One Vision Podcast — Fintech, Banking, and AI with Theodora Lau

Everyone should have equal access to the building blocks of prosperity. We must strive to create more opportunities for people to truly thrive, to create an environment without economically induced fears or setbacks. Simply being included in the formal banking system will never be enough. Being fully embraced by the full arsenal of services provided by the financial system is what is required.

But gaining that access is uneven at best, and geared toward the very wealthy at worst. Think back to when you were born, and more specifically where you were born. On our planet, there are seven and a half billion people. Everybody has a different journey, a different choose your own adventure if you will, yet one whose starting point no one gets to choose.

This is why we must strive to make banking better. In this episode Bradley Leimer talks with Kosta Peric, Deputy Director, Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about his background at SWIFT and Innotribe, and the Gates Foundation’s new open source payments platform, Mojaloop, and the different ways they are focused on meeting the financial services needs of the poor.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem is one of the fastest growing in the world with over 3000 startups. It has a diverse mix of sectors, from fintech and ecommerce to advertising, software, and B2B, as well as a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, with 45 percent of them identifying as female and 35 percent of founders from overseas.

The Greater Bay Area initiative, with the goal of developing an ecosystem to rival that in San Francisco and New York, is also significant. With 70 million people between the regions of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, that combined population is more than the whole of the UK and twice that of Canada, and accounts for 12 percent of China’s GDP.

In today's episode of Red Envelope, Theodora Lau talks to Karena Belin, CEO and Co-Founder of WHub. They talk about the hot trends in HK innovation ecosystem. HK has had several key headline grabbing updates off late (pun intended).

The Faster Payments System (FPS) launched by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) marks a significant milestone in payments. AngelHub launched Hong Kong's first regulated startup investment platform for professional investors to invest in vetted startups from around the world. And we have seen the big Chinese Fintechs get virtual banking licenses from the HKMA.

These and more updates from HK - Listen in!!

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Japan is known as the most ultra-aged society globally, where one in four Japanese citizens are 65 or older. This fact, combined with healthy lifestyles and one of the world’s longest life expectancies, means that Japan must rapidly address longevity-related challenges alongside providing some unique lessons for our global society. 

In this episode of Red Envelope, Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer bring you thoughts from the FINSUM event in Japan. The conference covered a variety of topics from the future of payments, fintech innovation, and the evolving world of financial services covering more specifically the impact of big technology firms, artificial intelligence and ethics, the role of data, and much more.

Theo and Brad discuss the opportunities for Fintech in Japan - where ageing is a critical social factor. Japan is the only country in the world with a national public holiday called Respect for the Aged Day, or Keiro no Hi — to honor the country’s aging citizens. Japan’s public and private sectors embrace this societal zeitgeist by working diligently to address the needs of its aging population through technology, innovation, policy, and structural changes.

Brad discusses his work in Japan with Accenture as part of an economic development mission designed to help the Tokyo Metropolitan Government promote its growing tech and fintech ecosystem and became an Ambassador for Invest Tokyo.

Listen in for more insights from Theo and Brad about the third largest economy in the world.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When apple announced their iPad, there was a discussion on how different it was from a laptop. It was indeed differentiated, and one major research identified that, accessing a large screen device at a simple press of a button is a major difference.

This episode of Rhetoriq is slightly different, where Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer talk about the apple card. The launch of the Apple Card has caused quite a stir – amongst the Apple loyalists and naysayers alike. The loyalists marvel at the ease of activation and digital issuance. The naysayers criticize it as not being “revolutionary” – that there is nothing new nor extraordinary about it.

Some mocked Apple for even coming up with a card at all – seemingly forgetting that not merchant has the ability to accept Apple Pay.  However, the user experience is now controlled by the handset operating system, i.e., Apple and Android, enabling new suites of applications and industries from digital health to personal financial management tools; from on-demand services to social media. With a click of a button, we are instantly connected to our friends and colleagues across the world; we have access to information 24x7 right at our finger tips; and we can get what we want, when we want it, right at our doorstep.

