How to Lend Money to Strangers
A podcast about lending innovation and lending leadership in diverse markets worldwide. Host Brendan le Grange interviews industry insiders weekly, discussing topics from crypto-backed mortgages to AI-powered credit scores. The show explores the inspiration behind startups, career experiences, and the impact of new technologies on lending decisions.
Episodes
Solving big problems in innovative ways, with Waqas Javed (Bank of Punjab)
Pakistan is massively underbanked, but those gaps are being closed faster than you might think, using a range of innovative solutions that range from traditional credit bureaus to satellite imagery to psychometric scorecards. In this episode, I'm with Waqas Javed, EVP for Data Analytics AI at the Bank of Punjab, talking about the vision behind, and the impact of, their drive to bring fair credit p
How to insure stuff for strangers, with Stan Ng
We don't normally talk about insurance on here, but we've just published our 200th episode, so the rules no longer apply to us 🤣 But, also, we're not so different from our insuring cousins, who also need to make an upfront commitment of funds against some measure of risk.Stan Ng is my guide, and you can find him plu shis many ventures at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-ng-61228040/Aireka is there
Bringing together multiple viewpoints, both in person and in data with Sanjib Kalita (Fintech Meetup and Guppy)
Sanjib Kalita is one of the most recognisable faces in global fintech, and now one of the most recognisable voices in global fintech, too, so when I saw we were approaching 200 episodes, he was who I wanted to get on to mark the occasion. We talk about Sanjib's early career, his move into events, including what it has been like building Fintech Meetup, the Most Valuable Event in Fin
Empowering financial access for Iceland, the Baltics, and beyond, with Hrefna Sigfinnsdottir and Elari Tammenurm (Creditinfo)
Operating in over 40 countries across three continents, Creditinfo is a trusted partner in driving financial inclusion, enhancing credit access, and supporting economic growth in one of the most diverse mixes of markets I know of. You can learn all about Creditinfo on their homepage: https://www.creditinfo.com/ (or follow the links to any one of the regional sites).Creditinfo are on LinkedIn, too,
Fraud prevention & AML compliance, with Nauman Abuzar (SEON)
From fake accounts to payment fraud, SEON’s AI platform connects 900+ first-party data signals to enrich data and provide context for action-taking, all in one place. You can read more about how they do that on their homepage: https://seon.io/They're also on LinkedIn, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/seon-tech/As is this show (https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-str
Accessing your home equity, with Michael Gifford (Splitero)
Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) have always made sense for borrowers, but when the Great Financial Crisis showed how contagion could undermine the pricing assumptions, they lost favour with American lenders. But they're back, redesigned, and stronger than ever. In this episode, I'm speaking with Splitero's CEO, Michael Gifford, a PropTech veteran who is helping families get the most out of th
It's private... but is it safe? With Nicolas Kipp (Credibur)
The first rule of lending money to strangers is that it is always a little easier when you're lending out someone else's money! But if you're willing to put in some work, private credit offers HNW individuals a route to strong returns, and this is where today's guest enters the chat.Credibur helps non-bank lenders and their institutional capital providers manage debt facilities and portfolios in a
The AI sales agent that is helping Indonesians get mortgages, with Ilya Kravtsov (Pillar Lab)
Pillar is a vertical AI platform built for financial institutions, deploying product-aware AI sales agents that qualify leads, recommend the right financial products, and drive applications at scale - helping banks, lenders, and fintechs get more Indonesians into homes.We recorded this episode just as they were about to rebrand, so while we spoke about Ringkas, you'll now find everything you need
Flexible smartphone financing in Bangladesh, with Rafsun Faiz (SahajMobile)
Rafsun Faiz is a former structured finance and credit investor, now turned fintech founder with SahajMobile - a smartphone financing platform that is expanding access to credit in South Asia. The world gets more digital every day, and that's as true in Dhaka as it is in DC, so SahajMobile's mission is to provide affordable access to cutting-edge smartphone technology for everyone in Bangladesh (an
