In this episode, I speak with Chandrima Das, Co-Founder and CEO of Teleskop, a wealth tech that helps people track their family assets today and plan for their legacies in the future. Chandrima has had an illustrious career in asset management, working at Prudential, ING, and Bank of Singapore in several countries, where she had a front-row seat to…

In this episode, I speak with Sharon Paul, Co-founder of Headquarters (HQ.xyz), an on-chain business account. Sharon is a Singaporean entrepreneur and has spent many years advancing the Web3 and payments infrastructure space. She is a founding member of StraitsX, a leading stablecoin issuer and fiat-crypto ramp and now serves on the Singapore Finte…

In this episode, I speak with Hussain Elius, Founder and CEO of Wind, a fintech that is enabling instant cross-border payments built on blockchain rails. Elius has been a career entrepreneur, starting with building an event management business in university. Once he graduated, Elius took an experimental approach to developing the business model tha…

In this episode, I speak with Nuraizah Shamsul Baharin, Founder and Managing Director of MADCash, a fintech that drives financial inclusion through Shariah compliant microfinance and data analytics in Malaysia. Nuraizah, who goes by Aizah, started her career as an engineer, working for companies like Nokia and Motorola in the 1990s and 2000s. Aizah…

In this episode, I speak with Rachel Freeman, Chief Growth Officer of Tyme, a neobank that began operations in South Africa and has recently been making waves in the Philippines as GoTyme. Rachel has lived in every corner of the world and has been a pioneer of inclusive financial services. She speaks fluent Russian and spent her early career in Rus…

In this episode, I speak with Maria Hoyos, co-founder and CEO of GoNSave, a fintech focused on income smoothing for gig workers in Southeast Asia. Maria started her career in microfinance in Latin America. She brought her experience to Asia when she pursued her Master’ of Science in Innovation at Singapore Management University. We talked about the…

In this episode, I speak with Ritwik Ghosh, co-founder of Seedflex, a brand new embedded SME lending fintech. Ritwik started his career in banking but quickly moved into consulting at Oliver Wyman, where he focused on retail and SME financial services across South and Southeast Asia. For the last 5 years, Ritwik served as the Regional Head of Lendi…

Happy new year everyone, and welcome back to the Green Room! In this podcast, we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. This is now season 5 of the Green Room. This season we’re covering some fintech basics - income smoothing, SME len…

In this episode, I speak with Malini Kannan, CEO Office of Thunes, a global B2B cross-border payments infrastructure company. Malini grew up in India and started her career in Singapore, working in research and strategy across a diverse set of sectors. After her MBA from INSEAD, Malini focused more directly on the fintech space, working across the …

In this episode, I speak with with Aditi Sholapurkar, Co-Founder of SALT, a savings and investment fintech in India that puts women at the center of its product and strategy. Aditi grew up in India and began her career in banking and has spent time working at some of the most well known fintechs in India and Singapore, including Paytm and Nium. She…

In this episode, I speak with The Noe San, Founder and CEO of Modus Operandi, or MO, a digital financial solutions provider in Myanmar, offering services like wallet transfers, bill pay, earned wage access, cash withdrawal, and more. The Noe grew up in Myanmar and Australia and started her career in law. She moved back to Myanmar in 2020 and got in…

In this episode, I speak with Vikram Kotibhaskar, co-founder and CEO of Credlinq.AI, which provides embedded finance products to digital e-commerce players using alternative data. Vikram was born and raised in India, completed his Master’s in the US, and then spent many years working across diverse banking roles in Asia. Vikram made the jump to fin…

In this episode, I speak with Maha Shahzad, Founder and CEO of BusCaro, a mobility startup in Pakistan that is changing the way that commuters travel. Maha grew up between the US and Pakistan and has worked at many well-known startups in Pakistan inluding FoodPanda, Careem, and Swvl. Maha has seen first-hand the financial, accessibility, and securi…

In this episode, I speak with fintech pioneer, Diego Rojas. He has been at the cutting edge of fintech across the globe. Diego is from Argentina and started coding when he was 8 years old. He joined LendingClub in its very early days in 2011 and then moved to DianRong, another pioneer in fintech in China. He founded a fintech consulting firm called…

In this episode, I speak with Rebecca Kersch, Founder and CEO of TANGapp, a remittance and payments company that helps overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the US send money to the Philippines. Rebecca grew up in the US and the Netherlands, spent many summers visiting her family in the Philippines, and has studied and lived all over the world. Rebec…

