1
00:00:06,110 --> 00:00:09,189
Speaker 1: Welcome to Copy Time, a podcast series on Markets and

2
00:00:09,199 --> 00:00:12,270
Speaker 1: Economies from D BS Group Research. I'm Tam Rbe, chief economist.

3
00:00:12,470 --> 00:00:17,450
Speaker 1: Welcoming you to our 116th episode. Today's discussion is about

4
00:00:17,459 --> 00:00:21,340
Speaker 1: tech's role in payments and investment to do that we

5
00:00:21,350 --> 00:00:24,510
Speaker 1: have with uh Cesar San Gupta who as Google's VP

6
00:00:24,520 --> 00:00:27,450
Speaker 1: and GM of payments and the next billion users initiative

7
00:00:27,459 --> 00:00:31,129
Speaker 1: let Google pay which went from 0 to 200 plus

8
00:00:31,139 --> 00:00:33,930
Speaker 1: million users in the span of just five years.

9
00:00:34,340 --> 00:00:37,528
Speaker 1: Caesar is presently the CEO and co founder of art,

10
00:00:37,619 --> 00:00:41,869
Speaker 1: a finance which equips professionals with their own digital family office.

11
00:00:42,119 --> 00:00:45,330
Speaker 1: RTA is available in the US for accredited investors with

12
00:00:45,340 --> 00:00:49,888
Speaker 1: other countries like Singapore. Coming soon. Caesar. Welcome to go time.

13
00:00:49,900 --> 00:00:52,110
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Great to

14
00:00:52,119 --> 00:00:54,619
Speaker 1: have you, Cesar lot to talk about both the payments

15
00:00:54,630 --> 00:00:56,880
Speaker 1: and the investment space. But first, the payment side,

16
00:00:57,209 --> 00:01:02,819
Speaker 1: um digital payments are not new, uh telegraphs were used

17
00:01:02,830 --> 00:01:06,180
Speaker 1: to do payments and as payment instructions and particularly way

18
00:01:06,190 --> 00:01:09,470
Speaker 1: back in the late 18 hundreds, central banks and commercial

19
00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:12,120
Speaker 1: banks have been transacting with each other and making and

20
00:01:12,129 --> 00:01:16,349
Speaker 1: settling payments since the 19 sixties. So what's new about

21
00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,509
Speaker 1: payments in the past two decades? And why is it

22
00:01:19,519 --> 00:01:22,190
Speaker 1: profoundly transformational? Which I'm sure you believe it is? Yeah, I,

23
00:01:22,199 --> 00:01:25,768
Speaker 2: I think payments is the foundation of everything that finance

24
00:01:25,779 --> 00:01:26,309
Speaker 2: works on

25
00:01:26,580 --> 00:01:29,339
Speaker 2: and you're absolutely right that digital payments have been around

26
00:01:29,349 --> 00:01:33,239
Speaker 2: but for a while, but the primary form of usage

27
00:01:33,250 --> 00:01:38,510
Speaker 2: of digital payments was primarily for large payments. Right. Wire transfers,

28
00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:43,849
Speaker 2: transfers across countries, bank to bank transfers, most enterprise payments today,

29
00:01:43,860 --> 00:01:48,639
Speaker 2: at least sophisticated companies are not exchanging checks anymore. Us

30
00:01:48,650 --> 00:01:50,419
Speaker 2: still has a lot of checks but globally, I think

31
00:01:50,430 --> 00:01:51,440
Speaker 2: that's all been digitized.

32
00:01:51,769 --> 00:01:54,519
Speaker 2: But there is one very big category of payments that

33
00:01:54,529 --> 00:01:57,900
Speaker 2: has not been digitized, which is regular people using cash, right?

34
00:01:57,910 --> 00:02:01,139
Speaker 2: And many parts of the world people are still using

35
00:02:01,150 --> 00:02:05,089
Speaker 2: cash or checks. Sadly, even in Singapore where we have

36
00:02:05,099 --> 00:02:07,970
Speaker 2: such high penetration of digital payments, we still write checks

37
00:02:07,980 --> 00:02:10,529
Speaker 2: every so often, right? We still have our checkbooks and

38
00:02:10,538 --> 00:02:13,398
Speaker 2: I have my DBS checkbooks that every month I'll scratch

39
00:02:13,410 --> 00:02:14,059
Speaker 2: stuff out on.

40
00:02:14,380 --> 00:02:17,919
Speaker 2: So the space of consumer payments and particularly for small

41
00:02:17,929 --> 00:02:21,960
Speaker 2: payments and cash has has been the one that has

42
00:02:21,970 --> 00:02:24,240
Speaker 2: seen the most amount of transformation in the last couple

43
00:02:24,250 --> 00:02:27,139
Speaker 2: of decades. And if you look at two countries where

44
00:02:27,149 --> 00:02:29,990
Speaker 2: this transformation has been most profound, I mean, this has

45
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:35,049
Speaker 2: brought about incredible opportunities for particularly the individuals, the small

46
00:02:35,059 --> 00:02:38,009
Speaker 2: vendors and the overall economy at large. These two countries

47
00:02:38,020 --> 00:02:39,638
Speaker 2: are China and India.

