All Episodes - eXponential Finance
The eXponential Finance Podcast is produced in co-operation with Tokyo FinTech (https://tokyofintech.com/), covering Finance & FinTech themes in Japan and beyond. Tokyo FinTech looks to inform, inspire and innovate in the financial services sector in Japan. Our community of more than 3,300 individual members attends regular fintech, insurtech, regtech, payments, blockchain & crypto events. We also have an established Medium Publication (https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech) and a number of international community partnerships with like-minded FinTech associations around the globe. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
View Podcast Details144 Episodes
Declan Somers, Mobal Communications - The simpler way to pay in Japan (S3E45)
In this episode of the eXponential Finance Podcast, we explore the challenges foreign residents face when opening bank accounts in Japan. Declan Somers, Chief Executive Officer of Mobal Communications, the owner of MobalPay, shares his unique journey to & from Japan to Ireland, working in telecoms, and their impactful work in Malawi. The discussion dives into the features and impact of their mobile pay product, how it aids the foreign community in Japan, and their charitable coffee business supporting Malawian children. Key topics include the transition from physical SIM cards to eSIMs, the integration of point systems for payments, and the growing importance of Asian residents in Japan. Declan also addresses fraud prevention, the benefits of prepaid cards, and the significance of trust and physical presence in financial services. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Blog: https://www.fintechobserver.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify
WebX 2024 - ETFs & Digital Assets (S3E44)
This panel at the WebX conference held on August 28 & 29 in.Tokyo focuses on the intersection of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and digital assets, exploring the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency investment products. The speakers, representing a diverse range of financial and blockchain companies, discuss the implications of crypto ETFs, the regulatory environment surrounding these products, and the broader impact on both traditional finance and the digital asset ecosystem. They share insights on market trends, investor sentiment, and the potential future of tokenized securities and digital asset investment vehicles. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Takeshi Chino, Binance - Driving financial markets modernization in Japan (S3E43)
Join us as we dive deep with Chino-san from Binance, exploring the transformation of Japan's financial market through digitalization and cutting-edge technologies. From his career journey at traditional exchanges to pivotal roles at Kraken and Binance, discover why Binance stands out in revolutionizing the Japanese crypto industry. Understand the challenges and opportunities within Japan's financial and crypto sectors, including regulatory landscapes, token listings, and the introduction of stablecoins and ETFs. This episode offers a comprehensive view of the future of digital finance in Japan. 01:08 Introduction to Japanese Financial Market 01:27 Career Journey and Aspirations 03:53 Transition to Binance 05:00 Overview of Japanese Crypto Market 09:11 Binance's First Year in Japan 11:46 Regulatory Landscape and Token Listing 16:27. Challenges and Opportunities in IEOs 23:08 Stablecoins and Liquidity Solutions 25:45 ETFs and Market Liquidity 31:28. Future Plans and Innovations 36:15. Conclusion and Final Thoughts 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Samantha Ghiotti, Habitto - Build your Venture in Japan (S3E42)
Habitto is Japan's first connected money experience, helping people save, grow and protect their money. Habitto has become the first company to register as a deposit-taking and electronic financial services intermediary in Japan, using a license type that the FSA made available towards the end of 2021. Samantha Ghiotti, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, brings over 20 years of unique vantage points and global experience in Technology and Finance to this conversation. Her track record spans banking, investment and insurance across 5 continents, as an investor, entrepreneur and executive. Sam led the Singlife team through its exit in 2021, before launching Habitto, her new business in Japan 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Jitendra Singh Jaitawat, HELIX - Connecting DeFi to the Real World (S3E41)
Jitendra Singh Jaitawat is a Partner & the Founding CTO at Helicap, as well as Co-Founder and CEO at Helix. Helicap is a Singapore-based FinTech firm providing curated and exclusive private co-investments to a wide network of accredited investors. Through their institutional-grade credit analytics technology, Helicap extracts meaningful credit insights for their risk management framework. This is complemented by Helicap's fully online and MAS licensed investor deal platform, with co-investment opportunities to their exclusive investor base. HELIX is an institutional RWA protocol connecting on-chain investors to real-world private credit opportunities. It is the answer to the issues plaguing DeFi yields and the TradFi credit financing gap. HELIX aims to provide institutional and accredited investors access to stable yields that are uncorrelated to the broader crypto market volatility through risk managed real-world asset backed loans. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Stephen Nagy, ICU - Southeast Asia & the Indo-Pacific Construct (S3E40)
Stephen Nagy's latest edited volume (jointly with Indu Saxena) focuses on the changing regional security dynamics of Southeast Asia within the context of the U.S.-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. On the one hand, China’s growing influence and assertive behavior in the South China Sea and the Archipelago region are the main concerns of these countries. On the other hand, Southeast Asian countries are skeptical—if not hesitant—with the formation of new mini-lateral frameworks and emerging institutional cooperation such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and AUKUS. In this highly competitive strategic environment, these countries prefer to position themselves in a flexible mode of sometimes leaning toward the United States or China based on a nuanced balance of maintaining both strategic autonomy and opportunities that manifest in the region. In line with this flexible mode of engagement, Southeast Asian countries prefer to eschew an explicitly pro-position vis-à-vis the United States or China, cognizant of the turbulence ahead due to the deepening of U.S.–China strategic competition—this, despite the fact that freedom of navigation and a rule-based international order is much desired by Southeast Asian countries to establish and maintain peace and stability in the region. Speaker Profile Dr. Stephen Nagy received his PhD in International Relations/Studies from Waseda University in 2008. His main affiliation is as a professor at the International Christian University, Tokyo. Stephen is also a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI); a visiting fellow with the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA); a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute (MLI); and a senior fellow with the East Asia Security Centre (EASC). He also serves as the Director of Policy Studies for the Yokosuka Council of Asia Pacific Studies (YCAPS) spearheading their Indo-Pacific Policy Dialogue series. Stephen is currently working on middle power approaches to great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, understanding Japanese foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Kay Kyeonsik Woo, MVL | TADA | ONiON - Building a Mobility Ecosystem in SEA (S3E39)
Kay is the Founder of MVL (Mass Vehicle Ledger), TADA (ride hailing) and ONiON (electric tricycles). Earlier in his founder journey, Mothership, a Singaporean online magazine, portrayed Kay as the “Korean guy who made a ride hailing app for the Singapore market after meeting driver who called himself a ‘dog’”. But then, the sequencing evolved quite naturally. The blockchain needed a use case to prove its utility, so the zero-commission ride hailing up was worn, and when expanding from Singapore to Cambodia, the need for manufacturing/financing/renting a captive vehicle production seemed inevitable. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Bruno Diniz, Spiralem - FinTech in Brazil and Latin America (S3E38)
The eXponential Finance Podcast welcomes Bruno Diniz back to explore the evolution of financial technology in Brazil, highlighting the success of PIX in transforming the financial landscape and the upcoming launch of a Central Bank Digital Currency named DREX. We also discuss open finance, tokenizing the economy, and the global impact of Brazil's fintech innovations. Bruno Diniz is the Managing Partner at Spiralem Innovation Consulting, and Director of the Financial Data & Technology Association (FDATA) for Latin America. Bruno is also a columnist for magazines such as Exame magazine, FEBRABAN's Noomis portal and Cointelegraph, in addition to being a professor of innovation focused on the financial market at the USP/ESALQ MBA, speaker and author of the books "O Fenômeno Fintech" and " The New Financial Logic". 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://lu.ma/japanfintechobserver?utm_source=spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Jed Ng, Angel School - Angel Investing Pro Tips (S3E37)
Jed is the Founder of AngelSchool.vc. As a Tech Operator, he built the world’s largest API Marketplace with an a16z-backed startup. Jed began investing in startups in 2016. Like most angels, he staked his own capital. Despite having never worked in VC, he got his first exit in 2018. Jed has also backed 2 seed-stage startups that became Unicorns ($1BN+ valuation). People started asking “what are you investing in next?”, so he began sharing his deals with other investors. Since 2020, Jed's investor network has grown to 1200+ organically. The Angel School syndicate also wrote a $1MN check into a startup. Jed fundamentally believes venture investing is a learnable skill. As a self-taught angel, he has experienced how daunting and lonely it is. This podcast episode discusses the foundational angel investing skills, and suggests a learning path. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Arthit Sriumporn, Rakkar Digital - Secure, compliant, and seamless digital asset custody (S3E36)
Rakkar Digital is a Singapore-based company that provides digital asset custodian services to institutional clients in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. The company is backed by SCB 10X, the investment arm of Siam Commercial Bank, and powered by Fireblocks. Leveraging cutting-edge multi-party computation (MPC)-CMP custody infrastructure as their underlying technology, Rakkar Digital provides the highest level of security for assets along with bankruptcy remote mechanism of asset segregation. The company supports a wide range of assets and blockchain protocols and offers highly customizable policy engine, giving clients greater control and flexibility over their assets. With fast service-level agreements (SLAs) and round-the-clock support from its team of blockchain experts and security professionals, Rakkar Digital is committed to delivering institutional-grade custody services. Rakkar Digital has obtained a Trust or Company Service Provider (TCSP) licence in Hong Kong and an organisation controls 2 (SOC 2) Type 1 attestation. Operating offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam, Rakkar Digital is well-positioned to provide custodian services to clients across the region. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Deep Singh, CrediLinq.ai - The Future of Business eCommerce (S3E35)
CrediLinq is a technology infrastructure company that is enabling B2B platforms to offer embedded finance to their customers. B2B PayLater for buyers and GMV Financing for sellers is a huge opportunity to both improve conversion, increase average order volumes and dramatically reduce operational burden. The future of B2B payments and purchasing will very much look like the current consumer level experience – we at CrediLinq.Ai are accelerating that change. Credilinq is helmed by Deep Singh, a passionate banker-turned-entrepreneur. He is a specialist in corporate and commercial finance with a hunger for innovation. He was previously Chief Capital Officer at a US$1.3 billion private credit firm and left behind his corporate career to start Credilinq. He aims to use his 17 years of rich experience in credit to support the growth of SMEs and help asset allocators achieve superior risk-adjusted returns. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Oliver Hall, Copenhagen Capacity - Japanese Capital & FDI into the New Nordics (S3E34)
Oliver Hall is the Head of Tech Investments for Europe and Japan at Copenhagen Capacity, and a Co-Founder & Investment Director for Japanese Investments at the Nordic Asian Venture Alliance. Our discussion covers topics such as sustainability, digitalization, foreign direct investment, Japanese capital, and the new Nordics. Oliver shares his background and how he ended up in the Nordics. We also talk about the advantages of Copenhagen for foreign direct investments, venture capital, and startups, the collaboration between Japan and the new Nordics, and the focus on smart city urban tech, health tech, and food tech. The conversation also highlights the interest and investment from Japanese venture capital firms into the region. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Curtis Plot Mak, bloXroute Labs - The "Flash Boys" of DeFi (S3E33)
bloXroute created the first high-performance blockchain distribution network (BDN) with the fastest relay solution for Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Solana. The bloXroute BDN and DeFi trading tools allow its users to win at crypto trading. The BDN utilizes a global network of servers optimized for network performance. Nodes access this network through open-source gateways and users can access it through the bloXroute public-API. The BDN network propagates blockchain transactions and blocks closer to the speed of light. It provides traders with the speed and reliability required for crypto transactions. bloXroute is the leader in mempool services, block streaming and anything Defi performance. The BDN also allows blockchains to scale by speeding the time it takes to communicate the current state. The BDN's fast communication reduces the blocks’ size and frequency limits. This is true for all consensus mechanisms, including Proof of Stake, Proof of Work, and DAGs. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Vy Pham & Tetsuya Hattori, Zurich Insurance - Going out to the Edge with Zurich Insurance (S3E32)
Zurich Insurance has made a significant stride in the insurance industry by introducing its cutting-edge suite of solutions for digitally embedded insurance across all Asian markets, Zurich Edge. Zurich Edge represents an exciting development in Zurich Insurance’s growth strategy across the Asia Pacific region. The company already boasts a robust portfolio of over 200 partnerships in six markets, collaborating with leading brands in diverse sectors such as retail, travel, banking, fintech, e-commerce, automotive, and telecommunications. Among the prominent partners are Japan Airlines, TikTok, Citibank, and MYAirline. We had the opportunity to discuss the platform, its rollout in Japan, and if/how the Japanese market is different from other markets in the region with Vy Pham, Regional Product Owner Digital Platforms, and Tetsuya Hattori, Head of Digital Partnerships (Japan). 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Shwetank Verma, Leo Capital - The future of insurance is data-driven, personalized & contextual (S3E31)
Shwetank Verma is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Leo Capital, an early stage venture capital fund focused on South and South-East Asia. Shwetank leads InsurTech investments at the fund. We talk about some of Leo Capital’s investments, where the exciting incumbent insurer vs InsurTech markets are, and the outlook for fund raising going into 2024, among other things 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Matthew Van Niekerk, SettleMint - The blockchain platform for the 99% (S3E30)
Matthew Van Niekerk is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer at SettleMint, offering tooling for enterprises, public sector, and technology partners who want to innovate with blockchain and empower their technology organization. In 2006, Matthew made Belgium his home and eventually worked as the Head of Platform Innovation at KBC Securities Bolero. Under his guidance, Bolero Crowdfunding was the first bank or broker in Europe to launch a publicly available blockchain application in Europe. In 2016, Matthew co-founded SettleMint. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Yilan Huang, CyberConnect - On-chain friends last forever (S3E29)
Yilan Huang leads Global Development across different regional markets at CyberConnect. CyberConnect is web3’s earliest and biggest decentralized social network that enables developers to create social applications empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels. Prior to CyberConnect, Yilan had experiences in startups, VCs, and NGOs and studied economics, political theory, and continental philosophy at The University of Hong Kong and University of Warwick. CyberConnect is web3’s earliest and biggest decentralized social network, that enables developers to create social applications empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels. Its latest V3 upgrade introduces a set of powerful improvements to the CyberConnect social network to usher web3 social into a new, multi-chain future. V3 is designed to power the next stage of hyper scalability for web3 social dApps and give users a social networking experience that feels familiar to web2. It has three core components: CyberAccount, an ERC-4337-compatible identity infrastructure; CyberGraph, a censorship-resistant database to record users’ content + social connections; and CyberNetwork, a gas-efficient and scalable network to bring CyberConnect to the world. Founded by Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneurial team in 2021, there are already over 50 projects that are using CyberConnect to build social features for real-world use cases, such as community-owned social networks, marketplaces, content curation, discovery tools, and more. As of July 2023, CyberConnect protocol has 1.2M user profiles and 400k monthly active wallets who have conducted more than 15.2M transactions in total. Over 2,400 verified organizations created their CyberProfiles to build web3 native audiences. CyberConnect’s flagship social app, Link3 has 940k monthly active users. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Hugo Phillion, Flare Network - The network is its own oracle (S3E28)
