DigFin VOX

In this episode of DigFin VOX, startup founder Julian Anderson talks about how his fintech, Divit, is combining rewards systems and other services for merchants with real-time payments. He tells DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio that Divit is now working with Citibank to help it grow its merchant acquiring network, and how the bank is helping Divit scale beyond its home market of Hong Kong. Julian shares the story of his career and the origins of Divit, and what to expect in 2024. Timecodes: 0:00 – Julian Anderson, Divit 0:43 – His work digitizing payments for insurance companies – trends in real-time payments 8:13 – Founding Divit 12:46 – Pivoting from consumer payments to merchants 13:58 – Helping merchants manage reward programs 17:03 – And helping merchants with chargebacks and other needs 20:00 – Working with Citi to provide real-time payments to merchants 22:28 – The growth of banks’ merchant acquiring business 23:56 – Linking rewards to merchant acquisition 26:25 – Scaling Divit beyond Hong Kong 29:24 – Funding and 2024 ambitions

Alex Ypsilanti is CEO of Quantifeed, a Hong Kong-based wealthtech company that helps financial institutions with digitalized wealth solutions, for private and retail banks’ relationship managers, for asset managers (the manufacturers of fund products), and for financial advisors serving high-net-worth clients. He spoke with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about trends in B2B wealthtech and how Quantifeed navigates relationships with its clients; the ongoing drive for growth; issues around data and insight; and how he sees the interplay with specialist B2C wealthtech companies. Ypsilanti provides a window into how fintech is growing in Asia and in Europe, with Asia’s major financial centers growing into enormous wealth booking centers, and Europe continuing to lead in sophistication. TImecodes: 0:00 – Alex Ypsilanti 1:31 The Quantifeed story 3:25 – B2B versus B2C wealthtech and building tools for RMs 5:19 – Balancing a SaaS business model with client customization 7:34 – Managing relationships with large financial institutions 9:10 – Profitability and finding new growth drivers 12:24 – RMs and banks’ internal AI and data capabilities 16:00 – LLMs: roles, responsibilities, and areas of maximum impact 19:26 – Quantifeed’s consumer-direct business versus B2C fintechs 21:45 – Working with bank-owned clients and data 23:07 – Alternative investments and digital assets 24:40 – The future for the Quantifeed business and 2025 challenges

Bertrand Billon is founder of Singapore-based fintech iLex, which is pioneering a digital platform for syndicated loans and other forms of private debt. Loans, unlike bonds, are designed to be bespoke, and traditionally have been difficult to trade. iLex is trying to foster a digital marketplace among private capital players and banks, to create new sources of liquidity in loans. Billon speaks with Jame DiBiasio about the challenges of creating such a platform from scratch and the possibilities for transforming this large but opaque segment of capital markets. Timecodes: 0:00 – Bertrand Billon, iLex 02:09 – Why haven’t loans been digitized before? 03:32 – How to accommodate the idiosyncratic nature of loans 05:49 – Creating liquidity 7:24 – Changing conditions: the rise of private capital, rising interest rates 9:43 – Securitization and its risks 11:28 – Developing the ecosystem for trading loans 14:36 – Asia versus Europe versus US 16:44 – Chicken and egg: jumpstarting a marketplace 20:01 – Size of digital loans market versus traditional syndication business 22:40 – Developed versus emerging markets 23:45 – VC funding conditions for fintechs, iLex’s valuation 27:02 – Future exit goals

Ian Gillard is senior executive vice president at Bangkok Bank as well as a member of the board at blockchain vendor R3. He speaks with Jame DiBiasio about Bangkok Bank's digitization strategy as Thailand goes cashless.Timecodes:0:00 - Ian Gillard, Bangkok Bank1:10 - About Bangkok Bank2:39 - Bangkok Bank's first digital products3:09 - The bank goes mobile3:18 - Corporate versus consumer banking digitization4:30 - How well do you really know your consumers?7:13 - Gaining customer insight, the learning process8:06 - Where tech can take banking9:09 - Fintechs as competitors and as partners10:56 - Prospects for virtual banks in Thailand13:30 - Thailand is going cashless, and Bank of Thailand's work17:41 - Retail CBDCs / digital currency, and tokenization19:45 - Developing blockchain-based trade finance