Taking digital lending across Laos, village by village, with Tim Scheffmann (LTS Ventures)
With 10,000 transactions processed a day across 900+, often remote, villages, LTS Ventures is one of the more impactful operations I've had the pleasure of featuring on this show. But when you build the digital infrastructure needed for core banking, you're also building an ecosystem of trust and technology that other innovators can leverage in the future, so the incredible work already being done
Crowdfunding the fintech revolution, with Leonard Burger
Crowdfunding has always been an interesting option, but now, with AI changing how quickly and cheaply ideas can become startups, we're standing on the brink of a new golden age. I'm chatting to a crowdfunding veteran, go-to-market expert, startup advisor, and all-around fintech geek, Leonard Burger.You can find Leonard on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardburger/But he has too ma
Expanding the Agentic AI use case, with Daniel Yoo (Finmate AI)
The team that pioneered AI-powered workflows for financial advisors, are now sharing their knowledge of agentic AI systems with the industry as a whole. If you've played around with Claude Code, you'll know how much you can now do with just an idea and some well-thought-out prompts... but you'll also know that there are still limits. Building a bank ready system requires more than just code,
Coaching beyond the models, with Marc Gaudart (Trent Advisory Services)
Models are important and all, but you don't build great businesses by building great models, you build great businesses by building great people - because great people build the right models and leverage them strategically. To better understand the challenges facing credit risk leaders today, Marc Gaudart and Elizabeth Reed surveyed leaders from large global banks, growing fintechs, and specialist
Lending without guessing, with Christo Georgiev (Lender Link)
This episode was recorded live at Money20/20 in Bangkok, so first and foremost, a huge thanks to the team there that are always exceptionally professional. If it weren't for them, there is no way you'd be getting this episode just a day after it was recorded. Still, it's no substitute for being there, especially now with shows in Europe, Asia, America, and the Middle East, so head on over to https
The house that bitcoin bought, with Josip Rupena (Milo)
Life got in the way of my episode release schedule for a bit there, and so a few months have passed since I sat down with Josip Rupena to discuss crypto-backed mortgages. In the world of crypto, a few months can be a lifetime, and, in this case, not the easiest lifetime, and yet, Milo has just issued its largest single transaction ever: a $12 million crypto mortgage. The demand is real, from
Empowered brokers sell better mortgages and better mortgages are, well, better for everyone, with James Tucker (Twenty7tec)
Smarter advice leads to smoother lending, so today I am sitting down with James Tucker, CEO at Twenty7tec Group, talking about how his solutions, helps lenders maximise product visibility, streamline applications, and improve adviser engagement.James is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamestuckeruk/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BBdGz3l8tSXaaIkiaeaOlwQ%3D%3DTwenty7Tec is at h
How lenders are navigating volatility in 2026, with David Silverstein (Ned)
Happy New Year! I'm in Tallinn, hopefully showing my South African nieces some snow, though this winter is staying stubbornly mild. Anyway, that's not why you're here. The flipping over of the calendar is also a great time to think of the year ahead, and the trends that might shape it - and that's exactly what I did with David Silverstein, founder and CEO of Ned, whose 'Beyond the Breaking Point'
How AI and behavioural economics can re-humanize financial services, with Diederick van Thiel (AdviceRobo)
"We live in a world where AI is transforming everything, but the real opportunity isn’t in automation: it’s in reimagining systems around people." In today's episode, I'm speaking to Dr Diederick van Thiel, fintech entrepreneur, executive, academic, and, most recently, author of Brilliant Data, a call to leaders, innovators, and policymakers to create intelligent systems that don’t just think quic
Giving credit credit in the board room, with Marlize Buys (Most Probably)
