eXponential Finance

Thomas McMahon is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AirCarbon, a Singapore-domiciled digital exchange focused on eliminating market friction in a carbon-constraint economy by securitizing carbon credits into fungible and tradable securities with transparent pricing and real-time settlement. The soft launch is currently planned for August 19, with the full go-live in September 2020. 

A veteran of the global commodities markets, with long experience in establishing by now well-accepted benchmarks like WTI, Tom is leading the push towards creating the first commodities exchange establishing a global carbon standard in compliance with various ESG and SDG requirements. 

Our conversation covers, among other topics:

- What are carbon credits, and how are they different from allowances?

- Previous attempts at creating emission trading schemes (ETS) under the Kyoto Protocol

- The difference to the current approach under the Paris Accord

- Producers and consumers of carbon credits, and the different products initially traded on AirCarbon

- The impact of building upon a blockchain platform on the ability to innovate on products

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

Markus Hillebrand is the Chief Executive Officer - Asia Pacific for ControlExpert, a German InsurTech company employing ~900 people in 17 locations, including offices in Japan, China (Mainland & Hong Kong), and Thailand. 

Policyholders typically do not interact with their insurance company. When they actually use the product, it is almost by definition a negative experience, because they were involved in an accident and need to file a claim.  The traditional processes can be daunting, involving multiple conversations between the insured, the insurance company, a claims adjuster, and possibly a repair shop. 

Since 2002, ControlExpert has been focused on removing friction from the claims experience in car insurance. With a team of industry veterans laser-focused on improving the experience for all stakeholders, they have been an InsurTech before the name even was invented. Now applying latest technology, ControlExpert is ready to take the next growth spurt by serving new and existing clients in new geographies. 

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

Paul is the Director of Research at Alphacution who recently made some waves by digging deep into how Robinhood, the commission-free trading app valued at upwards of USD 8 billion, actually makes money. Paul is a veteran of the proprietary trading community, and an expert in market structure.  

Alphacution is the first digitally-oriented research and strategic advisory platform uniquely focused on modeling and benchmarking the impacts of technology on global financial markets and the businesses of trading, asset management and banking. This groundbreaking, data-driven approach allows Alphacution to reverse-engineer the operational dynamics of these market actors to showcase the most vivid and impactful themes among the field of available research providers and platforms.

You might find it helpful to reference Paul's last of four articles on Robinhood (which also includes the links to the prequels) for the detailed charts: https://alphacution.com/robinhoods-trailing-stop-orders-extreme-profitability-by-design/

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

We were super-excited to welcome Lex Sokolin, the Co-Head of FinTech at ConsenSys, *the* venture studio in the Ethereum ecosystem, as our honorable guest for our 50th anniversary podcast. 

Lex is a New York & London entrepreneur with senior operating and board-level FinTech experience (i.e., thick scar tissue) in digital advice, personal finance, and wealth management. He has held a variety of roles on Wall Street (with Lehman Brothers, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank), but also hand-coded websites and programmed generative abstract art. Lex founded the FinTech practice at Autonomous, a financial services equity research firm (acquired by Alliance Bernstein), where he focused on artificial intelligence, blockchain, and mixed reality. Previously, he was the COO and led product design / corporate development at AdvisorEngine, a wealth management platform built on roboadvisor DNA. He was also CEO of NestEgg, a roboadvisor focused on delivering financial advice algorithmically, which he founded while getting a JD/MBA from Columbia, and which got acquired by AdvisorEngine.

In our conversation, we touch upon

- The environment for entrepreneurship in the FinTech ecosystem

- What the frontier of Finance is, where all the "crazy stuff" happens

- What is everybody else doing to catch up?

- How Simplicity breeds Complexity in Finance

- The Chinese threat to US & USD dominance

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

Live at Singapore Blockchain Week, we hosted a panel discussion sponsored by Chintai with leading minds in the world of compliance enabled decentralized finance - tokenized securities & stablecoins.

You can also find us on....