How are financial institutions embracing generative AI? How safe can it be used, and how quickly are banks and asset managers adopting it? And most of all, is genAI being used purely to optimize existing ways of doing business, or does it imply vast changes to how firms and markets operate? David Runacre is president for Asia Pacific at Broadridge, based in Tokyo. He has a long history of working in financial technology, and he shares with DigFin's Jame DiBiasio how he's using large-language models in his business and how he is advising Broadridge clients around the region. Timecodes: 0:00 - David Runacres, Broadridge 1:02 - Introduction to the discussion 1:58 - Thinking of AI as an internal tool and as a disruptive force 3:40 - The implications of genAI queries compared to Google search 7:19 - Making institutions and their people fit for purpose 9:51 - How David is leading Broadridge's adoption of AI tools and which areas of the business are most impacted 16:43 - How safely is agentic AI? 18:58 - From top-down IT projects to bottom-up innovation within firms 20:58 - The view from Tokyo and digital transformation in Japan

Jeeta Bandopadhyay, co-founder and COO of Singapore-based regtech Tookitaki, has helped drive the company’s adoption of artificial intelligence over the past decade. She speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about her journey as a founder, onboarding the first bank customers, and evolutions in AI that impact how banks and fintechs can spot frauds and handle AML compliance more easily. Jeeta also talks about the strategy behind partnerships with investors such as payments company Thunes and VC True Global Ventures. Timecodes: 0:00 – Jeeta Bandopadhyay, Tookitaki 0:40 – Founding the company and moving to Singapore 3:05 – Learning AI as a non-technical founder 6:06 – How Tookitaki won its first bank clients 9:10 – Treating shared data and working off the cloud 12:41 – AI evolves from optimization to transformation as it intersects with more points of decentralization (and what that means) 15:16 – How clients are able to share and learn from compliance experiences 16:24 – Adding Tookitaki analysis to DLT systems? 17:34 – Selling a majority stake to payment company Tunes 19:03 – Banks versus fintechs as customers 20:15 – New use cases for compliance teams using LLMs 23:24 – More expansion and R&D with True Global Ventures investment 25:56 – Commercial goals for 2025 and end goals for the business

Chris Perry is president of Broadridge Financial Solutions, a $28 billion market-cap fintech. He says AI, particularly agentic AI, is beginning to transform capital markets and financial services. He and Jame DiBiasio put this in perspective of historical uses of data, analytics and trading tech in finance. Acknowledging current geopolitical tensions, particularly between the US and China, Chris notes that technology such as AI and the use of APIs continues to deepen connectivity among markets and firms worldwide. Timecodes: 0:00 – Chris Perry, Broadridge 2:57 – Broadridge in Asia and new tech trends (hint: AI) 7:17 – Impact of agentic AI on financial markets 13:07 – Managing risks and engendering trust 17:27 – As LLMs become commoditized, how will that impact competition among financial firms? 20:32 – Next-gen tech in a politically fragmenting world 24:59 – Opportunities to unify platforms and drive innovation 29:34 – Legacy IT architecture in the new world of AI and APIs 34:50 – Broadridge’s ambitions in Asia-Pacific this year

Amanda Cassatt and Caroline York of Serotonin.io speak with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about their digital-marketing venture catering to both startups and financial institutions involved in emergent technologies. Crypto relies on narrative more than a traditional financial product. Amanda and Caroline discuss the ways that conventional banks and institutions are adopting new ways to reach consumers, particularly younger, mobile-savvy people. Amanda lays out the big trends, including AI agents and other disruptive tools, while Caroline describes the evolving nature of fintech in Asia. Timecodes: 0:00 – Amanda Cassatt and Caroline York, Serotonin 3:05 – About Serotonin 4:07 – Disruptive technologies 6:00 – Where crypto and tradfi meet 9:11 – How tradfi grapples with memes and narratives 12:30 – Dealing with conservative banks in Asia 15:10 – Crypto’s speculative markets versus becoming infrastructure 17:00 – How are traditional institutions adapting Web3 processes 19:49 – Introducing AI agents and who will use them first 22:52 – AI’s implication for marketers – and other services providers 26:06 – Asia’s role in crypto with the US now supporting the industry

Evan Thorpe is principal for Asia Pacific at Six-Thirty Ventures, a venture capital firm that backs fintech companies as they support the needs of financial services institutions. Thorpe spoke with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about the changing landscape for VC and what that means for startups. He described Six-Thirty’s approach of helping integrate fintech into banks’ and insurers’ processes. He also discussed his take on investing in China, in artificial intelligence, and how these themes play out in the fintech space to tackle the biggest problems among large institutions. Timecodes: 0:00 – Evan Thorpe, Six-Thirty Ventures 2:11 – Changes int the VC industry 5:14 – And its impact on startups in fintech 7:20 – How Six-Thirty works with LPs and FIs to create impact 14:17 – Aligning interests among FIs, startups and VCs 18:34 – How startups use funding from Six-Thirty 20:13 – Evan’s investment theses for fintech in Asia 27:04 – Is China investible? 29:43 – Investing in AI and its impact on fintech 33:42 – The big problems FIs face that fintech can help solve