Data analytics is no longer an isolated and arcane backroom activity to be understood by only a handful of geeks, it's at the core of every successful lending business.For those of us that have grown up in data science, that's great news, but that rising prominence also means that a new audience must now come to terms with the implications of machine learning versus logistic regression scores, wit
Put a bit of juice in the tank, with Katherine Chan (Juice)
We typically explain SME under lending as a supply gap: staid banks don't want to, or simply don't know how to, lend to new-fangled businesses. And to some extent, that is true, but there is also a demand gap. "There is a lack of knowledge, confidence, and trust when it comes to seeking growth capital through loans. While many founders hesitate to borrow, nearly 60% abandon loan applications midwa
Your branch on your phone, with Albert Howard (Mini Branch)
For a long time now, the prevailing narrative has been branch versus phone, and phone has been winning. But there is another option, branch and phone, or rather branch in phone, and it gives us the best of both worlds plus a few fresh advantages to boot.Connect with Albert on LinkedIn using https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-howard-mb/And while you're there, stay up to date with the Mini Branch st
How to teach money to students, with Latreace Wells and Rod Griffin
While it is true that our mistakes are a great source of learning, it is also true that they can be a very expensive source of learning. This is particularly true when it comes to credit, where human nature and compound interest mean that many of us first learn about the true mechanics of credit when collections are on the phone and our debts have ballooned. Luckily, Latreace Sankey-Wells, with he
P2P funding for Europe's farmers, with Nikita Goncars (Lande)
Agricultural loans offer a unique combination of high collateral and EU subsidies – in a crisis-resistant sector. Lande gives us exclusive access to these loans, and this week I'm speaking to the founder, Nikita Goncars.Meet Nikita on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikita-goncars-lande/Or jump straight to Lande's homepage at https://lande.finance/BadIdeas.fund is at, you guessed it, https
The loans that fund life's biggest moments, with Scott Baker (Toast)
People don't want mortgages; they want houses, and mortgages are just the unavoidable, often overly-complicated means to that end. Scott Baker understands this, and has embedded it into the very fabric of Toast.Join us as we talk about Scott's journey from retail to finance, the state of the Australian mortgage landscape, and how he built Toast to help consumers dream big and plan bigger.Toast is
Modern fraud solutions for modern fraud problems, with Rob Meakin (Creditinfo)
We’re increasingly seeing collaboration between cybercrime, fraud, organised crime and money laundering. Organisations face mounting challenges in protecting their digital infrastructure and customers from fraudulent activities - and this is true in developed and developing markets. Developed countries tend to have more developed risk controls, but they remain attractive to fraudsters because
Cashflows and credit for SMEs, with Guga Gorenstein
Corporate cards, payments, accounting, and credit for growing businesses in 25+ countries - there's a lot to cover today, and then we also chat about Brazzilion fintech and Guga's impressive career!If you're in Mexico as this comes out, I think you can still catch the Jeeves team at Mexico Tech week (https://www.mexicotechweek.mx/). If not, you can try Jeeves over at https://www.tryjeeves.com/br (
Collecting from debtors is hard, but often not as hard as selling to strangers, with Amanda Morrison
If you're fed up with chasing unpaid invoices and debts, iCollect's DIY debt collection software might be the solution for you. You don't have to be a lender to have creditors, but you often have to be a lender to afford a full team to chase those creditors when they start to default - that's where Amanda Morrison steps in.icollect is at https://www.icollect.co.nz/Guardian Credit Services are at h
Flexible and intelligent collections for improved returns, with Hannah Baynham
Getting out of debt has never been harder, and, yes, a sluggish economy and the cost of recovering from a global pandemic play a big role in this, but lenders are not entirely blameless. For too long, it felt cheaper to deliver rigid and unpleasant collections processes, because 'it's not like the customer has a choice'. But they do, they have the most important choice available: to pay or not to
Work's a joke anyway, so they made it a game!