Hugo Phillion is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Flare Network. Earlier in his career, Hugo was a commodity derivatives portfolio manager. When he got bored with traditional finance, he went on to study machine learning at University College London, where he met his two co-founders. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Aaron McDonald, Futureverse - Open, scalable, and interoperable apps, games and experiences (S3E27)
Aaron McDonald is the Chief Executive Officer of Futureverse, a technological and cultural foundation for the open metaverse where creators, companies and communities conjure their future. The Futureverse infrastructure enables companies and creators to deliver the open metaverse experience that they want for their audience. A seamless portal in and out of all apps in the metaverse, Futureverse allows users to travel with a passport, friends, communications, finances and content. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Masako Shiba, ONBD - Art in space & on the blockchain, and edible NFTs (S3E26)
Masako Shiba is a New York base art professional with near two decades of experience, including at Sotheby’s NY, Japan Society Gallery, Asia Society Museum, and Asian Cultural Council where she was inaugural director for ACC Japan Foundation. Since the pandemic, she has co-founded ONBD, a web3 art & culture platform, also co-founded BEAF an experimental art foundation, and is Chief Artistic Director for SPACETAINMENT PTE. LTD., showcasing art in space and of space. She is also external advisor for Japanese art startup AndArt, mentor for New Museum of Contemporary Art's NEW INC and on the advisory board for HH Dalai Lama official biography art project. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Phillip Lord, Oobit - Pay for (almost) anything with crypto (S3E25)
Phillip Lord is the President of Oobit. Oobit allows consumers to pay with crypto on existing Visa and Mastercard point of sale (POS) terminals with merchants receiving fiat money settlements the same way as other credit card payments. Phillip has more than 25 years experience in global capital markets, where he has invested and structured deals in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. He also has gained extensive knowledge of crypto markets, including coin/token issuance and decentralised exchanges and platforms. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Yoann Turpin, Wintermute - The path to 25% market share as a digital asset liquidity provider (S3E24)
Yoann Turpin is a Co-Founder of Wintermute, focused on Business Development and Ventures. Wintermute is a leading algorithmic liquidity provider in the digital asset space. Before starting Wintermute with his two co-founders, Yoann spent more than a decade in trading, investing, advising startups and building a few businesses. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Anjali Young, Collab.Land - Communities with skin in the game (S3E23)
Anjali Young is the Co-Founder of Collab.Land, an automated member management system for tokenized communities. Over 50,000 projects use Collab.Land as their primary tool for community management. Anjali has a 30+ year history with online communities as a creator, member, and in leadership. She has also worked as a lawyer, adjunct professor, and early tech startup employee. In addition to her interest in community and web3 onboarding, she has a passion for NFTs and the artists who create them. Anjali is one of only a handful of web3 leaders to have received recognition from Salesforce, and is listed as one of its Web3 Advisory Board Members. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Anton Golub, Crypto Serial Entrepreneur - The insider's survival guide to crypto winter (S3E22)
Anton Golub is a crypto serial entrepreneur and ecosystem builder. Anton founded & served as CEO of flovtec, a Swiss market-maker providing liquidity solutions to digital asset exchanges, token issuers & protocols and offering investment products for professional & institutional investors. Anton is also a co-founder of Trust Square AG, a pre-eminent blockchain technology hub located in Zurich's financial district. Previoulsy, Anton co-founded Lykke Corp, a blockchain-powered exchange to trade all assets with zero fees, where he served as a Chief Science Officer. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Dean McClelland, Tontine Trust - If you are dead, you do not need the money (S3E21)
Dean McClelland is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Tontine Trust, a lifetime income solution. We had the pleasure of hosting Dean before, at our fifteenth Tokyo FinTech Meetup in 2018. This podcast is an edited version of our 182nd meetup. Five years have passed, and the focus has moved from Asia to Europe and now the US, where the launch is expected shortly. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Vishal Dalal, Pismo - The universal processing machine acquired by Visa (S3E20)
Vishal Dalal is the International CEO at Pismo, a next generation banking and cards technology provider, founded in 2016 in Brazil. Previously a Partner at McKinsey, Vishal has worked in India, Singapore, Australia, and the UK. He discusses with us the origins and culture of Pismo, its positioning in the global next gen core banking market, the competitive advantage of product-focused software engineers in Brazil, and also shares some insights into the markets carrying the most importance for Pismo in the future, in Asia and beyond. Pismo is a truly cloud-native API platform that helps clients to respond to market changes at lightning speed. Last week, Visa announced the acquisition of Pismo at a unicorn valuation, with the deal expected to close before the end of the year. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Cyrille Pastour & Louis Bertucci, Swaap - Non-custodial RFQ market-making infrastructure (S3E19)
Swaap v2 is a non-custodial RfQ market-making infrastructure. It provides optimal liquidity services with built-in defensive modules – or "safeguards” – allowing for on-chain max drawdown circuit breaker, last look, and other dynamic forms of funds protection. LPs passively benefit from state-of-the-art market-making strategies originating from the stochastic control theory. Liquidity pools automatically compound fees, and are represented as ERC-20 tokens for simpler auditability and composability. The first strategy available will focus on optimizing LPs returns against “HODLing”. Cyrille Pastour is a Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Swaap Labs, the creators of the Swaap Protocol, and Louis Bertucci is a Research Advisor from the Institut Louis Bachelier. Louis is also the editor of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to DeFi". 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Masa Kikuchi, Secured Finance - Interbank-grade Decentralized Finance (S3E18)
Masa Kikuchi is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Secured Finance. Masa is a former head of interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives structuring turned computer scientist, an evangelist of web3 technologies, and a task force member of the trusted web at the cabinet secretariat of Japan. Secured Finance is on a mission to bring transparency, security, and robustness to the world of finance. With their decentralized finance protocol, they are reimagining traditional financial systems and making institutional-grade products accessible to everyone. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Lisa Nestor, Airtm - Building a web3 P2P payments ecosystem with a retail wallet and an expanded enterprise payment platform (S3E17)
Lisa Nestor is the Chief Strategy Officer at Air TM. Lisa has spent her professional career researching, and then building solutions that economically empower individuals by improving their ability to access and participate in financial markets. At Airtm, Lisa is leveraging her background in digital assets, payments and ecosystem development to continue the expansion of Airtm’s digital dollar account - a first of its kind and category-defining product - and support the company in serving its next ten million users. Airtm is an e-wallet connected to over 300 bank and e-money systems via a peer-to-peer network and direct bank connections. Users hold their money as dollars or cryptocurrency, and can send and receive funds domestically and internationally. Airtm also offers enterprises facilities to make bulk payments to digital workers in the global economy, paying "taskers" instantly and in a fully compliant way. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also publish a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Benjamin Quinlan, Quinlan & Associates - The APAC digital banking landscape: Where to from here? (S3E16)
Benjamin Quinlan is the CEO and Managing Partner of Quinlan & Associates. He is the former Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong and currently chairs the Innovation & Technology Committee at the Australian Chamber of Commerce. In this conversation, we are taking a deep dive into a recently published Quinlan & Associates research report on the APAC Digital Banking Landscape, which illustrates the ongoing evolution of the digital banking sector in APAC, the opportunities and challenges facing digital banks in the region, and how they should be thinking about their path towards profitability. You can download the report here: https://www.quinlanandassociates.com/apac-digital-bank-landscape/ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also produce a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Sam Ahmed, Smartpay - You can't be a startup in Japan, you can't make a mistake and say sorry later, it has to be 100 percent (S3E15)
Sam Ahmed is the Co-Founder and CEO of Smartpay, the first all-in-one payment experience and interest free buy now pay later solution built to solve Japanese consumer payment issues and improve merchant conversion rates. Sam is recognized as one of Asia Pacific premier digital economy leaders and investors, and has been on 4 Asia Pacific Executive Leadership Teams for USD +$20 billion businesses before founding Smartpay. Sam has led blue chip brands across Starbucks (Retail) and Facebook, MasterCard (Technology) in Asia Pacific and Standard Chartered Bank globally driving accelerated revenue growth through Digital, CRM, marketing, communication, product & commercial sales innovation. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also produce a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Sherry Jiang, Bluejay Finance - Opening up real-world financing opportunities on DeFi with local currency stablecoins (S3E14)
Sherry Jiang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bluejay Finance. Previously, Sherry led growth and incentives marketing for Google Pay in India, where the product grew from 13m to more than 120m monthly active users. She started up Bluejay in 2021 to push the envelope even more when it comes to financial inclusion, outside of existing banking rails. Bluejay helps investors get access to diversified and consistent returns through a decentralised fixed income protocol. It is a stablecoin based platform that allows people to invest in fixed income assets that are backed by real world financing opportunities like private credit. If you would like to join Bluejay's private credit investor group to get the latest updates on the world of private credit investing and get connected with other like-minded investors, you can apply through the following TypeForm: https://lnkd.in/g7QfAejN 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also produce a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
HomeDAO - 20 people who are aligned together can really change the world (S3E13)
HomeDAO is the foundation of a network of technology entrepreneurs who live and build together. They have five hacker houses in Oxford and equip founders with all the resources necessary to make visions become reality. Our conversation with Josh Lavorini, HomeDAO Co-Founder, and outdoteth, HomeDAO members traverses a wide range of topics: - Introduction to HomeDAO - Winning the ETHGlobal Hackathon (again) - Is HomeDAO actually a DAO? - Sample HomeDAO Projects - HomeDAO as a mechanism to allocate scarce, highly skilled resources - The role of ChatGPT & co-pilots at the top end of the software engineering universe 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also produce a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Ben Gleisner, Cogo - Measure, understand and reduce your impact on the climate (S3E12)
Ben Gleisner is the Founder and Global CEO at CoGo. Previously in a government role, Ben led the team that created Treasury's Living Standards Framework, and represented Treasury on New Zealand Government's International Climate Change negotiating team. Earlier this year, Ben was recognized as the Most Impactful Entrepreneur at the Pacific Basin Economic Council. Cogo is a carbon footprint management product that helps individuals and businesses to measure, understand and reduce their impact on the climate. Cogo does this through partnerships with some of the world's largest banks to integrate leading carbon-tracking functionality into their banking apps. Cogo uses best-in-class models to provide accurate ways to measure carbon emissions specific to local markets and cutting edge behavioural science techniques to nudge customers to make more sustainable choices. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com We also produce a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, the "Japan FinTech Observer", which we invite you to subscribe to: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7048203270833524736/ You can also find us on....Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTechMedium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintechYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintechMeetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Padmini Gupta, Xare - Bank your tribe by xaring your cards (S3E11)
Padmini Gupta is an award-winning banker and a World Economic Forum Global Leadership Fellow, who is now re-imagining financial services for 250 million migrant workers worldwide, and the billion people who depend on them through Rise, and now Xare. At the heart of finance is a big secret, that all financial products were built for income earners, but only 1/3rd of the world works and they support the 2/3rds with financial products. Xare began in Jan 2021 to bridge that gap and enable the 2/3rds to better access the finance. Xare was built with the purpose to ‘reclaim the soul of banking for everyone’, and the mission to empower the one-third of the population that has an income, to share their financial resources with the two-third of the population that does not and establishing a fair financial system. We are on a mission to provide people with equal access to financial products. On the Xare platform anyone can create financial instruments to share access to their money with their loved ones, anyone, anytime and anywhere. The process is seamless, safe and instant. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Dr. Köksal Sahin, KPMG Law - The Japanese insurance law & industry: historical perspective and current state (S3E10)
Dr. Sahin is a fully qualified German Lawyer with more than 15 years work experiences, financial regulatory and corporate legal affairs in Ireland, Germany and Japan with high knowledge in Japanese Law and its legal framework and business. He is currently seconded to KPMG Japan. Dr. Sahin has earned his PhD in comparative law by analyzing Japanese insurance law, identifying influences and contrasting it with other jurisdictions. By working internationally, he has also developed a nuanced appreciation of the Japanese insurance market. Our discussion covers the origins of Japanese insurance law, and comparative analysis for starting up an insurance company, launching new products, and distributing said products in Japan vis-a-vis the EU. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Uzair Javaid, Betterdata - Applying Generative AI to create privacy-preserving synthetic data (S3E9)
Betterdata won the Silver Medal at the Tokyo Financial Awards 2022 (hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) in the Financial Innovation category! Betterdata is a Singapore-based startup that applies Generative AI to create synthetic data that is privacy-preserving. This can be used to simulate ‘what-if’ situations for analysis, remove biases from datasets and enable open access to data with 100% compliance. In light of ever-increasing data privacy-regulations, the technology allows for a fast and cost-efficient handling of sensitive data, allowing Betterdata's clients to focus on business outcomes. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Charles d'Haussy, dydx Foundation - DAOs as an organization form at scale for humans in the algorithm age (S3E8)
Charles d’Haussy is the CEO of the dydx Foundation, an independent not-for-profit foundation created to promote dYdX, the most powerful decentralized cryptocurrency exchange protocol.Previously, Charles was Global Head of Business Development at ConsenSys, a leading blockchain engineering company and the Head of Fintech with the Hong Kong government. In our conversation, naturally, we cover the state of the dydx development from Version 3 to Version 4, the implications of moving from a Layer 2 implementation with Starkware to its own blockchain based on the Cosmos SDK, and why Charles has chosen dydx when he made a career change last year. We quickly move on towards forms of centralized and decentralized finance, and a hybrid form that Charles sees emerging. He is also optimistic with regards to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), which he sees as the right human organization form at scale for the algorithm and digital age. Our host is a little skeptical given current fragmentation trends in globalization, but in the end it is the optimists who innovate and change the world, right? 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Jonas Thürig, Tenity - FinTech acceleration in ASEAN through powerful collaborations and trusted partners (S3E7)
