The Green Room | Fintech Journeys in Asia

Play-to-Earn, Gaming Guilds and Financial Inclusion in the Philippines with Luis Buenaventura of Yield Guild Games

In this episode, I speak with Luis Buenaventura, Philippines country manager for Yield Guild Games, or YGG, which is a play-to-earn gaming guild, giving metaverse players opportunities to earn in blockchain-based currency.
Luis has also been a pioneer of web3 in the Philippines. He has founded several businesses, including syndeo media, Infinite.ly, Rebit.ph, and most recently, the BloomX cryptocurrency exchange. Luis is an NFT artist, founder of the Cryptopop Art Guild, which supports underprivileged Filipino artists, author of two books on cryptocurrencies, and has been a contributing writer to Rappler and Bitsonline.
Lastly, I’ve been following Luis’ weekly newsletter, Cryptotoday for quite a few months now and can say that I have personally learned so much from his thoughtful analysis and takes, and I’m sure you will too.
YGG is a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO that helps scholars access play to earn games like Axie Infinity. YGG was founded in 2020. They raised 12.5M in a token sale in July of 2021 and raised another 4.6M from Andreesen Horowitz in August of 2021. You can learn more about them by visting yieldguild.io.

Season 3 Trailer

Welcome to the Green Room, a podcast where we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir.
In season 3 of the Green Room, we’ve expanded our scope beyond Southeast Asia to all of ASEAN and will spend some time going down the web3 rabbit hole with play to earn startups, NFT projects, and stablecoins. But don’t worry, we’ll still cover some web2 topics like SME lending and payment rewards. We also had International Women’s Day in March, and I realized that as a woman podcaster, I need to get more women on the show.
So thanks for listening the Green Room Fintech Podcast. If you know anyone who would be a great guest, particularly awesome women founders, reach out to us at greenroomfintech@gmail.com. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy season 3. Happy listening!

Hacking Green Finance with Tek Yew Chia of Oliver Wyman and Puneet Chaddha, Winner of Singapore Fintech Fest Hackcelerator

In this final episode of Season 2 of The Green Room podcast, we’re going to be talking about green finance with those involved in this year’s Global Fintech Hackcelerator.
For those not familiar, the Global Fintech Hackcelerator is a hackathon that happens in the lead up to Singapore Fintech Fest every year. If you listened to our episode with Pat Patel from Elevandi where we went behind the scenes of Singapore Fintech Fest, one of the highlights that he mentioned was the Hackcelerator. The theme of this year’s Hackcelerator was “Harnessing Technology to Power Green Finance.” 3 winners were announced during the festival - out of 20 finalists and nearly 500 submissions.
Today, I’ll be speaking with Tek Yew Chia, Vice Chairman of Oliver Wyman about OW’s role in organizing the Hackcelerator and how they view the sustainable finance ecosystem in Asia.
We also have Puneet Chaddha, CEO of Global Initiatives and Advisor to RootAnt, who actually participated in the Hackcelerator. We’ll hear about his experience and the solution that the team came up with. Big congrats to Puneet and the team for being the Hackcelerator winner!
Oliver Wyman is a global management consulting firm, and they have been keen supporters of Singapore Fintech Fest and developing the Asian fintech ecosystem. You can learn more about them by visiting oliverwyman.com.
RootAnt builds digital infrastructure that enables neobanking in Asia, and Global Initiatives helps companies assess their sustainability footprints through reports and programs. You can learn more about them by visiting rootant.com and globalinitiatives.com.
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Finance for Freelancers with Nirali Zaveri of Friz

In this episode, I speak with Nirali Zaveri, co-founder and CEO of Friz, a fintech for freelance workers. Nirali, who previously worked at Mastercard, talks about starting Friz after realizing that freelance workers are completely undserved by banks due to their project-based income. We talk about Friz’s word of mouth go-to-market strategy across Southeast Asia, and Nirali tells me about “the human cloud of the future” and her new year’s resolutions.
Friz provides financial services, including debit cards, credit cards, and invoice financing to freelance workers on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. Friz was founded in February of 2020. They raised their seed round in September of 2021 and were part of Y-Combinator’s Winter 2021 batch. You can learn more about them by visting usefriz.com.
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Fighting Financial Crime with Regtech with Abhishek Chatterjee of Tookitaki

In this episode, I speak with Abhishek Chatterjee, Founder and CEO of Tookitaki, a regtech startup that is focused on delivering a full suite of machine learning-based compliance solutions to banks and fintechs who are vulnerable to financial crime and increasingly subject to strict compliance regulation. Abhishek talks about the fact that only 1% of laundered money is recovered every year, how Tookitaki's culture is rooted in their purpose of fighting financial crime, and the differences in Western and emerging market regtech. Abhishek started Tookitaki in 2014 and now has offices in Singapore, India, London, and the US. You can learn more about them by visiting tookitaki.ai.
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Behind the Scenes of Singapore Fintech Festival with Pat Patel of Elevandi

This week, we have a special Green Room episode for you. We are going behind the scenes of this year's Singapore Fintech Festival with Pat Patel, General Manager of Elevandi, the Singapore Fintech Festival's new parent company.
We also have a discount code for those of you who still haven't gotten your SFF tickets. Use The Green Room's promo code GREENROOM50 at the SFF checkout page to get 50% off your ticket, but move fast because this code is only valid for the first 50 users.
The Singapore Fintech Festival begins on November 8th and runs through November 12th. The first three days of the festival will feature a conference and exhibition, and on the last two days, participants can attend global satellite and industry events online and at physical locations. These include the World Fintech Festival, Innovation Lab Crawl, and Masterclass series by Oxygen by APIX, one of The Green Room's sponsors.
Singapore Fintech Festival has been around since 2016 and is gearing up to host 60,000 people this year. SFF's new parent company, Elevandi was formed in August of 2021 and just named its Board of Directors. You can find more information on Singapore Fintech Festival and Elevandi by visiting fintechfestival.sg.
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BNPL for Factory Workers in Cambodia and Laos with Pablo Alonso Caprile of iCare Benefits

In this episode, I speak with Pablo Alonso Caprile, CFO of iCare Benefits, which provides buy now pay later services to low-income factory workers, particularly women, in Cambodia and Laos. This isn't your typical point of sale BNPL model, but for iCare's customer base, this model makes a huge difference in their monthly purchasing power.
Pablo talks about the history of BNPL in Cambodia, the strategic advantage of going deep in a customer segment rather than having massive scale, and how NGOs and investors have played a pivotal role in shaping the local market landscape.
iCareBenefits was founded in 2013 and is backed by leading global impact investors. You can learn more about them by visiting icarebenefits.asia.
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Microinsurance and Healthcare in Emerging Markets with Gustaf Agartson of BIMA

In this episode, I speak with Gustaf Agartson, founder and CEO of BIMA, a microinsurance and healthcare provider. Gustaf talks about seeing the need for e-wallet enabled financial services, launching BIMA in Ghana 11 years ago, and leading the company's emerging market expansion across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, as well as branching out into new customer offerings like tele-medicine and health screenings. Gustaf also talks about how BIMA's insurance can cost as little as 2 USD cents per day.
Today, BIMA serves 25 million customers across 9 markets and is continuing to expand. You can learn more about them by visiting bimamobile.com.
If you know an entrepreneur or startup who would be a great guest on The Green Room or is fundraising, don't hesitate to reach out to Amrita at greenroomfintech@gmail.com.
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