Suren Rastogi started his career in financial services, but, called to do something a little more exciting, he has broken away to pursue his dream of launching a board game. We'll talk about his roots, his pivot, and what it took to create Burnout: a chaotic strategic party game about mental health and the daily grind.Head on over to https://www.burnoutgame.com/ to get on the waitlist, it's the pe
Banking (and lending) for the eco-conscious masses (GreenFi)
Banking that's good for you and the planet. You can see the GreenFi offering first-hand at https://www.greenfi.com/. GreenFi helps you save money, earn cash back, and plant trees - all while keeping your money out of fossil fuels. No mandatory fees. No greenwashing. Just a better way to bank.You can follow Tim on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothynewell/ Follow GreenFi at the saem tim
Unbankable, making a movie about lending
Luke Willms is an award-winning writer, director, and producer... and he's interested in lending. Unabnkable is the culmination of a seven-year, seven-country journey to unravel whether Africa's rich tapestry of tradition, innovation and experimentation to find out if it holds the key to Western economic revitalisation.Find all the details at https://unbankablemovie.com/ (or watch it on https://tv
Embracing GenAI in credit risk (McKinsey)
McKinsey recently surveyed senior credit risk executives from, among others, nine of the top ten US banks, and they asked them about their organisations’ adoption of GenAI, its current use cases, their future plans for it, and the challenges they expected. Twenty percent of the respondents had already implemented at least one GenAI use case in their organizations, and a further 60 percent expect t
An AI-powered link in the chain (Credibly)
Simplified funding for SMEs: pre-qualification in minutes, funded within a day, this is not the business lending of yesteryear. Credibly is at home online at https://www.credibly.com/ You can find Ryan on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-rosett-262b642/While Credibly is there at https://www.linkedin.com/company/credibly/I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegra
What are the odds?
I've just added a new section to the website, featuring affiliate links to all the books written by the great guests we've featured on this show - https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads. If you scan that list before you listen to this show, you'll find among them Dr Michael Orkin with What Are the Odds? and Probability & Statistics Made Interesting. Dr. Ork
Outsourcing AI (Acuity Knowledge Partners)
Very early in my career, back in the days when the details from paper forms had to be typed into a computer to get the application process started, I heard about companies scanning application forms and then sending the files to India to have the data capture done there. A decade later, the guy I was chatting to in a hotel bar in Nairobi promised me he could build a collection call centre in India
Behind the scenes: investing in loans (Exaloan)
You can't lend money if you don't have capital. And you can't grow your capital if you don't deploy it. There have long been matchmakers to link those two sides together, but traditionally they've only come into play when the numbers involved started b's or even t's. Exaloan closes the global funding gap for individuals, entrepreneurs, and SMEs by connecting institutional capital with the digital
Growing a business in vitro (Invitro Capital)
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with high ability on a given task tend to underestimate their competence, while those with low ability overestimate theirs. It's typically examples of the second half of that antithesis that make the headlines, but the first half is problematic, too, because sometimes the experts best placed to start a new business are the ones most held b
Funding the green home revolution (Coover)
This is an unscientific guess, but I have to believe that the vast majority of us would prefer to get our power needs met by renewable sources in our own backyards - cleaner, yes, but also free from the price shocks that have become so common recently. That said, heat pumps and solar panels are expensive and complicated - a daunting combination that holds many people back, myself included. That's
How to Lend Money to Billders (Billd)
Recorded live in Austin, Texas at the offices of Billd, this episode of HTLMTS explores the ways in which Christopher Doyle and his team are removing financing friction from the building process. Few of us look forward to a building project, but all of us make use of the end results, so let's take a look behind the scenes at how the money does (and doesn't flow) between lenders, general contractor
How to Lend Money to Regenerative Farmers (MAD Agriculture)
"I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it." - Wendell BerryThe world that Robbie Vitrano and the team at Mad Agriculture is striving to create is so vastly different than the world that is, that nearly everything that they do bears certain madness. From heart to head, poetry to
Selling clarity in a volatile market (Credifsafe)
Twenty years ago, the economy of Zimbabwe hit global headlines for its hyper-inflation: Wikipedia tells me prices rose 89.7 sextillion percent in 2008. And while the decimal point here may create the illusion of something measurable, in all real terms, it is an incomprehensible number - something which The Zimbabwean Newspaper cleverly circumvented when it ran a protest campaign using a trillion d
How to set goals and actually achieve them this time!