Welcome back to season 4 to the Green Room, a podcast where we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. I’m excited to be back sharing my fintech conversations with you. This season, we’ll go back to some fintech basics like payments, l…

In the last episode of Sesason 3 of The Green Room, I speak with Sherry Jiang, Co-founder and CEO of Bluejay, a web3 startup that uses a decentralized stablecoin protocol to issue stablecoins pegged to non-US currencies. Sherry is from California, spent her early career in big tech and social impact, and moved to Singapore in 2018 with Google. She …

In this episode, I speak with Ankur Joshi, founder and CEO of Nuclei, a B2B SaaS fintech that helps banks deliver consumer-centric experiences to their customers. Ankur grew up in India, is an IIT grad, and has been a serial entrepreneur for more than 10 years. He’s worked in startups covering everything from e-commerce to quick serve restaurants t…

In this episode, I speak with Ananya Sinha, the founder of Brown Baddies, an NFT project focused on elevating South Asian women. Ananya was born in New Zealand, grew up in Australia, and is now telling the stories of South Asian women all over the world via NFTs. Ananya is relatively new to web3, but has been an entrepreneur since her uni days at t…

In this episode, I speak with Kunal Goel, co-founder of PowerCred, which provides alternative data APIs for the MSME market, giving third party lenders real-time access to MSME business data to improve underwriting. Alternative data has been common in consumer credit in emerging markets for years, but the ability to access SME and microSME data fro…

In this episode, I speak with Lan Doan, CEO of TAPTAP, which provides loyalty and rewards programs to consumers in Vietnam. Lan grew up in Hanoi and then studied and worked in the US, including getting her MBA from Harvard Business School. Seeing the economic potential of Vietnam after graduation, Lan decided to come back to Vietnam to actually be …

Josh Fraser, the Co-Founder of Origin Protocol, founded the company in 2017 to bring NFTs and DeFi to the masses. Josh started coding at the age of 10. Prior to Origin, he co-founded 3 other venture-backed companies: EventVue, Torbit (acquired by Walmart Labs) & Forage. Today, Origin Story has powered multiple record-breaking NFT sales for top crea…

Tayo Koonprasert and Tansaya Kunaratskul are Senior Specialists at the Central Bank Digital Currencies team at the Bank of Thailand. Both of them have been instrumental in creating the Central Bank Digital Currency. We’ll cover all about the use cases for CBDC, different models of CBDC and it will be used in the future at #FrontierFintech Podcast. …

In this episode, I speak with Aaron Collett, Senior Credit Manager at Goldfinch, a decentralized credit protocol that connects investors and fintechs in emerging markets to provide stablecoin based credit. Aaron grew up in Indonesia but has worked all over the world, including Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and New York, on various areas of structur…

“History Rhymes But Never Repeats” Yoshi Yokokawa is the CEO & Co-founder of Alpaca, a company that powers more than 100 fintech applications around the world. When Robinhood came out in 2013, Yoshi, in Japan at the time, couldn’t download the app or invest in U.S. stocks. Ten years later, nothing’s changed. Alpaca is based on the idea that every s…

In this episode, I speak with Windy Natriavi, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of AwanTunai, which provides supply chain and financial services to micro-merchants in Indonesia. Windy is also the founder of WomenWorks, a “connectivity” marketplace that supports women’s network-building in Indonesia. Windy was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 for Finan…

In this episode, I speak with Luis Buenaventura, Philippines country manager for Yield Guild Games, or YGG, which is a play-to-earn gaming guild, giving metaverse players opportunities to earn in blockchain-based currency. Luis has also been a pioneer of web3 in the Philippines. He has founded several businesses, including syndeo media, Infinite.ly…

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 p…

Sherry Jiang is the Co-Founder & CEO of Bluejay Finance, a protocol that creates stablecoins pegged to Asian currencies. By providing local currency stablecoins, Bluejay is laying the infrastructure to support the next billion users to use Web3 products. Sherry has always been passionate about building products for people in emerging markets. She h…

Amrita Vir is the Head of Driver Lending at Grab. She manages over 20 financial programs, including cash loans, BNPL, and fuel financing, for Grab drivers across 6 markets in Southeast Asia. She’s also the host of The Greenroom, a SEA fintech podcast. Amrita found her passion for fintech from a young age. She founded a non-profit microfinance compa…

