The Green Room | Fintech Journeys in Asia

Season 5 Trailer

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 lending, and digital banking. We’ll also dabble in crypto and ESG and talk about some cross-border and cross-regional learnings. As always, we’re going to have some fun with our guests and really dig into the change they want to make in the world.
Thanks for listening the Green Room Podcast. If you know anyone who would be a great guest or have any feedback, reach out to us at greenroomfintech@gmail.com. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy season 5. Happy listening!

Cross-Border B2B Payments Infrastructure with Malini Kannan of Thunes

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 industry and landing at TransferTo, which incubated the business that eventually become Thunes. At Thunes, Malini has covered every aspect of the business - starting as a Strategy & Operations Manager, moving up to COO, and now she leads the CEO Office.
Thunes was originally founded in 2016 under TransferTo, which focused on cross-border airtime top-ups and other value-added services. TransferTo rebranded as DT One, where Thunes was incubated. Since then, Thunes has grown into one of the largest and most well-known B2B payments companies in Singapore. They now serve customers in more than 130 countries, have offices in 20 cities, and have closed their $72M USD Series C funding round in July 2023. You can learn more about Thunes by visiting thunes.com.

Women-Centered Finance in India with Aditi Sholapurkar of SALT

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 came to learn that only 5% of customers of Indian fintechs were women and has been on journey to change that with her latest venture.
Aditi co-founded SALT in 2021, and they are currently raising their seed round. Please reach out if you are interested in getting involved. You can learn more about SALT by visiting salt.one.

Navigating Fintech in Uncertain Times in Myanmar with The Noe San of MO

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 involved in the finance sector through SHWE Bank. She had a front row seat to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and recent military coup on financial services in Myanmar.
With that backdrop, The Noe founded MO in 2020 and launched the first MVP in 2021. She bootstrapped MO for the first two years and then fundraised for the first time from a local bank in September of 2022. You can learn more about Modus Operandi, or MO, by visiting mo.com.mm.

BNPL and GMV Financing for SMEs with Vikram Kotibhaskar of Credilinq.AI

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 fintech founder with Credilinq.AI in January 2021.
Credilinq.AI is focusing their B2B credit services across Southeast Asia and Australia and already has quite a bit of traction in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. They raised a 1M USD angel round in Feb of 2021, a 2.6M USD seed round in April of 2022, and just closed an extension of that seed round earlier this year in February. You can learn more about them by visting credilinq.ai.

Equitable Transportation in Pakistan with Maha Shahzad of BusCaro

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 security challenges faced by commuters, particularly women, and started BusCaro to solve them. Maha started BusCaro in August of 2022 and is already active in 3 cities across Pakistan. You can learn more about them by visiting buscaro.com.
This is not our typical Green Room episode focused on a fintech startup, but given my own background in mobility and Maha’s inspiring story, I wanted to share the good work that she is doing, especially as we celebrate International Women’s Day 2023. We added a few minutes at the end of the podcast to share about Maha’s experience working and fundraising as a woman, and I am happy to support her as part of Findicate, a women-focused angel investing syndicate I recently founded - DM me or shoot me an email to findicateangels@gmail.com if you want to learn more.

Pioneering Open Finance in Asia with Diego Rojas

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 LEAP FINTECH based in Singapore in 2017 before founding open finance company, Finantier, in 2020. This episode was recorded toward the end of 2022 when Diego was CEO of Finantier, so we spend some time talking about Finantier’s business.
Today, however, Diego is working on some exciting new fintech projects, which we’ll hopefully hear about in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy this episode of the Green Room!

Payments and Remittances for Overseas Filipino Workers with Rebecca Kersch of TANGapp

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. Rebecca started her career in management consulting - the same one as me actually, and we crossed paths again when we were both doing our Masters at Harvard.
Rebecca started TANGapp in 2020 to help OFWs send money back to their loved ones in the Philippines and has grown into the payments space since. TANGapp is currently raising a seed round, and I’m happy to share that my women-focused angel investing syndicate, Findicate, is one of the participants. You can learn more about TANGapp by visting tangapp.org, and you can learn more about Findicate by shooting an email to findicateangels@gmail.com.p.s. Here's the link to the Dana Kanze TED Talk mentioned by Rebecca in the podcast.