Jonas Thürig is the Head of Tenity, a FinTech Incubator and Accelerator, in Singapore. Tenity has the mission to unite tech startups with big business to shape the future in banking and insurance. Previously Jonas worked at the Embassy of Switzerland in China as the Deputy Head of the Science, Technology, Education and Innovation Section. He also founded his own startup, and worked for the Swiss Stock Exchange. Our conversation will cover Singapore, the broader ASEAN context, and some comparisons to China. From the Tenity Singapore Incubation Batch 4 that finished at the end of 2022, Jonas highlights Rocket Capital and TEORRA. Doconomy is also mentioned as one of the Tenity investments when we talk about ESG. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Nick Wilde, Thought Machine - Banking as an afterthought (S3E6)
Nicholas Wilde is the Managing Director APAC at Thought Machine. In his role, Nick works with banks and fintech firms to help them implement a built-for-purpose modern core – Vault - at the heart of their business. Vault, built by former Google engineers, helps organizations to solve some of the hardest problems in banking, discard the shackles of their legacy systems and reimagine their business for tomorrow. At the Singapore FinTech Festival 2022, Nick was recognized as one of the Top Ten FinTech Leaders in Singapore. In this conversation, he shares with us his perspective on banking across the region, how incumbents vs challengers are positioned, and what drives the adoption of modern, cloud-based banking stacks, whether from a technical or business perspective. One path to implementation for incumbents is the roll up of "orphan cores" into a platform like Vault, consolidating various product-specific legacy systems that become hard to maintain onto a single core. With Standard Chartered as one of his clients, Nick also shares examples how Mox in Hong Kong has launched incrementally. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Rob Leslie, Sedicii & Nillion - Bringing to life fast, permissionless, decentralized computation (S3E5)
Rob Leslie is one of Ireland’s most well-known technology entrepreneurs. He is the Founder and CEO at Sedicii, and a Co-Founder and President of Nillion. Rob started working on zero knowledge proofs in 2011, and founded Sedicii in 2013, with the aim of creating the world's first distributed, public utility to facilitate the storage and processing of all kinds of data without the need to expose or share it, thereby protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the data. A true pioneer. Nillion allows nodes in a decentralized network to work in a unique, non-blockchain, way. While Nillion represents a revolutionary leap from a predecessor technology known as Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC), unlike SMPC, network nodes do not have to communicate with one another. Unlike blockchain, nodes do not run immutable ledgers designed to store transaction data. Instead, new Nillion technology, called Nil Message Compute (NMC), is purpose built for decentralized secure storage and computation and thus opens up new use cases (on the Nillion native network), while also enhancing existing blockchains. Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech, this is an edited recording of the second Tokyo FinTech LinkedIn Audio event. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Jan Denecke, twelve x twelve - Enabling artists & fans to shape the future of music (S3E4)
Jan Denecke is the Co-Founder and CEO of twelve by twelve, a Berlin-based startup at the intersection of Web3 and music. We will discuss in depth about what impact Web3 technologies will have, and also about how regulated securities token can support project financing in the music industry. twelve x twelve combines expertise from different markets into an innovative online platform that transforms music into digital collectibles and community-accessible digital assets to be marketed to music fans, collectors and crypto enthusiasts. The name twelve x twelve derives from the vinyl. The twelve inch by twelve inch masterpiece that carries both delectable sounds and visuals on its cover, finds itself at the grass root of their cause: in a world of streamed content and blurred ownership, twelve x twelve are shaping the Web 3.0 revolution and hope to reignite appreciation for music and visual arts in a whole new way. Produced in collaboration with Tokyo FinTech, this is an edited recording of the second Tokyo FinTech LinkedIn Audio event. If you have an interesting story to share with our audience, and would like to appear on the podcast, please contact us via podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Batu Sat, Mall IQ - Empowering the consumer through location intelligence in payments & loyalty (S3E3)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Nachi Das & Zach Taub - Singapore FinTech Festival Debrief (S3E2)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
David Shin, Klaytn Foundation - The huge untapped commercialization opportunity in content IP distribution (S3E1)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Kevin Shimota, WeChat - The First Super App: The secrets of Tencent's platform strategy (S2E50)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Adrien Barthel, Sleek - The startups' plumber: going from an idea to an operating company in hours (S2E49)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Franz Waldenberger, DIJ - Monetary policy under Kuroda & the future of financial systems (S2E48)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Tiffine Wang, MS&AD Ventures - The Silicon Valley mindset gives you the freedom to build bigger things (S2E47)
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): - Carro - Paceline - Socotra - Geosite - Blueberry - Xare - Multiplier - Poko 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Mariana Franza, Uala - If you are not in the traditional banking system, you cannot have Netflix (S2E46)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Oi-Yee Choo, ADDX - Using cutting-edge technologies to reformat traditional institutional capital for retail (S2E45)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Javier Tamashiro, Ospree - Compliance for Crypto: Onboarding, Analytics & the Travel Rule (S2E44)
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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Binur Zhalenov, Payments & FinTech Center of the National Bank of Kazakhstan - Striving to set the standard for central bank innovation (S2E43)
In this episode, Binur Zhalenov will share his experience as the Chief Executive Officer of one of the most significant FinTech R&D companies in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. Leading the Payment and Financial Technologies Center of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Binur’s research focus is concentrated around payment innovations and artificial intelligence applications for macroeconomic modeling. He is guiding a retail central bank digital currency pilot project, also known as the “Digital Tenge”, as well as a number of other initiatives related to digital financial infrastructure, such as decentralized finance, stablecoins and open banking, which we will touch upon in this podcast. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Bruno Diniz, Spiralem - Pioneering is hard but it pays off: A deep dive into Brazil FinTech (S2E42)
In this episode, we are going to take a close look at the FinTech ecosystem in Brazil. If you have not had this market on your radar screen yet, that likely changed with the record-breaking IPO of Nubank on the New York Stock Exchange towards the end of last year, making the company the largest digital banking platform outside of Asia. The second focus of our conversation will be the work of the Brazilian Central Bank, which has been executing on a variety of initiatives at once, from Open Banking to a fast payments system called PIX, to a pilot of a central bank digital currency to commence soon. Bruno Diniz is a partner at Spiralem Innovation Consulting, and Director of the Financial Data & Technology Association (FDATA) for Latin America. Bruno is also a columnist for magazines such as Exame magazine, FEBRABAN's Noomis portal and Cointelegraph, in addition to being a professor of innovation focused on the financial market at the USP/ESALQ MBA, speaker and author of the books "O Fenômeno Fintech" and " The New Financial Logic". 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Paul Claudius, DIA - Trustable data for DeFi applications: taking Oracles beyond the "last mile" (S2E41)
DIA is a decentralized, open-source data and oracle platform for DeFi that enables market actors to source, supply and share trustable data. DeFi applications are reliant on trustable and scalable data feeds to build reliable products and avoid exploitation and manipulation. DIA leverages crypto-economic incentives and the wisdom of the community to source, validate and deliver trusted financial data. Paul Claudius is one of the Co-Founders of DIA and a Board Member of the DIA Association. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Hans Greimel & William Sposato - "Collision Course" - The Carlos Ghosn saga and what was left in its wake (S2E40)
In Japan it's called the "Ghosn Shock"—the stunning arrest of Carlos Ghosn, the jet-setting CEO who saved Nissan and made it part of a global automotive empire. Even more shocking was his daring escape from Japan, packed into a box and put on a private jet to Lebanon after months spent in a Japanese detention center, subsisting on rice gruel. This is the saga of what led to the Ghosn Shock and what was left in its wake. Ghosn spent two decades building a colossal partnership between Nissan and Renault that looked like a new model for a global business, but the alliance's shiny image fronted an unsteady, tense operation. Culture clashes, infighting among executives and engineers, dueling corporate traditions, and government maneuvering constantly threatened the venture. Journalists Hans Greimel and William Sposato have followed the story up close, with access to key players, including Ghosn himself. Veteran Tokyo-based reporters, they have witnessed the end of Japan's bubble economy and attempts at opening Japan Inc. to the world. They've seen the fraying of keiretsu, Japan's traditional skein of business relationships, and covered numerous corporate scandals, of which the Ghosn Shock and Ghosn's subsequent escape stand above all. Expertly reported, Collision Course explores the complex suspicions around what and who was really responsible for Ghosn's ouster and why one of the top executives in the world would risk everything to escape the country. It explains how economics, history, national interests, cultural politics, and hubris collided, crumpling the legacy of arguably the most important foreign businessman ever to set foot in Japan. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Yan Fan & Mio Maeshima, Code Chrysalis - Reengineer yourself in a samurai culture with a Silicon Valley mindset (S2E39)
Code Chrysalis is a software engineering immersive and consultancy in Tokyo, teaching computer science fundamentals and modern web application development through a project-based curriculum that promotes career longevity, autonomy, and teamwork. Yan Fan is a co-founder and chief technology officer of Code Chrysalis, and Mio Maeshima a recent graduate. In this conversation, we are looking at software engineering and computer science, the role of diversity, and the digital skills gap that Japan is facing. With Maeshima-san being a trained translator and interpreter, we are also touching on the transformation of one’s own career, possibly later in life, and the role bootcamps like Code Chrysalis can play in such transitions. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Romain Zanolo, IDEMIA - The switch to lifestyle banking drives innovation in payments (S2E38)
Romain Zanolo, Managing Director APAC, Financial Institutions at IDEMIA, discusses with us the payments & identity landscape across Asia. - What is augmented identity? - The value proposition for FinTech startups to work with IDEMIA and other companies made accessible through Visa's Partner Connect program - How Razer FinTech used IDEMIA to launch the "hottest" payment card in Singapore - How JCB and Digital Garage apply IDEMIA technology in Japan - Whether and how Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) might change the payments game IDEMIA is the global leader in Augmented Identity. IDEMIA provides a trusted environment enabling citizens and consumers alike to perform their daily critical activities in the physical as well as digital space. On top of his expertise in the payment industry, Romain has a strong experience in corporate financial advisory, including valuation, financial modeling, transaction support advisory and strategic consulting. He is also a FinTech start-up mentor at Plug and Play Tech Center 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Chea Srun, XQuant - Seoul FinTech Lab: Building a global FinTech business from Korea (S2E37)
Chea Srun is a French national with a distinguished career in derivatives trading, having worked and lived in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Seoul, and being able to converse professionally in all three languages. Chea is the Founder & CEO of X-Quant, a startup that got accepted into the Seoul FinTech Lab accelerator last year. In addition to his experience with the program, we talk a bit about Chea's trading career, his transition into entrepreneurship, and the use cases XQuant has been developing to support OTC derivatives transactions/reporting as well as the extraction of ESG insights. Lastly, Chea is a strong supporter of Tunisia, where most of his data science team is located - he explains why the country is a good source for talent, and offers helps for anyone who wishes to be connected there. The Seoul Fintech Lab was established in 2019 and since then, has been funded by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. To date, close to 100 FinTech startups, including 26 foreign companies, have been supported through the incubation program. The Seoul Fintech Lab aims to help accelerate FinTech companies’ growth with its global network of over 300 partners and mentors, which include highly experienced investors, entrepreneurs and regulators. In that regard, the Seoul program possibly differs from similar regional programs — from the outset, it has been designed to allow for pan-Asian and even global expansion while promoting the growth of the domestic ecosystem. The applications for the 2021 batch are open until June 4th, and the selection process will be completed by June 18th — so you will not have to wait long for a decision. You can find all the detail for registration here: https://seoulfintechlab.kr/news/4485/?prev=news-notice 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Mihir Gandhi, PwC India - Indian cashless payments are exploding, and the time for wallets has passed (S2E36)
Mihir Gandhi is a Partner in the Consulting practice of PwC India and leads the Payments Transformation practice. With close to 15 years of consulting experience, he has developed a strong business and technology consulting exposure in India and international markets including the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia. Mihir has been part of the digital payments growth story of India and has successfully led marquee projects. He has managed the core team to set up the domestic card scheme of India. He has assisted new private sector banks and payments banks for setup of payments products, guiding them on strategy through execution. His practice has recently published the “India Payments Handbook 2020-2025”, a thorough review of the payments ecosystem in India, and also puts out a regular newsletter on the subject. Please see our LinkedIn post for the Payments Handbook: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6750989437779505152 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Maria Guajardo, Soka University - Leadership is a perspective to be able to contribute to the greater good (S2E35)
María Guajardo's passion is to do the greatest good for those with the greatest need; and to develop the next generation of global leaders. She served as Vice-President at Soka University, Tokyo, Japan, as the inaugural Dean of the Faculty of International Liberal Arts, and is recipient of the Soka University Award of Highest Honor. Soka University is one of eleven private universities with the distinction of being named a Super Global University by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Maria served as a National Speaker and Trainer with a focus on Educational Equity, Leadership and Inclusive Excellence. Previously, as the executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Education and Children in Denver, Colorado she championed educational access. A licensed child psychologist, in 2005 she received a congressional commendation for her contributions to Latino education. In 2008 she co-chaired the Democratic National Convention Committee’s Education Initiative, and launched Denver’s Youth Agenda. Maria was inducted into the prestigious Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2016, the University of Denver conferred the AHSS Lifetime Achievement Award to Maria. Her community service includes the Children’s Hospital Colorado board, The Denver Foundation board, and she served as a University of Denver trustee for 20 years. She continues as a trustee at Soka University of America. Maria was a Kellogg National Fellow (KNFP XI) and co-chaired the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance board. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Manuel Silva Martinez, Mouro Capital - The boundaries of the financial services industry are getting blurrier and blurrier (S2E34)
