenges and opportunities in the practice of consumer marketing.  Is marketing today an art, a science or a craft? Are the 4P’s of marketing relevant any more? Is advertising dead? How...

Send us Fan Mail In Episode 11 of Money Majlis, we meet the man behind India’s most successful insurance marketplace, PolicyBazaar.com. In an open and honest conversation with Suvo Sarkar, ironman Yashish Dahiya takes us on the journey from the genesis of this start-up to its successful IPO and beyond. How did a risk-averse entrepreneur build an industry leader? How do you build a trusted online b...

Send us Fan Mail In Episode 10 of Money Majlis, the founder CEO of Marcus, the digital bank of Goldman Sachs, is in a scintillating conversation with Suvo Sarkar about the guiding principles for starting a new bank, the clash of cultures between old and new and forging successful partnerships. Will neo-banks upend the traditional banking industry? Why is service quality so poor at banks? Should ba...

Send us Fan Mail Introducing Money Majlis XTRA, a once-in-a-while episode that has nothing to do with banking, finance and money, but everything to do with my other passions : music, art, culture, books, films, travel, food and sports. Because life is much much more than just work!  In this inaugural episode of Money Majlis XTRA, we meet Sanjoy Roy, the man behind Jaipur Literature Festival, the b...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 9 of Money Majlis explores the trends in the payment industry in the Middle East & Africa with Nandan Mer, Group CEO of Network International, the largest payment company in the region. With thousands of fintechs entering the industry, are incumbents under margin pressure? Is the merchant-acquirer relationship being redefined? How should the big players turn disruption...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 9 of Money Majlis explores the trends in the payment industry in the Middle East & Africa with Nandan Mer, Group CEO of Network International, the largest payment company in the region. With thousands of fintechs entering the industry, are incumbents under margin pressure? Is the merchant-acquirer relationship being redefined? How should the big players turn disruption...

Send us Fan Mail Start-up mentor P K Gulati lights up Episode 8 of Money Majlis with his wisdom and insights about start-ups and fintechs in the Middle East. In this unmissable episode, Suvo Sarkar and PK discuss topics that range from the state of innovation in the region to the future of fintechs. Is the idea more important or the founder? When should companies pivot? And have legacy banks done...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 7 of Money Majlis explores the future of cashless banking in UAE with Jan Pilbauer, CEO of Al Etihad Payments. How will Aani, the new national P2P payment system, change the financial landscape of UAE? What will Jaywan, the new domestic card scheme, achieve for merchants and consumers? And can we expect Open Finance to disrupt the established order of the banking industry?...

Send us Fan Mail In Episode 6 of Money Majlis, Suvo Sarkar is in intimate conversation with Surya Subramanian, the past Group CFO of Emirates NBD, Dubai’s biggest and Middle East’s most profitable bank, discussing the past and future of banking. Have the fundamentals of banking changed over the past few decades? What performance indicators are important for today’s banks? Will digital banks upend...