Chandrima Das is a wealthtech entrepreneur in Singapore. Her career spans the evolution of robo-advisory and digital wealth. She founded an early robo called Bento, which she sold to Grab, and for a time ran Grab’s investment functions. Today she’s back with a new startup, Teleskop, that aims to take wealthtech to a broader audience, with a B2C and B2B mixed model as well as new ambitions around identity, open data, and offline services. Das speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about the history of wealthtech in Asia and her experience riding the evolution of the industry. Timecodes: 0:00 – Chandrima Das, Teleskop 2:39 – Her experience in asset and wealth management 4:07 – Bringing institutional-style portfolio construction to retail investors 6:02 – B2C versus B2B among Singapore wealthtech companies 8:35 – Her experience selling Bento to Grab 13:29 – Profitability versus building for growth 16:01 – Fund raising as a second-time founder and Teleskop’s value proposition 19:09 – Open banking in wealthtech and aggregating information 23:06 – Challenges of creating a holistic view for investors 25:01 – Why should people share their information with us, and how to keep data secure 29:02 – Marketing a complex product direct to individual investors 33:48 – The B2B side to the story 35:06 – The future of wealthtech

Yam-ki Chan runs the Asia Pacific business at Circle, the stablecoin operator. He speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about the ongoing questions about licensing and regulation, notably in Singapore as well as in other jurisdictions. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 put a spotlight on how stablecoins manage their reserves, and Chan talks about risk management and how central banks are approaching this issue. Finally he speaks about the future business model of stablecoin operators, as they confront new competitors, and the impact that stablecoins are having on both the US dollar as well as disruptive cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Timecodes: 0:00 – Yam-ki Chan, Circle 1:28 – Licensing stablecoin operators, Singapore’s catalytic role, and how regulators want to support better ways to move money across borders 7:18 – Issuing local currencies versus USD-backed stablecoins 9:38 – The risks of regulation fragmenting the Circle global model 11:12 – Custodians and issues around holding reserve assets 13:30 – Impact of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse on stablecoin regulation 15:56 – Commercial banking relationships 16:48 – Should stablecoin operators be regulated just like banks? 21:30 – The viability of the pure stablecoin-operating business model 26:04 – Versus rivals with merchant networks 28:56 – Stablecoins, bitcoin, and the dollar

Chetan Karkhanis heads up venture investments in Asia Pacific at Franklin Templeton. He is in charge of making corporate ventures into promising fintech and wealthtech companies that can add value to Franklin Templeton’s asset-management business, from data analytics to AI to blockchain. Chetan speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about how he sees fintech continuing to offer opportunities to asset managers, as well as areas where it poses a disruptive challenge. He talks about lessons learned from investments into startups, including when they don’t work out. And he provides a window onto how AI and blockchain might shape the industry, from operations and IT to distribution and even to how investment teams create their portfolios. Timecodes: 0:00 – Chetan Karkhanis, Franklin Templeton 01:48 – How fintech is shaping the asset-management industry, and lessons from the firm’s various investments into Asia wealthtech companies in “web2” 7:19 – How Franklin Templeton decides when and how to integrate a technology or a startup into the firm 8:31 – Are fintechs disrupting asset managers, or is fintech just a new set of service providers? 11:12 – What happens when a fintech investment fails, and what does that tell us about what works and doesn’t in Asia wealthtech 13:54 – Crypto, tokenization, DLT, Bitcoin ETFs, and how they fit into legacy businesses 18:08 – Looking ahead, how might blockchain transform asset management 20:43 – Prospects in Asia for separately managed accounts 24:06 – How Chetan thinks about tokenization in the payments space from an asset manager’s perspective 26:26 – Tech’s impact on the front office and how investment teams are using data and AI 30:48 – RoIs or other ways to measure a technology’s relevance 32:04 – The obligatory question about generative AI

