eXponential Finance

During this episode of the Exponential Finance podcast, we have the opportunity to discuss the importance consumer empowerment across location, payments and loyalty with Batu Sat, Co-Founder & CEO of Mall IQ.

Mall IQ, Inc. is a San Francisco based company offering a highly scalable Location Intelligence & AI Platform for mobile applications that is store-level accurate indoors & outdoors without any hardware deployments.  Mall IQ is privacy-first, compliant with GDPR and equivalent regulations, empowering Financial Institutions & Fintechs, Loyalty Platforms and Retailers in delivering anonymous personalization.  Mall IQ solutions measure the purchase intent of customers in the physical world and makes it insightful and actionable for mobile apps.

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....

This episode is a recording of our premiere on LinkedIn Audio, where we exchange our impressions from the Singapore FinTech Festival held the week prior. We get to discuss the state of payments and crypto, and the coming convergence of these sectors, central bank digital currencies, the emerging opportunity for credit & lending, the surprising lack of AI during the festival, the hype of ESG, some aspects of digital banking, and last but not least, the regional rivalry between Hong Kong and Singapore.

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....

During this episode of the Exponential Finance podcast, we have the opportunity to take a deep dive into the Klaytn universe and David’s perspective on content distribution in a Web3 environment, the concept of “Proof of Me” as a decentralized identity, and some other topics.

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....

Kevin Shimota is a leading specialist in digital products and platforms, having been a senior executive at WeChat (Tencent) with over a decade of experience in the industry. His ongoing work includes understanding innovations and trends coming out of Asia and how they will impact and adapt to the global community.

Having recently published "The First Super App", Kevin traces with us WeChat's history from the beginnings as the QQ desktop messenger, to the launch of WeChat through an internal competition as a mobile internet platform, the addition of "push to talk", company pages, payments, and finally mini-programs. Kevin reveals the secrets of Tencent's platform strategy and finally, answers the question "How does WeChat actually make money?".

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....

In this episode, we talk about Sleek, the SMEs’ all-in-one digital platform, helping over 6000+ entrepreneurs to start and manage their businesses. Sleek effectively operates as the SMEs’ co-pilot for all back-office processing, so that the entrepreneurs can focus on growing their business.

Sleek is registered with the company registry and tax authorities of Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the United Kingdom. They are also regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore under the Payment Services Act, and have recently been issued a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license. Sleek has raised a USD 25m Series A in December 2021 from investors White Star Capital, Jungle Ventures, and EDBI. 

Adrien Barthel is a co-founder of Sleek, and the Chief Growth Officer. In addition to covering the company from its origins in Singapore through the expansion in different markets, and the building of a FinTech stack by obtaining the MPI license, we also talk to Adrien about the business intelligence generated on its platform, in comparing the Singapore and Hong Kong ecosystems, and some on-the-ground intelligence how the HK has reacted in the face of security laws and the pandemic (spoiler alert: Cathay Pacific's layoffs during the pandemic led to a spike in new entity formation).

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....

In this episode, we first have the opportunity to discuss Japan's monetary policy under Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda, whose term expires next year, contrasting Japan's zero-interest-rate policy with the increasingly highly inflationary environment in the rest of the world. In the second part, we discuss certain aspects of the book "The Future of Financial Systems in the Digital Age", such as the payment system in Japan, and the approach to digital currencies.

Professor Franz Waldenberger has researched the Japanese economy since 1992, when he joined the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ) as a senior research fellow, focusing on Japanese industrial organization, the employment system, and the financial system. Since 1997, as a professor for the Japanese economy at Munich University, Franz has extended his area of research to include corporate governance, Japan’s international economic relations, and most recently, fiscal and monetary policy. In 2014, he returned to Japan to head the DIJ as its Director.

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....

In this episode, Tiffine Wang, Partner at MS & AD Ventures, an early stage venture fund backed by one of Japan’s – and the world’s – largest insurance groups, shares with us the stages of her career, and how this has shaped her investment approach. Tiffine is passionate about investing in big market bets that positively impact humanity and was voted as one of the Emerging Leaders in Corporate Venture Capital in 2021 and 2022. Most recently, Tiffany has been named “Women of Influence” by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

MS&AD Ventures portfolio companies mentioned in this podcast (please check https://msad.vc/portfolio):

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....

In this episode, we explore the Latin American FinTech ecosystem through a conversation with Mariana Franza, Chief Operating Officer at Uala, a fintech app focused on driving financial inclusion. Founded in 2017 in Argentina, Uala started as a payment wallet, and has just obtained a banking license in its home market. Uala expanded to Mexico in 2020, where it is also currently in the process of acquiring a bank, and to Colombia in 2022, where it applied for a banking license organically.

"65% of our active users have never had a credit history."

"Cash is our worst enemy since it does not allow an economy to develop."

"In 2021, we digitalized USD 1bn in Argenina."

"Our lending facility grew 24 time year-on-year, even in a high inflationary environment."

"Of Latin America's 650m population, 25 percent are deemed as 'young', and approximately 50% are unbanked."

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....

In this episode, we are going to talk about private markets with Oi-Yee Choo, Chief Executive Officer at ADDX. 

ADDX is among a few Singapore-based platforms dealing in private market securities, offering global funds, real estate investment trusts, structured products and pre-IPO shares at fractional ownership to investors. ADDX offers issuance, custody and trading of digital securities using distributed ledger technology and counts South Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management and Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings among its backers.

Oi-Yee Choo has had a distinguished career in capital raising and mergers & acquisitions advisory before joining the startup world, most recently heading the investment banking business for UBS in Singapore.

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....

In this episode, we are going to talk about compliance for crypto with Javier Tamashiro, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Ospree.

Ospree has been founded in 2019, and bootstrapped ever since, launching their integrated suite of crypto compliance tools at the end of 2020, covering client onboarding, blockchain analytics, and the travel rule. Ospree has been initially focused on startup clients, and expects to rapidly grow with their successful ones. Their enterprise-scale product for first and second tier banks is also about to hit the market.

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....