With 100 Million customers who can be termed as a "quick win", apple could easily get a massive market share in the US in quick time. The Apple Card (and Marcus) could also borrow the playbook from a few FinTech startups today – from providing virtual card numbers for online shopping, or learning users behavior and automatically applying various rewards and incentives, to helping reduce subscription charges that we have signed up for and forgotten.

This is just a beginning of infinite possibilities for Apple in the Fintech space. Listen in for more detailed insights from Brad and Theo.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can regulatory policies make or break an innovation ecosystem? And how equipped are the research capabilities of regulators in large economies, to make some of those policies? Fintech has been a field where regulators have had a major effect on growth and maturity of innovative business models.

In this episode of Red envelope, Nidhi Prabhu from Mumbai, joins Arun Krishnakumar and Theodora Lau. Nidhi started her career in the academia, moved into India's Central Bank (RBI), and then into Medici's research. In a career that spans across academia, policy making, research and Fintech innovation, she has seen policies make or break business models in India.

Fintech startups have matured from novelty to niche and moved toward becoming considerable contenders by entering the mainstream in every major market around the world. Emerging markets, like China and India, have led the way as companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Paytm are flourishing.

Various initiatives have been undertaken by the government and regulators to create a favorable environment for fintech innovation as the country continues to push for progress. According to Nidhi Prabhu, however, more proactive regulatory policies will still be needed by the RBI, for example, to provide guidance and enforce the true spirit behind open banking.

Unlike Singapore with a single regulator, the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore), there are several regulatory bodies at play in India, including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchanges Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Agency (IRDA) and Provident Fund Regulatory and Development Agency (PFRDA). Challenges of this multi-regulator environment notwithstanding, India is fast becoming an essential hub for international banks.

Listen in for first hand insights from Nidhi on regulatory policies and innovation.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We hosted Dave Isbitski, the Chief Voice evangelist at Amazon eight months ago. During the discussion, we asked Dave if Amazon was planning to focus on vernacular in Asia - particularly India. He mentioned it is a tough engineering problem to solve, and Amazon's focus is to ensure they get the English speaking markets right.

Voice is the new UI, and in a country like India where a Billion people need assistance to use their phone, vernacular voice assistants become indispensable. Over the years, the technology had challenges penetrating the India market, as a good NLP engine needs a lot of relevant data to be trained. To get the data, the rural population in India need to have internet access.

In this episode, Sachin Jaiswal the CEO of Niki AI joins Arun Krishnakumar. Sachin and his team at Niki AI have seen the evolution of the rural smartphone user in India. Through a lot of on the ground market research, they have now developed a product, with proprietary technology that serves as a voice assistant for the India market. Niki delivers voice based transactions in four different languages to its customers in India.

Sachin describes how onboarding of 330 Million people to the internet in less than 3 years has created a leap frog moment in India. Thanks to Reliance Jio, even farmers can use smart phones at the nook and corners of the country. Niki AI have cleverly timed their product for this market.

No wonder Ratan Tata is an investor in Niki. Listen in for more insights from Niki's Sachin Jaiswal.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Social isolation affects people both emotionally and physically, and older adults who struggle financially are at an even greater risk of isolation. In the next ten years over 11 million adults will stop driving due to age related impairments. Over 8 million have no smartphone and no experience with new technology. Many of them will be forced to rely on a patchwork of friends, family, community members and caregivers to get around.

In this episode of Shades of Grey, Theodora Lau talk to Justin Boogaard, the co-founder of GogoGrandparent. Gogo helps families take care of their loved ones from afar. Our first producthelps older adults use on demand services from a phone call: "Press 1 for an Uber to your home." Justin describes the birth of Gogo.

"Over Christmas my grandmother told me she was afraid of driving at night, and asked for a way to call Uber from her flip phone. GoGoGrandparent was born and she took her first trip to CoCo's Diner. She ordered a stack of buttermilk pancakes and extra crispy bacon."