Since ChatGPT 3.0 debuted in early 2023, generative artificial intelligence has been making waves in all industries, including financial services. But its impact isn’t just being felt in financial institutions like banks. It’s also shaking up the world of fintechs. Shameek Kundu discusses the implications of these changes with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio. Kundu served as Standard Chartered Bank’s group chief data officer before jumping into the world of AI startups, where he helped promote tools to assist in FIs’ understanding of machine learning. With experience in both the institutional and the startup side, Kundu brings his knowledge of data, AI, and how organizations work to discuss how genAI is impacting finance. Timecodes: 0:00 – Shameek Kundu 02:08 – From working in global banks to joining a startup 05:06 – Lessons for TradFi folks interested in startup life 07:02 – TruEra and making AI safe for enterprises and machine-learning more reliable 10:42 – How sophisticated a bank needs to be in order to be successful at using AI to derive useful insights 13:30 – Is AI only for the biggest, best resourced banks? 15:53 – Understanding “explainability” in AI before the advent of genAI 20:45 – Examples of genAI’s impact on both tech startups and on banks using AI tools 28:24 – GenAI’s impact on the business models of B2B fintechs and the speed with which bank execs are embracing it 30:08 – TruEra’s sale and what’s next for Shameek

In Asia, the ongoing legitimization of crypto and tokenization goes hand in hand with regulation, bringing crypto closer to TradFi norms. But custody, the safekeeping of assets with a service level on top, is still unregulated. Custody is even more critical in crypto than in TradFi, argues Alessio Quaglini, founder of Hex Trust, a third-party custodian of digital assets. He explains how custody differs in the two worlds, lingering questions about regulation, and the impact this year from the launch of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. Alessio also tells DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about how he’s growing the Hex Trust business, DeFi, asset management, and other initiatives. Timecodes: 0:00 – Alessio Quaglini, Hex Trust 1:35 – Custody in traditional finance and in digital assets 4:27 – Regulation questions and conflicts of interest 11:56 – Differences of regulation and token definitions around Asia 15:54 – Impact of ETFs on the crypto industry 22:00 – Diversifying business lines and revenue sources 25:43 – DeFi trends, staking assets, and where the money’s going 28:35 – Alessio’s other business interests 31:06 – Asset management 31:55 – The funding landscape 33:20 – Goals for the next 12 months

CUSTOMIZE Questions about the purpose of central-bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are more pressing than ever. What are they for? How should they work? What does a CBDC imply for commercial banks and e-wallet providers? Hubert Knapp is managing partner at Chavanette Advisors, a boutique consultancy that is providing central banks with research and tools for a CBDC strategy. Knapp brings enormous experience, having spent a career in Southeast Asia helping commercial banks with digital transformation. He speaks with DigFin’s Jame DiBiasio about those digital projects, why banks are still not ready for end-to-end digital capabilities, and why the advent of CBDCs will force faster and deeper change upon the banking industry. Timecodes: 0:00 – Hubert Knapp, Chavanette Advisors 2:15 – Hubert’s journey helping Asian banks go digital 5:05 – Why “digital transformation” is different today, the role of APIs, and the impact on banks and their people 9:09 – Core banking systems are in crisis and face new vulnerabilities 11:34 – Culture versus investment, and why banks are still talking about changing customer service 13:08 – “Shaky foundations” of focusing on UX and not the architecture 14:10 – Banks aren’t ready for DLT and other next-gen tech, but CBDCs will force them to change 16:22 – Why bankers should be excited about these changes, and why the Silicon Valley Bank collapse is a warning 22:40 – CBDC’s impact on commercial banking 25:17 – Chavanette’s views and how CBDCs will impact fractional-reserve banking 29:18 – Wholesale versus retail CBDCs 31:45 – Implications for e-wallets 33:01 – Is blockchain relevant? 34:39 – Expected developments and possible deployments

Ujjwal Deep Dahal is CEO of Druk Investment & Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of Bhutan. Ujjwal is unusual in that he is not a banker or asset manager, nor a career civil servant. He is an engineer. Bhutan is a small country of 800,000 people locked in the Himalaya Mountains. DHI has a mandate to transform it into a hub for digital innovation. The foundation of this is its ongoing rollout of a national digital identity, built on blockchain so it’s distributed and self-sovereign, rather than a centralized database run by the government. DHI owns stakes in the country’s key businesses, which it is pushing to create new services and products on top of the digital ID. Bhutan is also ‘carbon negative’, that is it sequesters more carbon than it uses, so DHI is also looking at tech-enabled carbon markets or other means of leveraging this natural resource heritage. Timecodes: 0:00 – Ujjwal Deep Dahal, DHI 1:51 – What’s different when an engineer runs a sovereign wealth fund 3:16 – Introducing Druk Holdings & Investments and its venture agenda 8:52 – Can Silicon Valley-style venture capitalism work within Bhutan’s promotion of “Gross National Happiness”? 12:09 – Leveraging Bhutan’s forests and tech to develop carbon markets 17:00 – Introducing National Digital Identity 19:20 – Why design NDI based on blockchain and decentralization? 21:00 – Rollout risks and challenges 24:15 – Deploying services and apps on top of NDI 27:30 – DHI’s big-picture strategy around NDI, Bitcoin, the Metaverse, and other tech 33:59 – Does DHI use next-gen tech in its daily operations? 35:42 – Opportunities for international fintech companies in Bhutan