For this episode, we are listening in to a webinar hosted by our friends at Merkle Science, a panel discussion that assessed whether Hong Kong is a competitive jurisdiction for virtual asset businesses from the perspectives of regulation, operations and market opportunities.

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

Sakuta-san is leading venture finance advisory business in Japan at Deloitte Tohmatasu, supporting startup fund raising and M&A as well as the corporate venturing journey of large global corporates.

In this conversation, we are taking a health check on the Japanese venture capital and corporate venture capital ecosystem, and Sakuta-san explains how he sees VCs and CVCs responding differently to the pandemic. We dive deeper into the differences between Japanese VCs/CVCs and their Western counterparts, what technology areas and geographical regions Japanese investors are currently focused on, and why it does not hurt to be a unicorn. 

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

William W. Baber has combined education with business throughout his career. His professional experience has included economic development in the State of Maryland, language services in the Washington, DC, area, supporting business starters in Japan, and teaching business students in Japan, Europe, and Canada. He taught English in the Economics and Business Administration Departments of Ritsumeikan University, Japan, before joining the Graduate School of Management at Kyoto University, where he is an associate professor, in addition to holding courses at University of Vienna and University of Jyväskylä. 

The book "Transforming Japanese Business", which Will co-authored and co-edited, explores the digital revolution in Japan. Its chapters present approaches and examples from sectors commonly understood to be visible arenas of digital transformation―3D printing and mobility, for instance―as well as some from not-so-obvious sectors, such as retail, services, and fintech.

https://www.springer.com/book/9789811503269

Business today is facing unprecedented change especially due to the adoption of new, digital technologies, with a noticeable transformation of manufacturing and services. The changes have been brought by advanced robotics, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and digital networks that are growing in size and capability as the number of connected devices explodes. In addition, there are advanced manufacturing and collaborative connected platforms, including machine-to-machine communications. Adoption of digital technology has caused process disruptions in both the manufacturing and services sectors and led to new business models and new products.

While examining the preparedness of the Japanese economy to embrace these changes, the book explores the impact of digitally influenced changes on some selected sectors from a Japanese perspective. It paints a big picture in explaining how a previously manufacturing-centric, successful economy adopts change to retain and rebuild success in the global environment. Japan as a whole is embracing, yet also avoiding―innovating but also restricting―various forms of digitalization of life and work. The book, with its 17 chapters, is a collaborative effort of individuals contributing diverse points of view as technologists, academics, and managers.

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

The Global Insurtech Alliance was formed to represent leading insurtech ecosystems across the globe. We all share a common purpose, to create a global ecosystem for insurtech to thrive within. In this first Global InsurTech Alliance (GITA) event, we focused the discussion around insurtech across the Asia Pacific region and includes representatives from:  

George Kesselman, President and Founder Insurtech Asia 

Jason Roberts, Founder Insurtech NZ

Rita Yates, CEO and Co-Founder Insurtech Australia 

Kai Dwyer, CEO and Co-Founder Vallum.Insure as Panel Moderator 

We covered topics including:  

An Introduction to their organisations 

Current trends, including effect of COVID-19 in their region 

Key challenges their ecosystems are experiencing 

Key insurtech opportunities in their region 

How do Insurtechs look for customers or investors in these markets and what are some of the tools available

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....

Marta is the Founder of Seoul Startups, an international community partner of Tokyo FinTech, leading a startup community in Korea with an online and an offline presence, and currently more than 1,300 members.

Having experienced Korea as a child when her father became a diplomat in post-communism Poland, Marta wanted to spread her wings upon graduating, returned to the country on a Korean government-sponsored scholarship program - and has never left. Joining Samsung Electronics upon graduation, after passing the regular strict recruitment tests, Marta became a model employee, excelling at the Samsung company song & dance in front of the executive team. Fast forward a few years, she has supported many startups through an acceleration program, has founded Seoul Startups to create a more formal support structure, in particular for foreign founders, and is also engaged with integration programs for North Korean refugees. 

A personal story in which many of us might find some resemblance to our own path, told with witty humor and a sharp eye for commonalities and differences across cultures. 

Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via [email protected]

You can also find us on....