A cross-over episode to celebrate our crossing over from 2024 to 2025 😜 a time we traditionally think about goals for the future. But while goal setting is common, goal achieving tends to be somewhat rarer - I'll personally be entering my 20th successive 'Year of the Body' with nothing but an even softer belly to show for the previous 19 years of good intentions.In this episode, we sat down with J
How to try a new podcast aka the hAIghtened senses feed take-over
I've been busy with the kids' end-of-year activities, with a bit of camping, with a bit of drinking in Belfast, with a bit of planning for a trip to Paris for the Olympics, with a bit of everything except podcast editing 😉 So, to fill the gap until next week, here's a taste of my other show: hAIghtened senses. From drones scanning the forests of Sweden looking for early signs of pest infestations
Innovation for interesting markets (Provenir)
Adrian Pllay has an unusually deep understanding of some of the world's more interesting markets. We've heard a lot about the US and the UK on this show but today, Adrian takes us off the beaten path: having been based at times in Africa and at times in the Middle East, he now oversees both of those regions as well as a little in-between! We talk about what he's learnt along the way, we get teased
Lenders leaping forward, with Paul Weiss (Simbuka)
"If my mom asks me what I do, I say I work for a company that helps financial institutions worldwide to make lending simple". Paul Weiss is talking about Simbuka in this quote, a young and passionate software development company, focusing on financial institutions that operate in developing and emerging markets. And since the name Simbuka originates from the Kinyarwanda language, what better locat
A global study of credit self-monitoring, with Charlie Wise (TransUnion)
In the last five years, one hundred million Americans have started to monitor their credit reports with TransUnion for the first time. One hundred million. And the same thing is happening all around the world. But just because everyone is doing it, doesn't mean they're doing it for the same reason: some consumers are in a bind and looking for a way back to good credit; some are planning a major lo
A modern, digital loan for India with Kabeer Chaudhary (ClickMyLoan)
"So as I as I always say, Brendan, India is now the coolest party in town and if you are late, you might not get in!"The story of Indian fintech is one of almost unimaginable speed and scale, and watching it from the front lines was Kabeer Chaudhary. So I sat down with him to talk about digitising loans and learning from banks and fintechs to deliver a project that works with loss rates that allow
Building a green credit score, with Daniel Mclean (4most)
As an industry, we've been using scorecards as objective and comparable measures of credit risk for generations. We've used this experience to get more and more accurate in those models, but there are other uses, too, like maybe an objective and comparable measure of environmental risk...I'm sitting down with Daniel Mclean, Client Partner at 4most, a specialist credit analytics firm that became a
Closing the SME funding gap, recorded live at Money20/20 with Rob Straathof (Liberis)
Last week I had the pleasure of hosting back-to-back live recordings of this podcast in the MoneyPot studio, a glass-walled thing of beauty on the Money20/20 show floor. The second of those was a data-backed dive into the world of frictionless and fair embedded business finance with Rob Straathod, CEO of Liberis - what I think could be one of the best use cases for Open Banking out there.You can f
Real-time data for collections, recorded live at Money20/20 with James Hill (Flexys)
Last week I had the pleasure of hosting back-to-back live recordings of this podcast in the MoneyPot studio, a glass-walled thing of beauty on the Money20/20 show floor. The first of those was an inspiring discussion about real-time data in collections with James Hill, CEO of Flexys Debt Management & Collections Software - what I think could be one of the best use cases for Open Banking out th
Lessons from the Chinese model, with Richard Turrin (Author & Consultant)
Five years ago, cash was involved in every fourth POS transaction in China. Today, it is involved in 1 in 14, and in two years, it is expected to be involved in just 1 in 33. The size and speed of that evaporation are undeniably impressive, but the most important lessons will be found by studying neither the size nor the speed at which those cash transactions evaporated but from studying where tho