Manuel Silva Martinez oversees Mouro’s strategy, investor relations, resources and processes as the General Partner authorised by the FCA, with his day-to-day investment activity focusing more on UK, Europe and Latin America. Manuel sits on the boards of a55, bonify and Crosslend and, as observer, of Autofi, Creditas, Curve, Elliptic, Klar, Roostify and Tradeshift, among others. Manuel has been investing in fintech since 2010, having spent 5 years in San Francisco with BBVA Ventures (now Propel VC) before moving to London in 2015. He is a hiking enthusiast, world traveler and wine aficionado. Mouro Capital is a venture capital firm with $400M assets under management that targets early to growth fintech investment opportunities across Europe, North America and Latin America. Until 2020, it was operating as the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of Santander, Santander InnoVentures, before spinning out as an independent entity with Santander as Limited Partner. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Mami Kato, Revolut Japan - Never Settle: European FinTech unicorn challenging for Japan’s consumer market (S2E33)
Mami Kato is the Head of Public Relations and Communications at Revolut Japan, and the spokesperson for the business. Mami has over 15 years of experience as a corporate and financial communications professional. She worked at Japan’s largest PR firm and at a European strategic communications advisory company, where she mainly engaged in long-term corporate communications for the Fortune's most admired companies in the B2C and B2B space. For those in FinTech, Revolut does not need an introduction. Founded in 2015 in London, it had initially focused on the European market, and then successively established a presence in the US, Singapore, Australia and Japan, where it officially launched in 2019. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Heikki Vänttinen, API3 - Decentralized APIs for Web 3.0 (S2E32)
Heikki Vänttinen is Co-Founder at API3, a collaborative project to deliver traditional API services to smart contract platforms in a decentralized and trust-minimized way. It is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), its code is open source and its operations are completely transparent. In November, API3 announced the closing of their seed investment round with Placeholder, Pantera Capital, Accomplice, CoinFund, Digital Currency Group and Hashed participating, among others. API3 has raised $3 million in exchange for 10 million API3 tokens, representing 10% of the total supply. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Chris Thomas, Swissquote - Straight to the Coin with Switzerland's favorite multi-asset trading platform (S2E31)
Chris Thomas is the Head of Digital Assets at Swissquote Bank. Prior to joining the firm, Chris has combined his financial expertise with his passion for entrepreneurship as Head of European Innovation at Fidelity Investments, before successfully founding an institutional crypto-asset custodian. Swissquote Bank specialises in online financial and trading services. Based in Geneva, it is the first FINMA-regulated Swiss bank to offer crypto trading, custody and ‘crypto-asset’ equity certificates for retail clients and global institutions 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Tuhina Singh, Propine - Singapore's first MAS-regulated digital asset custodian (S2E30)
Tuhina Singh is the Co-Founder & CEO of Propine, a graduate from Singapore’s unique Entrepreneur First accelerator program, and the first native digital asset custodian regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) through the Capital Markets Services (CMS) License. Propine is building a safe, regulated, and certified future for digital securities with the support and partnerships of reputed private, quasi-governmental and governmental organizations to create an ecosystem of trust, quality and compliance. Propine is positioned to become the first independent digital securities custodian in a highly regulated environment. With the Capital Market Services License in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s regulatory sandbox, Propine is leading the way towards a new world of possibilities for institutional investors. Besides custody, Propine provides end-to-end securities services including but not limited to entitlement checks, facilitating settlement, facilitating corporate actions, asset servicing, investor reporting, cap table management, statutory reconciliations and regulatory reporting. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Ricky Lee, sync. - Good teams build good products (S2E29)
Ricky Lee is the Founder & CEO of sync, and previously the creative mind behind the customer experience at Lloyds Banking Group and Revolut. sync is looking to lead the way in Smart Open Banking, allowing users to instantly open a current account in British Pounds or Euros in minutes and to provide them with the ability to open up more than 30 other currency accounts. Users are able to exchange currencies between their accounts at the best rates and transfer money worldwide at unbeatable rates. sync’s unique selling proposition is to allow users to synchronise all of their financial accounts (bank, credit, loan and mortgage accounts) in one app, as one experience by utilising Open Banking. By being able to budget, manage and track all of their accounts and expenses in one place, sync offers their users unrivalled user experience as a money management platform and becomes their financial advisor of choice. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Kim Schumacher, Tokyo Tech - Leadership requires the willingness to allow disruption & innovation to happen (S2E28)
Kim Schumacher is a Lecturer in Sustainable Finance and ESG at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research focuses on ESG data and impact metrics, sustainable finance frameworks, green bonds, natural capital valuation, ecosystem services, renewable energy project development, and climate-related risk disclosure. Kim is the creator and course director for Japan's very first graduate-level course on Sustainable Finance and ESG, part of the Graduate major in Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society. In addition, he is an Honorary Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. Kim is a Chartered Environmentalist and sits on the ISO Technical Committees on Sustainable Finance and Environmental Management. He is also is a member of the Technical Working Groups of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, the Climate Bonds Initiative, the ICMA Green Bond Principles, and the Green Finance Network Japan. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Graham Rodford, Archax - The first ever UK-based, FCA-regulated digital securities exchange (S2E27)
Graham Rodford is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Archax, an institutional-grade exchange for trading asset-backed tokens (digital securities, security tokens, etc.) based in London. Founded by experts from the financial markets and backed by an accomplished advisory board, Archax offers a credible bridge between the blockchain world and the traditional investment space. The Archax team is used to working in highly regulated markets and has a deep understanding of the blockchain landscape and tokenisation too – as well as a vision of how to evolve them and open up digital assets to institutions in a transparent manner. An exchange designed specifically for institutions, and built using existing, proven, resilient, scalable, high-performance exchange infrastructure, hosted in top-tier datacentre space, and integrated into the existing institutional trading workflow, Archax was the first digital asset exchange to obtain an FCA license and plans to launch toward the end of the first quarter in 2021. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Aaron Friedland & Ran Sommer, Simbi Foundation - Quality Education for the next 3.5m Learners (S2E26)
Aaron Friedland & Ran Sommer, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Operations, respectively, are the Co-Founders of Simbi Foundation, a research-led startup designed to provide support for underserved and refugee communities who face challenges accessing quality education. Identifying lack of electricity, resources, and technology as principal barriers, Simbi Foundation was founded in 2015 to collaborate with partner communities in Uganda and create solar-powered, digital education initiatives. Simbi Foundation's stated goal is the deployment of enough self-sustaining classrooms, "Brightboxes", over the coming 10 years to address the needs of 3.5 million learners. This is the second podcast episode produced in co-operation with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity's Global Maker Challenge, a startup competition seeking out the best young companies supporting inclusive and sustainable development across four categories: (1) Innovation for Peace & Justice, (2) Sustainable & Healthy Food for All, (3) Innovation for Inclusive Trade, and (4) Climate Change. Simbi Foundation won the competition in the category Peace & Justice. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Christopher Scheidel, Transaction Insights - How to anchor an IT Strategy in uncertain times (S2E25)
Christopher Scheidel is a Co-Founder & the Chief Information Officer at Transaction Insights, where he is looking to provide financial services and insurance firms with a unique and powerful way to identify and navigate market changes. In a world where rapid technological change makes building lasting strategies difficult, “Starting with Why” can be a powerful tool for anchoring an IT strategy. Learn how utilizing Simon Sinek’s leadership paradigm helped one Japanese IT organization create a focal point in a sea of ever evolving strategic imperatives, and how our guest adjusted the proven principles when joining a startup. Christopher is a father, international Fortune 100 CIO, entrepreneur, and musician who enjoys finding solutions to complex problems in the finance and insurance industries. Most recently as Chief Information Officer and Vice President of MassMutual’s Japan subsidiary, Christopher strengthened its IT organization culminating in a successful acquisition with Japan’s largest life insurer. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Nicholas Smith, CLSA - Japan's markets are dirt cheap (S2E24)
Nicholas Smith, Japan Strategist at CLSA in Tokyo, shares his perspectives on the Japanese markets, how foreigners have left just as profit growth was accelerating, why the Bank of Japan ETF buying spree has had little effect, and warns against underestimating Suga-san as Prime Minister. Note: Any comments referencing the markets are made as of the recording on Tuesday, November 10, around 2pm JST. Nicholas has ranked #1 for Japan strategy in Asiamoney’s Brokers Poll eight years running, since 2013. Nicholas has been in Japan since 1987, and has been covering Japanese equities since 1990. He first came to Japan as British Universities and Royal Navy & Royal Marines judo champion, before joining Jardine Fleming Securities in the tumult of 1990. During his 10 years there, he ranked #1 in the chemicals & oil sector and was head of the global oil & chemicals team. He then worked for four years in hedge funds, making investments across all sectors. Nicholas joined CLSA in 2011. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Darren Goff, Department for International Trade - New opportunities for trade, overcoming traditional barriers with the UK/Japan FTA (S2E23)
Darren Goff is the Head of Investments - Japan at the Department for International Trade in Tokyo, leading a team in a pivotal position, helping UK companies entering the Japanese market, and securing UK foreign direct investment. We discuss the difficulties for UK and other foreign companies breaking into the Japanese market, why there is increasing cause for optimism and how the new Free Trade Agreement negotiated between the UK and Japan will bring new benefits for UK companies. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA as it is known, is the first agreement that the UK has secured that goes beyond the existing EU deal, with enhancements in areas such as digital and data, financial services, food and drink, and creative industries. The event schedule for the UK in Japan Year mentioned in the podcast is accessible here: https://www.events.great.gov.uk/ehome/ukinjapan/home/ In case you wish to enter into further discussion with the DIT team, please feel free to contact Darrent at darren.goff@fco.gov.uk 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Michael Wodzicki, Deloitte Consulting - Banks are winning in the Attention Economy (S2E22)
Michael Wodzicki is a Partner at Deloitte Consulting, based in Poland, and the lead for this year's "Digital Banking Maturity" report. Over the last 2+ years, Michael has extensively worked across Asia. In addition to covering the report, we learn a little about the financial services industry in Poland and also ask Michael about his views on China, which has not been included in the report. This is the fourth edition of the largest global benchmarking of digital retail banking channels, answering what leaders are doing to win in the digitalization race. It is providing a comprehensive outside-in ‘mystery shopper’ assessment of retail banks’ digital channels and furthering discussion about future developments. The Deloitte team looked at a total of 318 banks from 39 countries to arrive at an assessment of digital functionalities, customer needs research, and a user experience evaluation. The summary report is available here: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ce/Documents/financial-services/ce-digital-banking-maturity-2020.pdf 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Pawel Kuskowski, Coinfirm - Analytics, Compliance and Forensics for Decentralized Finance (S2E21)
Pawel Kuskowski is one of the Co-Founders and the Chief Executive Officer of Confirm, a well-recognized global leader in blockchain and cryptocurrency analytics. Their mission is to provide technology for regulatory compliance, bringing new levels of transparency and trust to the world of digital assets. Coinfirm aims to serve as a foundation for the safe adoption of blockchain by all actors in the economy, including traditional financial institutions, governments, regulators as well as ordinary citizens. They do that by applying regulatory technology for blockchain that solves a variety of compliance challenges. They provide anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) services for virtual asset service providers and blockchain actors. Our conversation focuses particularly on the application of these to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Michael Schiltz, Hokkaido University - The Money Doctors from Japan: Finance, Imperialism and the Building of the Yen Bloc (S2E20)
Michael Schiltz is Associate Professor for the Modern Japanese Studies Program at the University of Hokkaido. In his 2012 monograph “The Money Doctors from Japan”, Michael explores how money and finance have been among the most potent tools of colonial power. His study investigates the Japanese experiment with financial imperialism—or “yen diplomacy”—at several key moments between the acquisition of Taiwan in 1895 and the outbreak of the Sino–Japanese War in 1937. Through authoritarian monetary reforms and lending schemes, government officials and financial middlemen served as “money doctors” who steered capital and expertise to Japanese official and semi-official colonies in Taiwan, Korea, China, and Manchuria. From the opening up of Japan after two and a half centuries of self-imposed isolation, and the implications for the monetary system (hint: domestically, silver was overvalued, and hence the arbitrage through foreign traders drained Japan of its gold), through wrestling back control of its currency, and aiming to expand the sphere of influence alongside territorial conquest, our conversation is firmly anchored at the intersection of Japanese and financial history. This - Michael's first - book is available from Harvard University Press: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062498 Michael's second, forthcoming book (available already internationally, and in Japan before Christimas), "Accounting for the Fall of Silver" explains that the 1870s and 1880s witnessed furious experiments with new financial products and, equally important, strategies for hedging exchange rate risk. Drawing on archives that have never been used before, the book throws new light on an important episode of nineteenth century world history. At the same time, it illuminates lesser known aspects of the first gold standard period. It draws attention to the existence of ‘carry trades’ between European money markets and the lesser liquid Asian periphery; and describes the creation of financial contracts with the sole aim of enabling commodity finance among Asian mercantile centers. Our podcast listeners receive a 30% discount when ordering with the code ASFLYQ6 at Oxford University Press: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/accounting-for-the-fall-of-silver-9780198865025?cc=jp&lang=en& 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Anton Golub, flovtec - Stay liquid! A primer for market making in digital assets (S2E19)
Anton Golub is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of flovtec, an award-winning leader in the field of liquidity provision for digital assets. As a key player in the Blockchain ecosystem, flovtec fosters price stability and reduces transaction costs, for the benefit of all market participants. The firm is built on three pillars: a highly experienced and visionary team, tested investment strategies and a professional operational structure. The team is comprised of Blockchain pioneers with detailed insights into the ecosystem of digital assets and its future, experienced asset management professionals with proven track records, and quants that can deploy investment strategies in a quick and efficient manner. Previously, Anton co-founded Lykke, one of the earlier digital asset exchanges, and the first to actually issue their own equity as a security token and trade it on their platform. In his earlier days, Anton was a Math Olympian, and a securities market structure researcher, as well as a high frequency trader in FX markets. Needless to say, we were not challenged filling this podcast episode with insightful content. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Kamil Shafiq, POKET - Crowd-sourced mapping for Inclusive Trade (S2E18)