Amnon Samid is CEO of BitMint, a company that has been pioneering “quantum-safe” mobile payments and digital money. Samid has been researching central-bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for many years and believes most of these projects are on the wrong track. Why? Mainly because they rely on blockchain or distributed-ledger tech (DLT), which Samid says will soon be cryptographically compromised by the power of quantum computers. The rapid developments in artificial intelligence pose another threat. Samid is a passionate advocate for central banks to secure digital cash as token- or value-based digital representations, instead of designing systems that rely on traditional accounts as used by the commercial banking system. Timecodes: 0:00 – Amnon Samid, BitMint 1:46 – Pioneering mobile money, before bitcoin, before WeChat! 5:36 – Emergence of CBDCs, wrong turns, “pilots are pointless”, and account-based digital cash versus token-based 8:52 – Why central banks are pursuing account-based CBDC solutions 12:43 – Lessons from CBDC pilots, security risks, and why DLT/blockchain solutions are a mistake 16:49 – Why DLT correlates to security threats, and do central bankers grasp underlying use cases for digital cash 23:22 – How to think about programmability and the role of commercial banks 27:26 – If not DLT, then what? Creation, validation, privacy, identity 30:05 – Networks versus edge computing (phones) and public ledgers, and the security tradeoffs 35:38 – Useful features of digital cash 38:52 – Are central banks responding to the threat of quantum computing and AI to their financial systems?

Bambu, a Singapore-based B2B wealthtech company, has shut its doors after eight years of business. Co-founder Ned Phillips speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about lessons for fintechs of all types, as well as for the financial institutions that partner with them. Ned talks about Bambu’s premise and its successes. He details the commercial decisions that made it difficult for the company to turn a profit. He gives advice to upcoming founders about product, pricing, and how to deal with FIs. He also advises FIs on ways they can support fintechs, because they need a healthy environment to use those services. It’s rare in Asia for people to be willing to discuss a failed business; this region doesn’t have the same attitude as in Silicon Valley. Ned does the region’s startup industry a huge service by sharing his experience. Timecodes: 0:00 – Ned Phillips 1:53 – Bambu’s mission as a B2B wealthtech in Asia and how it served financial institutions 6:42 – Why Bambu didn’t become profitable; product; customization 10:24 – The role of VC funding 12:24 – The state of wealthtech in Asia today 14:25 – Ned’s advice to new fintech founders 18:22 – How banks and asset managers can support their fintech partners 22:05 – Ned’s outlook and what’s next for him and his former colleagues 25:57 – If Ned were to start a new fintech business today, what would it be?

HSBC has just launched a tokenized gold product for retail investors in Hong Kong, following an institutional version that appeared in late 2023. Bugra Celik is director of digital assets at HSBC global private banking and wealth. He speaks with DigFin‘s Jame DiBiasio about how tokenized gold works and the pros and cons compared to gold ETFs or other types of exposure. Celik also touches on lessons from fintech companies tokenizing gold, how this fits into the bank’s broader agenda to tokenize real-world assets, and whether retail investors should treat gold as the better inflation hedge versus bitcoin. Timecodes: 0:00 – Bugra Celik, HSBC 1:46 – Why tokenize gold for retail investors 4:33 – Fractionalized gold versus paper gold and ETFs 7:34 – The bank’s business model for this product 9:58 – Other uses for tokenized gold, eg collateral 10:38 – Lessons from fintech companies trying to do this 15:08 – The underlying blockchain, interoperability, finality of trades 19:25 – Tokenized gold versus bitcoin 21:27 – Prospects for tokenizing other real-world assets 24:22 – KPIs and what is success

Wise’s SK Saraogi talks platforms versus remittances, new products, and new competition in Asia.