Funding growth in modern economies, with Ritwik Ghosh (Seedflex)
Grab is by far the largest ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia, the largest food delivery platform, one of the largest digital payment methods, and now, thanks in part to the work of my guest, Ritwik Ghosh, the largest embedded FinTech lending business. That's an impressive set of achievements, but Ritwick and his co-founder, Sauvik Datta, still saw a gap: while Grab is an important platf
Fighting illegal money lending, with Catherine Wohlers (Stop Loan Sharks)
Last time the research was done in England, 1.1 million people were borrowing from illegal lenders... and that was two years ago, before the cost of living crisis which has surely pushed that number higher, so we're looking at somewhere between 1 in 30 and 1 in 40 adults. Those borrowers are facing a combination of threats and extortionate rates, and you're losing directly, too, because "if one of
Funding families, with John Aronica (Gaia)
"Roughly 15% of hopeful parents worldwide would be eligible for IVF - from a medical eligibility perspective - but today, only about 2% are able to access that care."It's all well and good financing cars or boats or sneakers, but sometimes we get a chance to finance something a little more important, like a house or, in this case, a family to fill it. Gaia are a wonderful example of that, embeddin
Cross-border lending in the EU, with Kaido Saar (MiFundo)
I was going to use a quote from Drachen here, because I remembered being quite proud of how I described Tallinn in there, but it turns out I remembered... generously So let's just say that Estonia is a fantastic place to visit this summer. But don't stop there, explore the other Baltic States while you're at it, maybe make a road trip of it and check out Poland, Czechia, and Germany, too. The bord
Understanding customers. Getting them into houses. with Chris Schutrups (The Mortgage Hut)
"It started by just going out and networking, listening to people, asking them what worked, what didn't work, you know, ringing up estate agents saying, look, I'd love to do your mortgages and walking up and down the high street with my briefcase."As much as I love featuring VC-funded, AI-powered, alternative data-consuming startups on this show, it is well worth remembering that there's still a v
Zero interest Zero fees Zero new credit, with Alex Forsyth-Thompson (Float)
“Buy now and pay in up to 24 monthly instalments using your existing credit card. Zero interest. Zero fees. Zero new credit.” With copy that good, you might not actually need to listen to this week’s episode 😉 But please do, it’s a really good one as we hear first hand from one of South Africa’s most exciting new fintech founders. Float is all about taking a payment tool that you already know and
Lending: it's a risky business, with Carolyn Rohm
Always curious, always outspoken, Carolyn Rohm has a deep passion for helping analysts and analytical teams to engage with the wider business and stakeholders to deliver solutions that provide real value and bottom-line benefits. In today’s episode, we talk about her career in credit risk, about the different nuances of credit risk analytics in high-risk and low-risk environments, about credit sco
Automating complex data-driven decisions, with Martin Chudoba (Taran)
The global covid pandemic shut down a lot of things, but new vehicle supply chains were among the hardest hit. A knock-on effect of that was that Taran, an advanced analytics and AI consultancy saw their hot lead for a new contract evaporate. But sometimes setbacks are really opportunities in disguise, and as Taran's leadership team adjusted to put all their eggs in their remaining project, they r
Mobile-first lending in Tanzania, with Nassor Abubakar (NMB Bank)
Caleb Maru called M-Pesa the "company that changed Kenya forever", and the crazy thing is, its impact was even bigger than that - because the dominoes that M-Pesafirst tipped over in Kenya, seventeen years ago, are still having an impact all over East Africa. In today's episode, I'm speaking to Nassor Abubakar, an M-Pesa veteran and digital lending expert who is spreading mobile-first digital loan
Unleashing CreditPy, with Ayhan Diş
In the world of data science, there are people like me, who have signed up for an online Python course but just not got around to starting it yet, and then there are people like Ayhan Diᶊ, who, given a spare month, create a Python package to succeed the highly successful CreditR by simplifying tasks such as variable analysis, model development, and calibration and validation with unparalleled effi