Kamil Shafiq is one of the co-founders of POKET, a startup creating a crowdsourced, consensus-driven registry of undocumented places in the emerging world. Using technology suited to the lower specification mobile phones and data constraints witnessed in frontier markets, POKET drives new, previously undiscoverable insights into unmapped and undocumented areas. By incentivizing users to propose and verify points of interest around them, POKET creates a curated map/registry of new places and points of interest for industries like financial services, government institutions, consumer-packaged goods companies and more! This is the first podcast episode produced in co-operation with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity's Global Maker Challenge, a startup competition seeking out the best young companies supporting inclusive and sustainable development across four categories: (1) Innovation for Peace & Justice, (2) Sustainable & Healthy Food for All, (3) Innovation for Inclusive Trade, and (4) Climate Change. POKET won the competition in the category Inclusive Trade. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Rohit Taneja, Decentro - My passion is for solving problems that I have experienced myself (S2E17)
Rohit Taneja is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Decentro, an Indian Open Banking platform and a Y-Combinator 2020 alumni. Decentro was born both from a personal pain point that Rohit faced while running his previous venture, as well as addressing a major impediment that can be seen across the FinTech industry. When his first company tried to integrate banking APIs for simple money transfer, it took them more than five months just to get to a stable production setup. Turns out this is a common challenge for all neobanks, FinTechs and InsurTechs who need to interact with the core banking system or any third party APIs like KYC / AML and more. Decentro solves this problem by providing a single, standardized interface and hiding the complexity of the individual banks' implementations. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Harumi Urata-Thompson, Celsius Network - Acting as Centralized Finance amongst the Decentralized Finance industry (S2E16)
Harumi Urata-Thompson is the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer for Celsius Network. Having started her career as the first woman on the Fixed Income desk at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, Harumi has had a long and successful career in traditional finance, both in capital markets/investment banking and with financial industry information providers (e.g., Thomson Reuters). Celsius addresses the financial needs of today’s consumers worldwide through an earning and lending platform accessible via a mobile app. Built on the belief that financial services should only do what is in the best interests of the community, Celsius is a modern platform where membership provides access to curated financial services that are not available through traditional financial institutions. Crypto holders can earn rewards by transferring their coins to their Celsius Wallet and borrow USD against their crypto collateral at interest rates as low as 1% APR. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Parissa Haghirian, Sophia University - Japanisches Management: Arbeiten im Japanischen Unternehmen (S2E15)
>> This is the German edition on the topic of Japanese management, you can find a related English language podcast in Season 1, Episode 34 of this programme (Anchor link follows): https://anchor.fm/exponentialfinance/episodes/Episode-34---Parissa-Haghirian--Sophia-University-ee4kpt Japanische Unternehmen und japanische Arbeitsmoral scheinen auf den ersten Blick den deutschen sehr ähnlich. Dennoch unterscheiden sich deutsche und japanische Organisationen sehr stark, was sich auch sehr stark auf die Arbeitsprozesse auswirkt. Das Webinar gibt einen Überblick über die Unterschiede der deutschen und japanischen Organisation und bespricht, welche unterschiedlichen Managementpraktiken daraus resultieren und welche Herausforderungen sich dadurch für die interkulturelle Zusammenarbeit zwischen deutschen und japanischen Mitarbeitern ergeben. Dieser Podcast richtet sich an.... - Europäische Mitarbeiter, die in japanischen Unternehmen arbeiten - Manager, die sich für asiatisches/japanisches Management interessieren - Manager, die ihre interkulturelle Kompetenz verbessern möchten 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Alisa DiCaprio, R3 - Nobody is questioning anymore whether blockchain can help their digitalization drive (S2E14)
As the Head of Trade and Supply Chain at R3, Alisa DiCaprio is responsible for trade strategy, standards and governance design, with a current focus on mobility, logistics, and finance. Alisa's previous role at ADB involved leading institutional initiatives on trade finance, digital economy, regional integration, and innovation. She has experience in both public and private sectors on trade, export promotion, labor issues, and designing and implementing development projects. She has worked in Cambodia, Chile, Finland, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the US. Her work on global digital economy issues include chairing committees at the ICC, BAFT, Trade Finance Advisory Council, and formerly the American Chamber of Commerce of Japan. We hosted a webinar that covered the technology foundations & business applications of Corda, the blockchain developed by R3, and SBI R3 Japan. This podcast episode is an edited version of the "business application" part of the discussion. If you are interested in the technical presentations, please let us guide you to the Tokyo FinTech YouTube channel: Technical Overview of Corda with David Lee: https://youtu.be/l7XoF2th7JM New Corda Features (Version 4.6) with Alessandro Baffa: https://youtu.be/AgNb_R6cXRc 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Digital Transformation in Japan with Will Baber, Kieran Gane & Raja Karim (S2E13)
We hosted a presentation & discussion with three of the editors and contributors of the "Transforming Japanese Business - Rising to the Digital Challenge" book that was published in early 2020 by Springer, with the authors sharing their individual perspective as follows: - Will Baber: The State of Digital Transformation in Japan - Kieran Gane: The Digital Organization - Raja Karim: Transformation in the Face of Legacy Constraints If you would like to read further, you can find the book here: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811503269 Speaker Profiles Will Baber has combined education with business throughout his career. His professional experience has included economic development in the State of Maryland, language services in the Washington, DC, area, supporting business starters in Japan, and teaching business students in Japan, Europe, and Canada. He taught English in the Economics and Business Administration Departments of Ritsumeikan University, Japan, before joining the Graduate School of Management at Kyoto University, where he is an associate professor, in addition to holding courses at University of Vienna and University of Jyväskylä. Kieran Gane is an independent consultant who has spent over 25 years in Japan working on IT and business transformation. In this time, he has worked with a variety of foreign and domestic companies as an employee and consultant mainly in program or project management roles. His projects have included company start-ups, restructuring and new business rollouts, as well as digital transformations. Raja Karim is the managing director and founder of SAVVY Technology Solutions Japan KK. He has spent the last 30 years in the insurance and IT industry, working for top ten global insurance companies in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan. Raja specializes in legacy modernization and digital transformation, and he is well known for his expertise in the Japanese insurance sector. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
FinTech Tandem with John Ho - Central Bank Digital Currencies (S2E12)
John Ho is the Head of Legal - Financial Markets at Standard Chartered Bank. We often talk about all things FinTech across Asia, and beyond. As part of a webinar held in September, we extensively discussed Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs): - What categories of CBDCs are there? - What is the current regulatory view on CBDCs? - What type of proof-of-concepts or pilot implementations do we see across the globe? - What is our perspective on the Chinese Digital Currency/Electronic Payments (DCEP)? We hope to host further FinTech Tandem sessions in the future. Please follow us! Disclaimer: John joined this webinar in personal capacity. All views expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his employer. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Rolands Mesters, Nordigen - In the Baltics, the markets are small, but the capabilities are huge (S2E11)
Rolands is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nordigen, an open banking data analytics platform in Riga, Latvia, that help banks, lenders and FinTechs to use open banking data to build more powerful applications in lending, personal finance and other verticals. Nordigen has obtained an Account Information Service Provider (AISP) license and is ISO27001 certified. We talk about the origins of access to bank account data long before Open Banking regulation came into force, what the landscape in Europe looks like currently, and how Nordigen has followed their clients around the globe, deploying their highly specialized technology in countries as far as Brazil, Mexico and New Zealand. Rolands also draws out a vision for "open finance" and "open everything" that - following the Australian example - he sees developing in the future. Please forgive me for not resisting the urge to cover some history between Riga and Hamburg, my home town, which goes back more than 700 years with the Hanseatic League. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Max Kordek, Lisk - Resist the temptation to follow every hype and focus on execution (S2E10)
Max Kordek is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lisk, a blockchain platform for decentralized applications established in 2016 together with his Co-Founder Oliver Beddows, who is the CTO. Lisk was one of the earliest pioneers of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithms, specifically Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), as well as drawing out the vision of blockchain inter-operability through sidechains. Lisk is reaching the end of the current implementation roadmap with the SDK in version 5.0 having been marked as "development complete". Max talks to us about the various new products (e.g., Lisk Service) and functionalities under development and the state of research (for the latter, in particular the specification of inter-operability), the compelling proof-of-concept Dapps the community is developing, supported by the Lisk Builders Program, and the Lisk Centers in Utrecht, Tokyo (at Binarystar in Ginza) and Berlin, with the Berlin opening (virtual) event scheduled for November 20. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Sophie Meralli, Eight Roads - The future of venture capital is female (S2E9)
Sophie Meralli joined the Japan Ventures team at Eight Roads at the beginning of 2020, focusing on Enterprise Tech and FinTech investments. Previously, she has worked at Innospark Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Boston. Originally trained and qualified as a CPA, Sophie was used to financial analysis, before taking her MBA at MIT's Sloan School of Business. Joining the AI-focused Innospark meant changing her mindset to discovering new technologies led by bold and passionate founding teams. Also while at MIT, Sophie worked with the Digital Currency Initiative, and wrote her first academic paper, which got recently published. "Privacy-preserving analytics for the securitization market: a zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology application" analyzes current bottlenecks in the asset-backed securities industry, and suggests ways how zkABS, a solution built leveraging MIT's zkLedger, can provide an efficient, industry-wide solution. You can find the paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40854-020-0172-y 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Zia Zaman, Beaver Lake Capital - A longer, happier, thicker, and fuller life for you and your family (S2E8)
As the CEO of LumenLab, MetLife Asia’s innovation centre, Zia has spent the last six years steering the company’s innovation agenda across the region and around the world, with a passion for finding new ways to help the under-served. Globally, LumenLab delivered over 70 projects and won many awards addressing the health, aging, and wealth needs of Asia-based consumers. Zia was also the Chairperson for Diversity & Inclusion for Asia. Before insurance, Zia spent 22 years in the software and tech/telecoms industry with a couple of exits including FAST (sold to Microsoft). Zia has been a frequent keynote speaker on matters relating to inclusion and innovation at WEF Davos, IIF, Global Summit for Women, Milken, InsurTech Connect, and elsewhere. Much of his inspiration for new thinking sprouted on the two campuses where he studied, Stanford and MIT. As a writer, he has written about parenting, probability, travel, culture, and hockey. Zia is on the Board of the Energy Market Authority of Singapore and a Fellow in the Aspen Institute’s First Mover fellowship. Zia shares the lessons learned for Insurers and InsurTechs from his time leading LumenLab, discusses what the future of insurance might look like, and how he is transitioning into his new role in building an ESG advisory & investment business as the Managing Partner of Beaver Lake Capital. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Mirko Ross, asvin - Trust and security for the Internet of Things (S2E7)
Mirko Ross is the Chief Executive Officer of asvin, an early German startup developing solutions for a trusted and secure Internet of Things (IoT). A recognized cybersecurity expert, Mirko is a Member of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) IoT Security Expert Group, and a Co-Chair of the Alliance Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) Distributed Ledger Working Group. Our shared believe is that ultimately, the volume of machine-to-machine (M2M) commerce will exceed traditional (human-to-human or human-to-machine) payments, so it is imperative to provide an infrastructure that cannot be compromised. asvin.io provides a blockchain-secured update solution for M2M commerce and the IoT, for both the embedded device controller (edge devices) and for server-side device applications in the cloud. Today, unpatched vulnerabilities on IoT devices provide an attach vector for malicious actors and a door opener for vulnerabilities such as DDoS attacks, ransomware, hacking and data theft. Updating unsecure M2M commerce and IoT systems is analogous to applying medicine to sick patients. There is a growing need for continuously healing infected or unsecure devices in the Internet of Things I had the pleasure to represent asvin at the Financial Innovation Business Conference (FIBC) in 2019, where the company was recognized with the Special Judges' Award. You can view the presentation online: https://fibc.info/2019-asvin/ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Matthew Chan, ASIFMA - Addressing securities & derivatives market fragmentation through the policymaking lifecycle (S2E6)
Matthew Chan is the Head of Public Policy, Regulatory Affairs & Sustainable Finance (APAC) at the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), an independent, regional trade association with over 130 member firms comprising a diverse range of leading financial institutions from both the buy and sell side. ASIFMA, jointly with Oliver Wyman, recently published a well-researched paper on market fragmentation in Asia. The paper projects growth of APAC capital markets at a rate triple the rest of the world, so that by 2030, they will make up 50% of global activity. With regional economic growth and stability relying on capital advancement, it is important to identify drivers of fragmentation (lack of standards, extraterritorial policies, localization & ringfencing, inconsistent implementation) that may lead to unintended consequences, and engage with the various policymaking bodies to achieve a better outcome. The full paper is accessible from the ASIFMA website: https://www.asifma.org/research/addressing-market-fragmentation-through-the-policymaking-lifecycle/ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Henry Chong, Fusang - Laying the foundation for a sustainable stakeholder capitalism by enabling digital security ownership for all (S2E5)
Henry Chong is the Chief Executive Officer of the Fusang Group. At Fusang, Henry is responsible for the group’s overall strategic direction & mission. He works closely with global institutional investors and financial regulators to bring professionalism and structure to the industry, and is a regular keynote speaker on the subject of digital assets. He is also a member of the University of Oxford’s research group on digital assets law and regulation. Fusang has evolved out of Portcullis, a family business, and Asia's biggest independent group of trust companies, a one-stop shop for corporate, trustee and fund administration services to high-net-worth individuals, family offices, philanthropies, private banks, and investment managers. In our conversation, Henry takes the position that after the ICO and IEO waves of years past, the security token wave has not really arrived yet, and that there is "the most colossal hype/execution mismatch that I have ever seen." With Fusang, Henry is focused on building the foundational infrastructure ("the plumbing") that is required to set off that wave. Henry draws out a vision of a sustainable stakeholder capitalism where brands reward their customers and employees directly with equity, and the dividing line between customers and shareholders is eliminated, in order to create true loyalty through ownership rather than "points". With that, Henry also argues that while dis-intermediation is coming to financial services like any e-commerce business before, decentralization will run into a regulatory wall. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Mattia Fiorentini, Cambridge Quantum Computing - The future is hybrid, quantum laptops are not near, and your blockchain is safe (most likely) (S2E4)
