Wise and Fintech in Asia Pacific with Venkatesh Saha
Fresh out of the studio, Venkatesh Saha, CEO Wise (or Transferwise) Asia joined us to discuss the geographical footprint and key business activities in Asia Pacific. We started with Venkatesh sharing his background story on how he came to join Wise. From then on, he dived deeper into the key business of Wise within the region and shared his perspectives on the current fintech trends in Asia.
So it's not just existing users who went deeper and got more comfortable and tried more products, but it's brought many new people who would have been forced to think about digital ways of living their lives. So I think that's the first thing that acceleration. The second thing, which has been a happy coincidence, is that a few years ago, government started taking fintech more seriously. - Venkatesh Saha
Here are the links and show notes for this episode:
Introduction
- Venkatesh Saha, CEO Wise (or formerly Transferwise) Asia ( LinkedIn, @venkateshsaha )
- How did you start your career?
- How did you end up with Wise?
- What are the lessons you can share on your career journey with our audience?
Wise in Asia Pacific
- Can you offer an introduction to Wise in Asia Pacific?
- Who are the founders of Wise and what is the origin story?
- Who are the customers for Wise?
- How does it work for consumers out there who want to do remittances? How does it differentiate from traditional players such as Western Union?
- What are the business models for Wise?
- How has Wise evolved till today?
- What is the current geographic footprint of Wise in Asia Pacific? Does it include China?
- What are the key partnerships for Wise in Asia Pacific?
Trends in Fintech
- What are the key trends, specifically payments in Asia Pacific?
- How are the traditional players and new upstarts thinking about the whole space?
- What are the key technology disruptions hovering around the payments space?
Closing
- Can you recommend anything (book, movie, podcast or tv series) that have recently inspired your life?
- Venkatesh's recommendations: "Grit" by Angela Duckworth
- How do our audience find you?
Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Thomas Craig.