Have you talked to your kids about data science? With Daniele Forni (HSBC)
"Data is a bit like the blood of an organisation. It goes everywhere. However, because it goes everywhere, you cannot just silo it somewhere. Of course, you need to have some standards around data, but every part of the of a business has to be responsible for the data". Daniele Forni cuts through systems and technologies to solve the complex data issues that otherwise prevent financial instit
Streamlining Australian home loans, with Vincent Turner (Uno Home Loans)
Designers speak about 'the job to be done' - you don’t need a taxi or an Uber or tuk-tuk, you need to get home to bed; you don’t need a mortgage, you need to finance your house purchase; you don’t need to spend every second weekend researching market rates, you just need to be on the best deal you qualify for. In this episode, I speak to Vincent Turner about Australian mortgages, about startups an
Rwanda on the rise, with Sam Tayengwa (TransUnion)
Rwanda is rising as a regional financial centre, catching the East African fintech wave to drive economic and social transformation and to broaden financial inclusion. In today's episode, I'm speaking to TransUnion's CEO for Rwanda and Head of Africa Growth Regions, Sam Tayengwa to hear about the energy and progress that's bubbling to the surface there. We talk about mobile loans, of course, but a
A massively more inclusive credit score, with Charles Wandia (gnuGrid CRB)
The story of East African fintech is built around the mobile phone. Not the smartphone, mind you, but the humble feature phone. In markets where all but the most significant of locations lacked an established infrastructure of landlines and local bank branches, these phones leapfrogged both: powered by pre-paid sim cards that often served as a secondary currency and cleverly leveraged USSD technol
A canary in the credit mine, with James Fell (Credit Canary)
"At its core, Credit Canary is a data platform that consolidates and reconciles multiple different data sources in a standardised way to produce a really rich set of flags and real contextual insights. And the essence of that is flexibility within lending. With the data that we have, there is a great opportunity not just to help make better decisions, but to help make better lending products." - J
The only mortgage you'll ever need, with Arjan Verbeek (Perenna Bank)
"It's important that in every interest rate environment, in every market environment, an average family can afford an average home" - Arjan Verbeek, co-founder at Perenna Bank.The UK mortgage market has long been underpinned by the belief that, as long as the music kept playing, you would be able to refinance from one lender's short-term teaser rate to the next, without ever having to pay the full
Turbocharged AI analytics, with Carey Anderson (1datapipe)
Big data analytics used to require multiple sources of data, fed into your systems via a complex array of pipes of varying structural integrity: leaks, hassles, and something to be left to only the most advanced of data organisations. In today's episode, we find out how all that has changed:"As the name suggests, we are one big data pipe with a lot of information flowing through it, and we fuse th
Tokyo: Asia's next FinTech hub, with Morris Iwai
Japan is an uncommon blend of known and unknown: I drive a Nissan, you might drive a Toyota, my TV is a Sony, and since my time in Hong Kong, my go-to beer on hot days is an ice-cold pint of Asahi... but I know little about their FinTech scene. So, to set that right, I sat down with Morris Iwai, a seasoned business executive with 20+ years of experience in the credit card, consumer lending, and pa
Agile decision systems for modern lending needs, with Dmitriy Wolkenstein (Timvero)
You can't afford rigid systems in a world that moves fast, but also, for a long time at least, you couldn't afford agile systems in a more dollars and cents sort of way. But these days you can.Timvero's solutions are all laid out at https://timvero.com/ or head towards a demo by jumping straight to https://timvero.com/request-a-demo/ You're welcome to start a discussion with Dmitriy over on Linke
Aiming when you can't see the target, with Clare McCaffery (DirectID) and Jacobus Eksteen (Matogen AI)