Mattia Fiorentini is the Head of Machine Learning and Quantum Algorithms at Cambridge Quantum Computing, a world leading independent quantum computing software company, with operations in US, Europe & Japan, and more than 60 scientists including 35+ PHD’s, in Quantum Computing (“QC”), Chemistry, Molecular Electronics, Physics, Maths, Computer Science, and Nanoscience. CQC builds tools for the commercialisation of quantum technologies whose long-term impact will be profound. CQC design solutions that benefit from quantum computing even in its earliest forms and allow the most effective access to these solutions for the widest variety of corporate and government users. With Mattia, we discuss the current state of quantum computing, commercial approaches that are viable today, especially in Finance, what a hybrid approach leveraging both quantum and classical computing looks like, and why CQC's approach of a private research "think tank" combined with a startup culture focused on commercialization is the right approach to drive this technology forward. Oh yes, we are also discussing the impact of quantum computing on blockchain security. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Thomas McMahon, AirCarbon - Making Carbon trading frictionless, starting next week (S2E3)
Thomas McMahon is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AirCarbon, a Singapore-domiciled digital exchange focused on eliminating market friction in a carbon-constraint economy by securitizing carbon credits into fungible and tradable securities with transparent pricing and real-time settlement. The soft launch is currently planned for August 19, with the full go-live in September 2020. A veteran of the global commodities markets, with long experience in establishing by now well-accepted benchmarks like WTI, Tom is leading the push towards creating the first commodities exchange establishing a global carbon standard in compliance with various ESG and SDG requirements. Our conversation covers, among other topics: - What are carbon credits, and how are they different from allowances? - Previous attempts at creating emission trading schemes (ETS) under the Kyoto Protocol - The difference to the current approach under the Paris Accord - Producers and consumers of carbon credits, and the different products initially traded on AirCarbon - The impact of building upon a blockchain platform on the ability to innovate on products 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Markus Hillebrand, ControlExpert - Bringing a delightful claims experience to car insurance (S2E2)
Markus Hillebrand is the Chief Executive Officer - Asia Pacific for ControlExpert, a German InsurTech company employing ~900 people in 17 locations, including offices in Japan, China (Mainland & Hong Kong), and Thailand. Policyholders typically do not interact with their insurance company. When they actually use the product, it is almost by definition a negative experience, because they were involved in an accident and need to file a claim. The traditional processes can be daunting, involving multiple conversations between the insured, the insurance company, a claims adjuster, and possibly a repair shop. Since 2002, ControlExpert has been focused on removing friction from the claims experience in car insurance. With a team of industry veterans laser-focused on improving the experience for all stakeholders, they have been an InsurTech before the name even was invented. Now applying latest technology, ControlExpert is ready to take the next growth spurt by serving new and existing clients in new geographies. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Paul Rowady, Alphacution - Robinhood, the upstart financial casino targeted at underemployed millennials (S2E1)
Paul is the Director of Research at Alphacution who recently made some waves by digging deep into how Robinhood, the commission-free trading app valued at upwards of USD 8 billion, actually makes money. Paul is a veteran of the proprietary trading community, and an expert in market structure. Alphacution is the first digitally-oriented research and strategic advisory platform uniquely focused on modeling and benchmarking the impacts of technology on global financial markets and the businesses of trading, asset management and banking. This groundbreaking, data-driven approach allows Alphacution to reverse-engineer the operational dynamics of these market actors to showcase the most vivid and impactful themes among the field of available research providers and platforms. You might find it helpful to reference Paul's last of four articles on Robinhood (which also includes the links to the prequels) for the detailed charts: https://alphacution.com/robinhoods-trailing-stop-orders-extreme-profitability-by-design/ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #50 - Lex Sokolin, ConsenSys: Defi-ning the next financial system
We were super-excited to welcome Lex Sokolin, the Co-Head of FinTech at ConsenSys, *the* venture studio in the Ethereum ecosystem, as our honorable guest for our 50th anniversary podcast. Lex is a New York & London entrepreneur with senior operating and board-level FinTech experience (i.e., thick scar tissue) in digital advice, personal finance, and wealth management. He has held a variety of roles on Wall Street (with Lehman Brothers, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank), but also hand-coded websites and programmed generative abstract art. Lex founded the FinTech practice at Autonomous, a financial services equity research firm (acquired by Alliance Bernstein), where he focused on artificial intelligence, blockchain, and mixed reality. Previously, he was the COO and led product design / corporate development at AdvisorEngine, a wealth management platform built on roboadvisor DNA. He was also CEO of NestEgg, a roboadvisor focused on delivering financial advice algorithmically, which he founded while getting a JD/MBA from Columbia, and which got acquired by AdvisorEngine. In our conversation, we touch upon - The environment for entrepreneurship in the FinTech ecosystem - What the frontier of Finance is, where all the "crazy stuff" happens - What is everybody else doing to catch up? - How Simplicity breeds Complexity in Finance - The Chinese threat to US & USD dominance 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #49 - Chintai, Live from Singapore Blockchain Week: Tokenized Securities & Stablecoins
Live at Singapore Blockchain Week, we hosted a panel discussion sponsored by Chintai with leading minds in the world of compliance enabled decentralized finance - tokenized securities & stablecoins. We discussed compliance enabled blockchain technology, issuance/custody/secondary trading for tokenized securities, stablecoins, how tokenized securities can change global financial systems, what it will take to reach broad institutional adoption and much more. Panelists Tuhina Singh - CEO, Propine - 16 years experience, computer engineer from BITS Pilani, MBA Indian Institute of Management. Thomas McMahon - Co-Founder AirCarbon, Exchange architect, 30 years of experience across U.S. and Asian Exchange and Regulatory frameworks Nizam Ismail - Founder & CEO Ethikom Consultancy, 27 years of experience and expertise in financial services regulatory compliance and litigation. Joo-Seng Tan - Program and Academic director at Nanyang Technological University, of Business, pioneering professor of blockchain & securitized assets. David Packham - CEO Chintai, 20yr career in finance and asset management in London, working for a range of global institutions in areas covering FinTech, business strategy and programme management; Goldman, HSBC, Barclays. Chintai is an Issuance & Secondary Trading Platform for Tokenized Securities. Their product suite includes institutional grade DLT for financial institutions. Chintai technology is compliance enabled and built for the licensing standards of MAS. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #48 - Merkle Science, Is Hong Kong a competitive jurisdiction for virtual asset businesses?
For this episode, we are listening in to a webinar hosted by our friends at Merkle Science, a panel discussion that assessed whether Hong Kong is a competitive jurisdiction for virtual asset businesses from the perspectives of regulation, operations and market opportunities. Featured panelists: - Ian Lee, Lead Investigator, Merkle Science - Moderator - Urszula McCormack, Partner, King & Wood Mallesons - Alessio Quaglini, CEO, HEX Trust - Jehan Chu, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kenetic Topics discussed: - Current regulatory environment for virtual asset businesses in Hong Kong - Advantages and drawbacks of operating a Hong Kong based virtual asset business in terms of cost, talent, technology infrastructure and banking relations - Involvement of incumbent financial institutions - Preparations for the FATF Travel Rule - Future outlook for the industry in Hong Kong About Merkle Science Merkle Science (https://merklescience.com/) provides blockchain transaction monitoring and intelligence solutions for cryptoasset service providers, financial institutions and government agencies to detect, investigate and prevent the use of cryptocurrency for money laundering, terrorist financing and other criminal activities. Merkle Science is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Bangalore, Seoul and Tokyo and backed by Digital Currency Group, Kenetic, SGInnovate and LuneX. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #47 - Ryukichi Sakuta, Deloitte Tohmatsu Financial Advisory
Sakuta-san is leading venture finance advisory business in Japan at Deloitte Tohmatasu, supporting startup fund raising and M&A as well as the corporate venturing journey of large global corporates. In this conversation, we are taking a health check on the Japanese venture capital and corporate venture capital ecosystem, and Sakuta-san explains how he sees VCs and CVCs responding differently to the pandemic. We dive deeper into the differences between Japanese VCs/CVCs and their Western counterparts, what technology areas and geographical regions Japanese investors are currently focused on, and why it does not hurt to be a unicorn. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #46 - William Baber, Kyoto University
William W. Baber has combined education with business throughout his career. His professional experience has included economic development in the State of Maryland, language services in the Washington, DC, area, supporting business starters in Japan, and teaching business students in Japan, Europe, and Canada. He taught English in the Economics and Business Administration Departments of Ritsumeikan University, Japan, before joining the Graduate School of Management at Kyoto University, where he is an associate professor, in addition to holding courses at University of Vienna and University of Jyväskylä. The book "Transforming Japanese Business", which Will co-authored and co-edited, explores the digital revolution in Japan. Its chapters present approaches and examples from sectors commonly understood to be visible arenas of digital transformation―3D printing and mobility, for instance―as well as some from not-so-obvious sectors, such as retail, services, and fintech. https://www.springer.com/book/9789811503269 Business today is facing unprecedented change especially due to the adoption of new, digital technologies, with a noticeable transformation of manufacturing and services. The changes have been brought by advanced robotics, the emergence of artificial intelligence, and digital networks that are growing in size and capability as the number of connected devices explodes. In addition, there are advanced manufacturing and collaborative connected platforms, including machine-to-machine communications. Adoption of digital technology has caused process disruptions in both the manufacturing and services sectors and led to new business models and new products. While examining the preparedness of the Japanese economy to embrace these changes, the book explores the impact of digitally influenced changes on some selected sectors from a Japanese perspective. It paints a big picture in explaining how a previously manufacturing-centric, successful economy adopts change to retain and rebuild success in the global environment. Japan as a whole is embracing, yet also avoiding―innovating but also restricting―various forms of digitalization of life and work. The book, with its 17 chapters, is a collaborative effort of individuals contributing diverse points of view as technologists, academics, and managers. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #45 - InsurTech in APAC, Global InsurTech Alliance (GITA)
The Global Insurtech Alliance was formed to represent leading insurtech ecosystems across the globe. We all share a common purpose, to create a global ecosystem for insurtech to thrive within. In this first Global InsurTech Alliance (GITA) event, we focused the discussion around insurtech across the Asia Pacific region and includes representatives from: George Kesselman, President and Founder Insurtech Asia Jason Roberts, Founder Insurtech NZ Rita Yates, CEO and Co-Founder Insurtech Australia Kai Dwyer, CEO and Co-Founder Vallum.Insure as Panel Moderator We covered topics including: An Introduction to their organisations Current trends, including effect of COVID-19 in their region Key challenges their ecosystems are experiencing Key insurtech opportunities in their region How do Insurtechs look for customers or investors in these markets and what are some of the tools available 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #44 - Marta Allina, Seoul Startups
Marta is the Founder of Seoul Startups, an international community partner of Tokyo FinTech, leading a startup community in Korea with an online and an offline presence, and currently more than 1,300 members. Having experienced Korea as a child when her father became a diplomat in post-communism Poland, Marta wanted to spread her wings upon graduating, returned to the country on a Korean government-sponsored scholarship program - and has never left. Joining Samsung Electronics upon graduation, after passing the regular strict recruitment tests, Marta became a model employee, excelling at the Samsung company song & dance in front of the executive team. Fast forward a few years, she has supported many startups through an acceleration program, has founded Seoul Startups to create a more formal support structure, in particular for foreign founders, and is also engaged with integration programs for North Korean refugees. A personal story in which many of us might find some resemblance to our own path, told with witty humor and a sharp eye for commonalities and differences across cultures. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #43 - Hena Mehta, Basis
Hena Mehta is the Founder & CEO of Basis, a first-of-its-kind company focused on the financial independence of (initially) Indian women. Basis is building a digital platform powered by tailored financial content, engaged communities and curated services and products for women. Hena talks about her own experience as the motivation behind Basis, the target market of professional, well-educated, young women in India's metropolitan areas, and how conversations about money differ depending on whether men are present or not. Hena explains why the Indian market is considered so complex. We also take a look at the Indian startup ecosystem, and the changes that can be observed from the IT service providers of old to the new, emerging product-based startups. Basis is a SEBI Registered Investment Adviser: https://www.getbasis.co/ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #42 - Gustav & Johan, Fintechpodden
Viking alert! Gustaf Hård af Segerstad and Johan Lindskog are the podcast host for Fintechpodden, one of the leading shows in the Nordics. What better people to talk to about the Swedish and Nordics FinTech ecosystem overall? Gustaf and Johan talk about the cashless society, how the government has made small interventions to introduce a little bit of friction back into the purchasing process to protect people from taking on too much debt, how open banking and its extension to other industries drives transparency and innovative business models, and what the Swedish central bank is doing about evaluating digital currencies. You can find Fintechpodden on Anchor or any other major podcasting platform: https://anchor.fm/fintechpodden 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #41 - Jenna Huey Ching, FortNynja
Ranked multiple times among the Top 100 Women in FinTech globally, and one of the absolute top voices for FinTech in Malaysia, Jenna is the Co-Founder of FortNynja, a cyber security startup. Previously, she was responsible, as part of the digital government initiative, for drafting the FinTech strategy for Malaysia. Jenna is passionate about making Fintech education available more broadly, and is one of the initiators of the E-Fintech School, which will run during July for 100 participants across the APAC region. Registrations are open until June 15 at the following link: https://efintechschool.peatix.com/ Participation is free once you get selected, however, you will need to post a bond that will get refunded upon completion of the program. On this podcast, Jenna talks about the focus for the FinTech ecosystem in Malaysia (serving the underbanked rather than the unbanked at this point), the benefits of diversity across the Malay, Chinese and Indian populations, the ease of doing business in Malaysia and its unique position next to Singapore, and in the center of one of the most dynamic regions in the world. We also come to the conclusion that there is no way you can avoid putting on weight during your initial stay as the variety and quality of food is simply amazing. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #40 - David Gurle, Symphony