"Foreign exchange will always be here to stay" Jason Tay, the Regional Director of Business Development at M-DAQ, talks to us about how M-DAQ uses data and algorithms to allow merchants around the world to sell goods in foreign currencies and not lose out when the FX rate changes. M-DAQ is creating the world without currency borders. The 11-year ol…

Welcome to “NFT Party”, the inaugural episode of 3-Peas in a Pod-Cast where we dissect current events and big themes in the world of fintech & crypto. This episode is hosted by Nat Wittayatanaseth, Diana Shih and Jason Tay. As Russia is invading Ukraine, all our financial portfolios have gone red. While Diana keeps a strict Warren Buffett’s philoso…

Iwan Kurniawan, the Co-Founder & COO of Funding Societies (Modalku), has spent the past 6 years building Funding Societies into the largest SME lender in SEA. The company’s raised funds from top-tier investors, including SoftBank and Sequoia India. He also serves as the Vice Chairman of Indonesia Fintech Association. We talked about *What’s next fo…

“We do need banking, but we don’t need banks.” Samir Chaïbi, Principal at Insignia Ventures Partners, talked to us about the fintech landscape in Southeast Asia, from banking API, lending, to insurance business. Samir, a French Algerian, went to the U.S. to explore the startup and VC landscape before joining Insignia, a $450M+ AUM SEA-based VC fund…

“When you make your passion your profession, it’s not your job anymore.” Bala Subramanian, Chief of Staff at Brankas, talks to us about scaling teams from 20 to 100. Since the pandemic started, Brankas has 5x its team in a remote first culture. We dig into frameworks on how to suss candidates for remote first culture, how to augment your process to…

Ryan Chew is the Co-Founder of Tribe Accelerator, Singapore’s first government-backed blockchain accelerator. Tribe was founded in 2018 because Ryan and his co-founder noticed that funding opportunities for blockchain startups were very limited. Fast forward to 2021, Tribe has now supported startups with over $300 million in funding and it is in th…

Raymon Hsu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cabital, a simple elegant platform that allows anyone anywhere to earn passive income as much as 12% APY from crypto without the crazy. Raymond started his career helping people access mobile payments in Kenya at a global bank. Having witnessed first hand how hard it is for people in Africa to send and receiv…

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 …

“My life is not that long and the only thing I want to do is making a big impact” Brian Ma is the Managing Partner of Iterative Capital, a YC-style accelerator focusing on increasing Southeast Asia’s GDP. He is also the Founder of Divvy Homes, a $2B company that allows customers to build equity credits as they rent. This episode is so special as we…

U-Zyn Chua is an early pioneer of Bitcoin (fun fact: he interacted with Satoshi back when Bitcoin originated!). He also designed, developed and launched the world's first retail Central Bank Digital Currency for the Central Bank of the Bahamas. Today, he’s the Co-Founder & CTO of DeFi Chain and Cake DeFi, a non-Turing complete blockchain that enabl…

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 S…

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% …

Jeffery Liu, CEO & Co-founder of Xanpool, talks to us about decentralized market makers. Anyone can turn themselves into money changers and earn 25%APY on idle money on their bank accounts and crypto wallets. Xanpool was created to be a payment or liquidity network (think Visa or Mastercard), but instead of being a close network, it’s an open netwo…

Vidit Agrawal is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gajigesa, a financial health platform that provides Indonesian employees with financial education and early access to their salaries. Vidit was the first hire at Uber Asia and he’s also a technology veteran with experiences across many leading startups, including Uber, Stripe, and Carro. Together with his …

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 G…

Stephane de Baets is the Founder of Elevated Returns & XSpring. He is the first person to launch the world’s first real estate tokenization, Aspen Coin, and Thailand’s first real estate tokenization, SiriHub. He foresees that we’re going to see the biggest hyper-inflation we’ve ever seen. Money depreciates all the time. That is why this is the righ…

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 tal…

Samuel Rhee is the Founding Partner & CIO of Endowus, a Singapore-based wealth platform that lets you invest towards your life goals and provides you exclusive access to best-in-class funds from around the world at low costs. Samuel has been in finance his whole life, 27 years to be exact. He spent most of his time in the public equity market at Mo…

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 ou…

Michael Shaulov is the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, an all-in-one platform that helps enterprises store, transfer, and issue digital assets without getting hacked. Michael was an expert in cybersecurity before he founded Fireblocks. North Korean hackers, the Lazarus Group, stole $7M from Bithumb, a South Korean exchange in 2017. Michael, along…