When you want a model, you typically start with a target variable in mind. But sometimes that's not possible. Perhaps you're entering a new market or expanding into a new niche, you could start lending on a small scale and wait to see what happens. We used to call that a deep risk test, often somewhat euphemistically when a cohort was accidentally approved through a gap in the system. But even if
Optimising credit limit increases for profit, with Cristian Bravo (Western University)
"Causality is the new explainability."We all know credit limit increases are one of the most, if not the most, important levers in the card profit model. And we all know the reality of managing credit limits is far more complicated than the theory - every action has a reaction and all of that. So we focus on pulling back and releasing the spring of the pinball machine and then just get ready to re
Multi-currency and cross-border lending, with Jorge Juttner (Ritmo) and Maggie Gemmill (Currencycloud)
I've got a drawer in my bedside table that is filled with an assortment of foreign notes and coins: euros and dollars and Rands that I need relatively often but that I'll nevertheless forget to take when I travel next; some Indian rupees that have long since been decommissioned; some Hong Kong dollars because how can it have taken me four years to find an excuse to get back; some, what I think are
Who defaults on Covid loans, with Maurizio Fiaschetti (University College London)
No good deed goes unpunished and no well-intentioned government loan program goes undefaulted upon, even more so when that government program was designed and implemented in the chaotic early days of the COVID lockdowns.We've all seen the headlines, but what do the numbers say, what sort of businesses have been defaulting on COVID loans in the UK? Well, Dr Maurizio Fiaschetti is writing the paper
AI-powered lending for Colombian businesses, with Viviana Siless (Quipu Bank)
Nearly two out of every three Colombian jobs are in the informal economy! That's a huge number that needs to come down, and no doubt it will, but until then, someone really needs to bring the benefits of formal financing to the small business owners in the informal sector. Enter Quipu with whose AI-powered loan decisions "growing is easier, fairer and more alternative".You can find Viviana on Link
The right content in the right hands at the right time, with Nicky Senyard (Fintel Connect)
We all love how easy it is to change bank accounts these days... until it is our customers (and their planned-on deposits) who are moving. After all, we just sent them a pamphlet that very clearly invited them to apply for a loan at an APR of between 5% and 25% variable on term and risk and changes in the base rate, and subject to final credit checks, and late fees and penalties could apply in cer
Lithuanian fintech is compact and agile, with Jekaterina Rojaka (Creditinfo)
It's only thirty years since Lithuania's broke free from the Soviet Union, but already it's home a buzzing fintech scene: "Leapfrogging was probably the largest idea behind the Lithuanian success". Join me and Jekaterina Rojaka, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Creditinfo Lietuva, as we explore the roots of that success.Creditinfo Lithuania can be found at https://lt.creditinfo.com/en/ or jump st
KYC Better, with Sasha Marley (Bonafidee)
"Trust matters more than ever, but in today's anonymous landscape, it is becoming rarer by the day. (At Bondafidee) we want to change that."I recently sat down with Sasha Marley for one of the most personal interviews I've done here, because fraud isn't just a numbers thing, it has very real human impacts.Bonafidee is at home online home at https://bonafidee.com/ (or jump straight to YourQNA at ht
Building the scaffolding for a Nigerian credit boom, with Adedeji Olowe (Lendsqr)
Nigeria is Africa's biggest economy. Or maybe not quite, economic variables can be hard to measure and somewhat fickle, but whatever way you slice this cake, it is in the top three with Egypt and South Africa. Fintech has played a growing role in that economy, but until now, almost none of the 'fin' that the 'tech' has been modernising was lending-related."I knew that if Nigeria was going to grow
Loans to build communities, with Moishe Gubin (Optimum Bank)
Moishe Gubin is a workhorse, a mule. And now it's paying off: for him, for the banks he leads, and for the communities they serve. In today's episode we chat about work ethic and an old-fashioned path from the bottom to the top, we chat about what communities are, and we talk about bankers becoming a footnote in someone else's success story.Optimum Bank are at home at https://www.optimumbank.com/
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