David is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Symphony, the secure collaboration platform focused on global markets. David’s ideas have influenced the major trends in consumer and enterprise communications and most recently secure collaboration technologies over the past two decades. He founded and ran Microsoft’s unified communications products (Skype for Business) and as Global Head of Collaboration Services at Thomson Reuters, introduced the first consumer-to-business federated communications to the financial services industry. After the sale of Skype to Microsoft where he was the GM of Skype’s Enterprise Business, David founded and sold Perzo before founding Symphony. We had the honor to welcome David for a surprise visit at the Tokyo FinTech Meetup in August 2018, so in this conversation, we embarking on the Symphony journey since then. We discuss Symphony's differentiation as a network across companies, rather than inside a company (where Microsoft Teams and Slack might be extensively used), the importance of synchronization of information in a decentralized environment, the differences in integrating with WeChat and WhatsApp and why localization in Japanese language was so difficult (that's the geeky part of the conversation). From there, we are looking into the future of workflow productivity using Symphony, and the emergence of an enterprise intelligence platform. David concludes with his personal advice to entrepreneurs, and those who want to become one. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #39 - Assaf Marco, Sompo Cyber Security
Assaf Marco is a General Manager and leading the Product Strategy team at Sompo Cyber Security, a fully owned subsidiary of one of the three Japanese Mega Insurers. As such, Assaf is responsible for pre-sales, marketing and technical services development. Prior to his current position, Assaf had served in the Israeli Embassy in Japan as a Senior Commercial Officer promoting and developing the Japanese market for the Israeli security industry and took key part in strengthening the partnership between Israel and Japan in the homeland security and cyber security fields. Assaf shares his perspective on the global cyber security landscape, the level of preparedness in Japan, and how he has managed to bridge the cultures throughout his careers. We also touch upon the current working-from-home situation, which Sompo has fully embraced, to the moderator's surpise :-) 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #38 - Kristof De Spiegeleer, ThreeFold Foundation
Kristof is a passionate serial entrepreneur with six exits under his belt. He believes that respect & transparency is the basis for solid business, and that doing good for the world & providing return for investors can co-exist. One of the most exciting, and best hidden secrets so far, the ThreeFold Foundation builds the infrastructure for the new internet, and internet that empowers equality, autonomy and sustainability. Equality - ThreeFold's peer-to-peer Internet is available everywhere and owned by everyone - across geographical and cultural borders. Everyone has equal chances to learn, partake and succeed. Autonomy - ThreeFold is democratized, neutral, and secure to provide freedom to all its stakeholders. Everyone is digitally autonomous and owns their data just like they would own their physical experiences. Sustainabilty - ThreeFold believes in environmental consciousness. All Network, hardware and software components that constitute the ThreeFold Grid are optimized around energy-efficiency and carbon neutrality. Millennial health warning: These are two old guys discussing new technology. We could not help but drift back to our youth, so there is mentioning of a Commodore 64 computer, and phone books. If you do not know what these things are, just ignore those passages. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #37 - Martin Kassing, Upvest
Martin is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Upvest, a FinTech startup providing the first pan-European securities account API. Upvest is a BAFIN-licensed (the German financial services regulator) custodian and enables any neo broker to offer securities accounts to their end users instantly in their apps. We talk to Martin about: - His journey from venture capitalist early in his career to founder - Why good founders pivot fast - The importance of choosing the right customers - The economics of issuance on custody in a regulated blockchain business model vs "the old world" 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #36 - Mikaal Abdulla, SoFi (formerly 8 Securities)
Mikaal is the SVP, International at SoFi, a finance company based in San Francisco that offers a range of lending and wealth management services to Millennials, after 8 Securities, which he founded and was the Chief Executive Officer of, got acquired in April. This was SoFi's first international acquisition. Launched in 2012 in Hong Kong with zero-commission securities trading as the proposition (so this was even one year before Robinhood, commonly seen as the North Star of zero-fee trading, started), 8 Securities shortly afterwards launched an operation in Japan. Mikaal shares his experience of working across two cultures, and what he sees as the differences in working style, product development and market acceptance. There is plenty of good advice for FinTech founders looking at either jurisdiction, and of course we are also discussing what the future will bring with SoFi's international expansion (spoiler alert: it might just resemble some of Mikaal's prior experience heading E-Trade's business outside of the US). 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #35 - David Packham, Founder & CEO at EOS42 & Chintai
Chintai started off as a community contribution by EOS42, one of the early EOS block producers, to provide an effective marketplace for token leasing. On EOS, the tokens that you hold allow you to use bandwidth on the network. Rather than tying up your capital by purchasing token, Chintai supports the idea that you can just lease them (for a fee, of course). Since presenting at the Tokyo FinTech Meetup for the first time in April 2018, David and his team have generalized the Chintai technology and turned the company into a B2B FinTech service provider for issuance, management, and secondary trading of tokenized securities. Their high performance products, which at this point are technology-agnostic, help financial entities dramatically reduce overhead by automating compliance, reporting, advanced payments, collateral handling, and more. Chintai is in the process of - together with its partners - procuring access to the regulatory sandbox operated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #34 - Parissa Haghirian, Sophia University
Parissa Haghirian is Professor of Japanese Management at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. She has lived and worked in Japan since 2004 and is an internationally renowned expert in international management practices with a focus on Japan. Professor Haghirian earned an MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Vienna in 1999 followed by an MA and PhD in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in 2000 and 2003 respectively. Together with her students, she has compiled the book "Japanese Management Concepts You Should Know", which is available for download from her website: https://www.haghirian.com/ In our podcast, we discuss what defines the Japanese management system, how it differs from Western management, and in fact "demystify" Japanese management; we debate examples of successful Western managers in Japan, the role of women in Japanese business, and how the Japanese governments' pandemic response is (or is not) an expression of the Japanese management style. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #33 - Matt McKibbin, DecentraNet
Matt is the Founder & Chief Decentralization Officer at DecentraNet, where he is working on the Monetary Reformation. As an analogy, he views the Reformation as the open sourcing & forking of Christianity. The Catholic Church still exists today, but you do not have to use them. The Monetary Reformation will do the same to central bank money. We also talk about a data-centric future, where you own your data, a cause that is greatly advanced by Brittany Kaiser's suitably named Own Your Data Foundation. We touch upon PegNet, founded by David Johnston based on the Factom protocol, and close with a look at Matt's other passion, focusing on psychodelics to upgrade the human mind with AMMA Healing. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #32 - Shaul David, Railsbank
Railsbank was co-founded by Nigel Verdon, who also founded Currencycloud - the most famous FinTech startup that nobody has ever heard of, as its engine powers Revolut, Monzo and Starling Bank, among others. Railsbank is taking a similar trajectory in enabling any company to become a FinTech. We talk with Shaul David, Head of Growth, and previously in a role as a FinTech Sector Specialist with the Department for International Trade (DIT) of the UK Government, where he also promoted London as a FinTech hub to Japanese financial services players. We define what the "invisibility cloak" implies, how Railsbank as an abstraction of the infrastructure layer could make market entry into Japan so much easier, and the immense opportunities that lie ahead of us, for banks and non-banks alike. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #31 - Go Masuda, Japan Security Token Association (JSTA)
Masuda-san is the Chairman of the Japan Security Token Association (JSTA) and the Chief Operating Officer at Blockchain Hub. Previously, he also worked at SMBC, one of Japan's three megabanks, where he was setting up an Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley. We talk about the recent changes in crypto assets and digital securities regulation in Japan, how we expect the market to react to those rules that came into effect only on May 1, 2020, as well as the role the JSTA has to play in adoption, and how that contrasts with the Japan Securities Token Offering Association (JSTOA), the self-regulatory organization (SRO) for the broker/dealers engaging in crypto assets business. Masuda-san also shares his observations on the adoption of blockchain technology among Japanese corporates, and how the current engagement differs from the early adopters. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #30 - Fabrizio Villani, Fintastico
Fabrizio is the Co-Founder & Head of Growth at Fintastico, curating a comprehensive database of of FinTech services and FinTech news to address the financial needs of consumers, retailers, enterprises and financial institutions, with a primary focus on European and North American FinTech startups. Following their recent funding round, they are working hard to become a FinTech aggregator, leveraging Open APIs to create a consumer-centric one-stop-shop for all things FinTech. As an Italian who studied in Amsterdam and moved into a FinTech job in Barcelona in 2013, quite a bit of our conversation centers around the Italian and Spanish financial services and FinTech markets. Why are BBVA and Banco Santander doing so well in the innovation space, compared to the Italian (and for that matter, German) incumbents? Fintastico is also co-hosting a business match making & conference event on May 27 & 28, which is available for free using the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fintech-after-cv-19-tickets-101793717750?discount=NorbertGehrke 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #29 - Luc Falempin, Tokeny
Luc is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tokeny Solutions, a Luxembourg-based software vendor building an full lifecycle platform to issue, manage and transfer tokenized securities, such as tokenized loans, structured notes, equity and funds, in a compliant way, allowing companies operating in private markets to benefit from using blockchain technology. Technically built on the Ethereum protocol, and hence leveraging the vast ecosystem of engineering talent as well as of existing wallets, Tokeny shields the implementation details from the user by providing pre-defined business processes. Primarily, the components are a compliant issuance solution (cloud platform to issue tokenized securities to eligible investors), an onchain transfer solution (Tokeny's T-REX protocol for compliant transfer of ownership to white labeled investors), and a securities servicing solution for events throughout the security token lifecycle. In July 2019, Tokeny announced funding from Euronext, the leading pan-European exchange in the Eurozone. The investment allows Tokeny to lean on the resources brought by the largest centre of debt and funds listings in the world. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #28 - Ganesh Iyer, Dotin
Dotin taps into the subconscious mind through colours and contrasts to develop personality profiles that create greater certainty in hiring decisions, identifying top talent within the organization, and help the organization develop the right professional development plan around an individual, all based on science originally developed in Japan in the mid-1980s, and still in use at all major marketing agencies. You can perform the one minute assessment free of charge at the following link: https://hrtool.dotin.us/registration Dotin is a Business to Business (B2B) SaaS decision-making Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform that aligns users' core motivations to the right opportunities through their subconscious behaviors to help the users and the enterprise reach their outcomes faster, creating a win-win situation. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #27 - David Brear, 11:FS
David is the Group CEO of 11:FS, a challenger consultancy that builds and launches next generation digital propositions for some of the biggest banks in the world. They believe that digital banking is 1% done and that digital reform is needed to improve systems and services for banks and their customers. David's co-founder was part of the founding team at Monzo and Starling, and 11:FS has worked with the likes of Standard Chartered and NatWest, among others, on digital propositions. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #26 - Makoto Shibata, FINOLAB
We refer to Shibata-san as the "Godfather of FinTech in Japan", not in a Mario Puzo sense (you won't find the head of a horse next to you when waking up), but because of the influence Shibata-san had in shaping many careers and mentoring so many of the startups in the overall ecosystem. Also a sought-after speaker and panelists at conferences in Japan and abroad, we were delighted that the pandemic allowed us to find some time to take a 360 degree view on the hot FinTech topics in Japan. So beyond some general commentary on the health of the overall FinTech ecosystem in Japan, we go into more detail specifically on the promotion of cashless payments, the situation in open banking, and get Shibata-san's perspective on the recently released security token regulation. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #25 - Algorand & Moonstake
For the first time, we welcome two guests to the podcast: Haichao Zhu, Associate Director at the Algorand Foundation, and Alex Hui, Director at Moonstake and Co-Founding Chairman at the APAC Blockchain Association. With Haichao, we discuss Algorand's Pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol, the features of Algorand 2.0, namely Algorand Standard Assets (ASA), Atomic Transfers and Algorand Smart Contracts at Layer 1 (ASC1), and the latest development with the so-called Co-Chains. The research document mentioned on the podcast can be found at the following link: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/stanford-blockchain-conference/2020/no-incentive/ From Alex, we learn how Moonstake goes about building a pan-Asian staking business, why they chose to go down the Proof-of-Stake route rather than building another Proof-of-Work Mining Pool, what the roadmap for the various coins is, as well as what supporting infrastructure we can expect (hint: BinaryStar wallet coming in May!). 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #24 - Kyle Ellicott, Topio Networks - Part II
Kyle Ellicott is a Founder, Investor and Analyst deeply involved with Blockchain and Open Finance. We had such an extensive conversation that we will publish it in two parts. In this episode, we round out our discussion on digital identity & authentication, debate friction vs frictionless financial services, and cover robustness and resilience in light of the Robinhood and MakerDAO issues during "Black Thursday". Kyle is a Co-Founder of ReadWrite and Topio Networks as well as the Chief Labs Officer of ReadWrite Labs. He is also a noted TEDx and global keynote speaker, strategist, published author, & technologist with over 15 years of experience at the cornerstone of digital transformation between industry and technology. He’s advised venture capital funds, family offices (FOs), as well as over 175 companies globally throughout industries such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Transportation/Mobility, Blockchain/DApps/FinTech, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Health, Smart Cities and has successfully raised over $130 million in venture funding. Quarterly, Kyle publishes the "Blockchain Infrastructure Landscape Map", with the Q1/2020 edition including more than 900 individual companies globally split into two parts, the overall landscape and supporting ecosystem. The overall landscape showcases several second-level categories throughout the Consumer, Enterprise, and Infrastructure sections. The supporting ecosystem highlights key players from venture to accelerators to consortiums. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #23 - Kyle Ellicott, Topio Networks - Part I