GoGoGrandparent is one of the very few startups that sees the opportunity to do well while doing good. They aim to solve the transportation needs of older adults by connecting seniors to ride sharing services such as Lyft, and providing personalized services that give the caregivers a peace of mind. In the long run, they also aim to expand into meals, groceries, and medicine delivery, on a virtual caregiving platform, that enables older adults to live independently longer.

Listen in to Justin and Theo discussing how we can address our social responsibility to take care of our aging families.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How innovative and interesting would we be if we all think and talk alike? How would our actions and assumptions ever be challenged if we thought all the same?

Diversity is more than gender - although that might be the one point of difference most talked about today. Diversity is also about age, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, beliefs, diversity of thoughts, and beyond. It is more than just placing a “token” diverse member in your team - and it’s not about numbers and quotas.

In this episode of Judge me by my cover, Bradley Leimer joins Theodora Lau discuss the topic of diversity in innovation. The tech world have been notoriously poor in creating an environment where people from different backgrounds come together and contribute to the workplace. Less than 2% of Venture capital was allocated to women only founding teams in 2018.

But diversity is not just about the workplace or gender. It is also about how we address social issues. How many fintechs startups do you know of that are innovating for the 115 million older adults and their circles of care?

None of us are born biased. And neither is our technology - it does not , or should not, care about how old we are, what gender or ethnicity we belong to, or where we were born. Our upbringing and our life experiences shape our view - of how the world is, and how it should be. That in turn, shape the solutions that we create and the challenges we choose to tackle.

Listen in to Brad and Theo in yet another crazily engaging conversation.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past few years, we have seen several senior execs in banks move into the startup/fintech community. Many made the transition from wall street to silicon valley. That journey is certainly not an easy one, especially when one serves at the highest levels in financial institutions before making that jump. Very few have managed it with the grace and success like Banesh Prabhu - our guest for this week.

Banesh Prabhu is the ex-global COO/CTO of Citigroup Consumer Bank International. He spent over 22 years at Citiwhere he rose to the C-Suite as the Chief Technology and Chief Operating office across 55 countries covering 80 Million customers. He was part of Citi's information technology leadership council and planning group through the period.

Arun Krishnakumar and Banesh discuss Fintech and innovation trends in India and the UK, and see how they compare to each other. The opportunities that new business models in emerging markets have created for Fintech and how/if the West can learn from it.

Banesh has a stellar track record as an investor and he has had significant tech exits, with iFlex and Aurion Pro. He also serves as a senior advisor to BCG, and now he is a partner at Green Shores Capital. So the discussion touches upon opportunities for investment in the UK and in India, and what areas Green Shores Capital is focusing on.

Listen in for more insights on how a C-Suite leader has transitioned into a highly successful Venture capital Investor

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Innovation will continue to be a driving force in Asia as fintechs and banks both develop new platforms services for the increasingly connected consumers in Asia.”

Asia has long been bustling with innovation - with Singapore and Hong Kong competing for financial supremacy for many years - the verdict on who got their nose ahead is still out there.

In this episode of Red Envelope, we have Medhy Souidi, the Head of FinTech at DBS bank joining Arun Krishnakumar and Theodora Lau. Medhy is originally from Europe, and has been very involved in the innovation ecosystem in Hongkong. He is well connected in the Fintech and Blockchain space in HK, and has seen it evolve over the past few years.

Medhy talks about his involvement in DBS' innovation initiatives. DBS was named the “World’s Best Bank” by Euromoney magazine and it has its own digital initiatives and is considered one of the most innovative banks in the region. DBS also has the the Startup Xchange program, launched in Hong Kong and Singapore, brings in startups to co-create solutions that address specific business challenges in focus areas such as AI (artificial Intelligence), Machine Learning, Big Data, and RegTech. 

So what lies ahead for Asia Innovation? Listen in to hear our thoughts.

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.