Kyle Ellicott is a Founder, Investor and Analyst deeply involved with Blockchain and Open Finance. We had such an extensive conversation that we will publish it in two parts. In this episode, we cover some of Kyle's background, his perspective on the evolution of the FinTech and Open Finance ecosystems over the last decade, the case for targeted efforts on financial literacy, and the urgent need for a reliable digital identity. Kyle is a Co-Founder of ReadWrite and Topio Networks as well as the Chief Labs Officer of ReadWrite Labs. He is also a noted TEDx and global keynote speaker, strategist, published author, & technologist with over 15 years of experience at the cornerstone of digital transformation between industry and technology. He’s advised venture capital funds, family offices (FOs), as well as over 175 companies globally throughout industries such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Transportation/Mobility, Blockchain/DApps/FinTech, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Health, Smart Cities and has successfully raised over $130 million in venture funding. Quarterly, Kyle publishes the "Blockchain Infrastructure Landscape Map", with the Q1/2020 edition including more than 900 individual companies globally split into two parts, the overall landscape and supporting ecosystem. The overall landscape showcases several second-level categories throughout the Consumer, Enterprise, and Infrastructure sections. The supporting ecosystem highlights key players from venture to accelerators to consortiums. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #22 - Benjamin Tsai, Wave Financial
We welcome our first returnee to the podcast, Benjamin Tsai, President & Managing Partner at Wave Financial, a digital asset management company based in Los Angeles. Having been a close observer of the Japanese crypto markets, Ben shares his perspective on the developments in the securities token market in Japan. We then discuss Wave's second product launched in November 2019, the Bitcoin Income & Growth Fund, taking advantage of the developing derivatives markets, in particular the option markets, for crypto assets. Last but not least, hitting the headlines over the last week, Wave's announcement of a new whiskey fund, tokenizing Kentucky Bourbon, a few million bottles of hard assets! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #21 - Michael O'Loughlin, Token
In our latest episode of the Tokyo FinTech Podcast, we welcome as our guest Michael O'Loughlin, the token Irishman in Berlin. Actually, the Token Irishman in Berlin, where he is the Managing Director of Global Solutions, putting a bank in every app. Founded by Steve Kirsch, who invented and patented an early version of the optical mouse, and had his biggest exit as an entrepreneur with the sale of Infoseek, Token is the industry’s leading open banking infrastructure provider. Token is creating the digital connectivity shaping the future of banking-enabled commerce. Token’s open banking market platform enables banks and developers to set the pace of innovation in digital financial services, unrestrained by technical complexity and regulatory compliance. By offering value-added payments functionality together with standardised, API-based access to over 3,000 banks across Europe and beyond, Token helps banks and businesses to drive new revenues through the creation and delivery of market leading open banking payment and data experiences. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #20 - Mohamed Roushdy, Dubai Asset Management
Mohamed Roushdy is among the most well-known Chief Information Officers in the Middle East, and after having previously achieved "CIO of the Year" honors, was just recognized as a "Digital Leader" by CXO Insights. Mohamed has built multiple banking startups, and is currently the CIO for Dubai Asset Management, a holding company focused on developing, acquiring and managing a diverse portfolio of for-rent residential communities. Dubai AM has been the first company to implement UAE Pass for digital signature of all legal contracts. UAE Pass is the first national digital identity and signature solution that enables users to identify themselves to government service providers in all emirates through a smartphone-based authentication. It also enables users to sign documents digitally with a high level of security. We also talk about how Mohamed implemented innovative solution such as a customized bank account number and on-the-spot debit cards & checkbooks as early as 2008, something that most financial institutions have not accomplished to date. We also cover Sharia-compliant financing, and the importance of SME funding for the region. We hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #19 - Hayato Kameta, Zweispace
Before founding Zweispace, Kameta-san was CEO of ARK Asset Management, the fund arm of Openhouse, and previously at the legendary Century21 world wide #1 real estate company in Tokyo's Shibuya district. With Zweispace, he looks to digitalize the real estate industry, by applying analytics to the valuation process, assessing earthquake robustness with IoT sensors, and putting the necessary documentation onto the blockchain. Kameta-san's ultimate goal is to re-create a real estate-based/backed financial system. Zweispace has just been accepted into the Plug & Play accelerator program in California, and is one of a few Japanese startups looking at markets globally at this stage of their growth. Earlier in his career, after graduating from Kyoto University with a B.S. in Physics, Kameta-san worked at Softbank, where he had the opportunity to learn much about the Silicon Valley ecosystem through the 400+ startup investments the group had made at the height of the late 90s internet bubble. He later was the Director of the CEO office, and the CEO of Prosper Asia, the P2P lending platform founded by Chris Larsen, who later went on to create Ripple. The company name derives from a word play on Einstein that physicists will appreciate. Please listen in! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #18 - Charles Hoskinson, Input Output HK
Charles Hoskinson, CEO of Input Output HK and creator of the Cardano blockchain protocol, had a passionate response when asked about his Twitter fights with Dan Larimer during a recent Tokyo FinTech Meetup. This is only a short excerpt of almost two hours of opening comments and Q&A, which you can find in full length on our YouTube channel. We had the honor to host Charles three times in Tokyo over the last two years, this last appearance was in mid-2019. Charles' Opening Comments https://youtu.be/4vx-c-7kNC0 Charles Q&A Part I https://youtu.be/mfOZCoD0TuM Charles Q&A Part II https://youtu.be/L9l4axsjZuQ 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #17 - Arne Peder Blix, AccA Invest
Having come to Japan initially as an 11-year old on a school exchange program, Arne has been an admirer of Japan all his life. An illustrious career as submarine officer, shipping executive, FinTech founder & investor later, he has just spent a week in Tokyo, joining a Nordic delegation also including members from Denmark, Estonia, Sweden and Finland, to take a closer look at the startup & investment ecosystem. We discuss - of course - Arne's career, and very quickly get carried away on discussions about politeness and respect (still plentiful to be found in Japan), the need to look beyond our own selfish needs (defined by Maslow's pyramid) to becoming "Earth positive", how to create the future of democracy through the right incentives, what makes successful founders, and why any stock market downturn is an opportunity for founders in Japan and elsewhere. We would have liked to dive much deeper into many of these topics, and will certainly do so at a future Tokyo FinTech Meetup when Arne is back in Tokyo. Thank you very much for this wonderfully engaging conversation. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #16 - Nicolas Michelon, Asia Intelligence Advisory
Nicolas Michelon is the Founder of Asia Intelligence Advisory and an Editor of Asia Power Watch. He is speaking frequently at conferences and corporate events about geopolitical trends, economic power and competitive intelligence, with a specific focus on Europe/Asia relationships. In this episode, that as an exception is neither Fin- nor -Tech, we evaluate the Carlos Ghosn case from an economic warfare perspective, speculate as to the future of the Renault/Nissan alliance, including future options especially on the Japanese side, as well as for the broader France/Japan trade relationship. We also take a look at how other foreign CEOs have fared in Japan, while clarifying the details of the Olympus dismissal and highlighting the Takeda success. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #15 - The Asian Century: How to Build a Thriving FinTech Hub
This session of the Global FinTech Index Briefings features FinTech Australia, FinTechNZ and Tokyo FinTech. Re-broadcast with kind permission by Findexable. In December 2019 Findexable launched the Global FinTech Index City Rankings 2020, the first fully global ranking of FinTech ecosystems – across more than 230 cities, 65 countries and over 7,000 fintech companies. Join the GFI Briefings to hear from FinTech disruptors and innovators and to learn what it takes to build a thriving hub that supports growth, attracts investment and engages with regulators to create a competitive and fair landscape for FinTech. The Speakers Simon Hardie, Co-founder and CEO of Findexable, has two decades of experience producing financial intelligence content, research and events for global financial publishers as well as boutique research publishers and media companies across Europe and the Middle East. Rebecca Schot-Guppy is the GM of peak fintech group FinTech Australia. FinTech Australia represents over 300 companies in Australia on key policy issues and supports the local fintech ecosystem with events and partnerships. It also works to grow Australian fintech sector’s influence abroad. Before working at FinTech Australia, Rebecca was head of community at fintech startup hub Stone & Chalk. She also practised as a corporate lawyer at Hall & Willcox. James Brown, GM of FintechNZ, is an Ambassador for the 4 day week campaign to drive productivity and give people time back to learn something new, spend time with their family or do something for the community. He is a serial networker who is driven to making New Zealand the number one choice for Fintech and Innovation giving great access to ASIA. James is focused to address our Financial and Digital Literacy issues, which leads to cashflow stress which impacts the Health and Wellbeing of New Zealanders. Norbert Gehrke, Founder & Representative Director of Tokyo FinTech, and a General Partner at FinMirai, has spent most of his career as a Managing Director in Goldman Sachs’ Technology Division, Barclays Investment Bank, and as a consultant. Norbert has led a number of greenfield broker/dealer implementations around the globe, innovation & transformation initiatives, as well as new product launches. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #14 - Nir Netzer, FinTech-Aviv
Nir Netzer is the Chairman of the Board for FinTech-Aviv, the Israeli FinTech Association, a highly valued Community Partner for Tokyo FinTech. With their Annual Summit just behind them, it was an excellent time to catch up with Nir and to discuss: - Startup Nation Israel - The strength of the Israeli FinTech sector, also in comparison with startups in other industries - How Israeli startups are looking at the opportunities abroad - The origin and motivation behind FinTech-Aviv 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #12 - Meetup with the FSA (Japanese)
On January 16, the FinTech Association of Japan held a meetup with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the financial regulator in Japan. The FSA updated on a variety of regulatory initiatives, including cryptocurrencies, ICOs and STOs. This presentation is in Japanese The slides accompanying the presentation are available from our Medium Publication: medium.com/tokyo-fintech/meetu…slides-827056079a8b 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #13 - Yuki Kishi, Plug and Play Japan
Yuki Kishi has been the FinTech Director for Plug and Play Japan since its inaugural startup batch two years ago. Since the beginning of 2020, he is also responsible for Brand & Retail. Listen in on this episode to learn... - Yuki's advice for startups entering the Japanese market - What to expect when working with Japanese corporates - More about the startup that Yuki found most impressive over this two year period - How much Yuki values his personal and professional network! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #11 - Ryan Lackey, Tezos Foundation
Ryan Lackey, Chief Security Officer at the Tezos Foundation, came straight from a red eye flight from Bangkok to talk to us about his career, the role of the Tezos Foundation, governance in the crypto/blockchain world, and some of the largest projects that are under way with Tezos in Thailand and Brazil, for example. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/f --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #10 - Sopnendu Mohanty, Monetary Authority of Singapore
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the financial services regulator, kindly gave us the opportunity for a brief interview during his recent visit to Tokyo. We talk about the FinTech innovation ecosystem in Singapore, ASEAN and Japan, the upcoming Singapore FinTech Festival, APIX as an open innovation platform, and how regulators might respond to the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #9 - So Saito, So & Sato Innovative Lawyers
With So Saito, one of Japan's most prominent FinTech lawyers supporting several high-profile blockchain & crypto companies, as well as other startups, we discussed ICO and STO regulation in Japan, stablecoins and Libra. There are significant changes coming in the regulatory environment over the next nine months, so please tune in! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #8 - Alex Topaloski, pulse iD
The cashless payment wars are on. Millions are being spent on rewards and loyalty programs, in Japan and in markets across Asia, by the competing payment platforms. pulse is an identity platform that provides seamless customer recognition, payment geo-validation & contextual engagement for banks, telcos and media organizations, allowing them to differentiate themselves. With Alex Topaloski, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, we talk about his payments journey over the last decade, the emerging convergence of loyalty & payments, and how much fun it is to be an entrepreneur! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #7 - Jose Casanueva, Electronic IDentification
The accelerator program by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), the FinTech Business Camp Tokyo 2019, is open for applications until July 5 at the following link: www.senryaku.metro.tokyo.jp/bdc_tokyo/e…intech2019/ Jose Casanueva from Electronic IDentification has lead the company's effort as part of the 2018 accelerator program, and shares his experience. You will not be surprised to hear that he highly recommends it for anyone considering a Japanese market entry. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #6 - Benjamin Tsai, Wave Financial
Benjamin Tsai is the President & Managing Partner of Wave Financial, a Los Angeles-based asset management firm focused on the cryptocurrency space, providing asset management products for high net worth and institutional investors. Ben shares his view on how the development of the crypto markets will mirror traditional markets, which requires the development of passive strategies and derivative products. Ben also focuses specifically on the securitization of hard assets. The benefits of securitizing whiskey are made very clear during our conversation. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #5 - Thomas Glucksmann, Diginex
Thomas Glucksmann is the Head of Data Management Solutions at Diginex, a leading provider of enterprise blockchain solutions, where he is focused on product management for a suite of blockchain enhanced Data Integrity solutions for corporations, governments and NPOs. Going beyond the hype and the crypto markets, our conversation centered around real-world use cases that government agencies and corporations are deploying today, for example in helping to secure the rights of migrant workers, and identifying fraud. We hope you enjoy listening to the discussion as much as we enjoyed recording it. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #4 - Makoto Takemiya, Soramitsu
Takemiya-san is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Soramitsu, the gem among Japanese blockchain companies. Founded in 2016, the company's blockchain technology, Iroha, was accepted by the Hyperledger under the Linux Foundation's governance by November that year, complementing Fabric, Sawtooth Lake, and other potential projects by creating reusable components in C++ that can be called from languages such as Go. Just a few weeks ago, the Web3 Foundation has released a grant to Soramitsu to develop a Polkadot runtime environment in C++. In between these two milestones were several implementations with the likes of Rakuten (for KYC system development), Sompo Holdings (for weather derivatives), the National Bank of Cambodia (for digital currencies), and many more. Soramitsu focuses on delivery, not marketing - this podcast offers a unique view into the different projects Soramitsu is working on, and how Takemiya-san's views shape how the company is operating. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #3 - Harumi Urata-Thompson, HUT Consulting
Having started her career as the first woman on the Fixed Income Trading Desk at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, Harumi has pursued a fascinating path across three continents, including roles in digital & innovation, fintech and space. We talk about the blockchain and crypto ecosystems in Tokyo, New York and the Bahamas, Harumi's space venture, and of course about diversity & inclusion in finance, technology and fintech. 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support
Episode #2 - Travis Kling, Ikigai Asset Management
In our second episode of the Tokyo FinTech Podcast, we welcome Travis Kling, Founder & Chief Investment Officer of Ikigai Asset Management, who discusses his journey to becoming a crypto fund manager, why crypto will be the best performing asset class for years to come, the Fed and......Johnny Football! 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 podcast@tokyofintech.com You can also find us on.... Home Page: https://tokyofintech.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tokyofintech/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TokyoFinTech Medium: https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tokyofintech Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/tokyofintech/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/exponentialfinance/support