48
00:02:40,169 --> 00:02:43,429
Speaker 2: So China was the first to adopt digital payments driven

49
00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:49,579
Speaker 2: primarily by wechat and Alipay. And today it's inconceivable in

50
00:02:49,589 --> 00:02:52,289
Speaker 2: China to think about paying out with cash in most places,

51
00:02:52,758 --> 00:02:56,448
Speaker 2: wherever you go, whatever scale you can just use QR

52
00:02:56,460 --> 00:02:57,770
Speaker 2: Codes and do that.

53
00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:03,339
Speaker 2: India was pretty much a cash country till 2017, 2018. Right?

54
00:03:03,350 --> 00:03:06,190
Speaker 2: And the government had done demonetization to try to drive

55
00:03:06,199 --> 00:03:09,538
Speaker 2: adoption of digital payments, but it only had a short

56
00:03:09,550 --> 00:03:13,529
Speaker 2: transitory effect. But the introduction of this new standard called

57
00:03:13,538 --> 00:03:16,529
Speaker 2: the unified payment interface or up and then Google pay

58
00:03:16,538 --> 00:03:19,038
Speaker 2: as well as other players like phone pay coming on

59
00:03:19,050 --> 00:03:21,770
Speaker 2: building products. On top of that transformed the economy.

60
00:03:21,979 --> 00:03:25,359
Speaker 2: And in a short span from 2018 till today, four

61
00:03:25,369 --> 00:03:27,639
Speaker 2: or five years is not a very long time in

62
00:03:27,649 --> 00:03:31,679
Speaker 2: human history today. If you walk around in India, you know,

63
00:03:31,690 --> 00:03:35,289
Speaker 2: you will see beggars with QR codes and small merchants

64
00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:38,360
Speaker 2: and people are paying their gardeners and the security and

65
00:03:38,369 --> 00:03:42,399
Speaker 2: the scale of payments is profound, right? You know, I could,

66
00:03:42,410 --> 00:03:44,979
Speaker 2: I'd often do this quiz with people on like just

67
00:03:44,990 --> 00:03:47,160
Speaker 2: guess how much in

68
00:03:47,679 --> 00:03:51,479
Speaker 2: us dollar annual equivalence just goes through a product like

69
00:03:51,490 --> 00:03:54,380
Speaker 2: Google pay on average. I don't know the latest numbers,

70
00:03:54,389 --> 00:03:56,279
Speaker 2: but I remember the numbers that were there a couple

71
00:03:56,289 --> 00:03:58,000
Speaker 2: of years back and a lot of these numbers are public,

72
00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:01,470
Speaker 2: but most people guess it's like a billion, 2 billion,

73
00:04:01,479 --> 00:04:04,649
Speaker 2: 3 billion. No it's getting close to a trillion dollars

74
00:04:04,660 --> 00:04:08,020
Speaker 2: in us dollars, analyze payments. And that's just on one platform,

75
00:04:08,259 --> 00:04:10,470
Speaker 2: phone pay is about the same size, there are a

76
00:04:10,479 --> 00:04:14,059
Speaker 2: few other players. So the scale of almost 30 to

77
00:04:14,070 --> 00:04:14,300
Speaker 2: 40

78
00:04:14,375 --> 00:04:17,535
Speaker 2: percent of India's GDP now is moving through this platform

79
00:04:17,635 --> 00:04:19,654
Speaker 2: which goes through this. And there are three things that

80
00:04:19,665 --> 00:04:23,265
Speaker 2: are really profound in what made this happen. Right? First

81
00:04:23,274 --> 00:04:26,225
Speaker 2: is mobile, this would not be possible unless everybody was

82
00:04:26,234 --> 00:04:29,095
Speaker 2: carrying a device that was in their pockets that could

83
00:04:29,105 --> 00:04:30,315
Speaker 2: be used to pay.

84
00:04:30,709 --> 00:04:33,160
Speaker 2: Second was real time payments. And this is where I

85
00:04:33,170 --> 00:04:35,670
Speaker 2: think the Indian government N PC and the banks played

86
00:04:35,678 --> 00:04:38,899
Speaker 2: a massive role. They enabled this up infrastructure that allows

87
00:04:38,910 --> 00:04:41,760
Speaker 2: money to move bank to bank. Singapore has a similar

88
00:04:41,769 --> 00:04:45,769
Speaker 2: structure called fast, right? And these have been profound in

89
00:04:45,779 --> 00:04:49,010
Speaker 2: helping money move across. But the third thing that the

90
00:04:49,019 --> 00:04:51,609
Speaker 2: Indian planners and the government and the banks got right

91
00:04:51,619 --> 00:04:53,089
Speaker 2: was small payments,

92
00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:56,359
Speaker 2: small payments are critical in moving people away from cash, right?

93
00:04:56,369 --> 00:05:01,719
Speaker 2: When you're paying your vegetable seller or your gardener, you're

94
00:05:01,730 --> 00:05:05,219
Speaker 2: paying in like ₹10.20 rupees, ₹30 and being able to

95
00:05:05,230 --> 00:05:08,519
Speaker 2: do these at essentially free pricing. And then maybe having

96
00:05:08,529 --> 00:05:10,039
Speaker 2: pricing once you get to a higher level

97
00:05:10,678 --> 00:05:14,260
Speaker 2: was transformative in terms of getting the shift to happen

98
00:05:14,269 --> 00:05:16,640
Speaker 2: so long answer. But as you can see, it is

99
00:05:16,709 --> 00:05:19,010
Speaker 2: a huge change in these markets.

100
00:05:19,019 --> 00:05:20,500
Speaker 1: Absolutely intriguing. Let me just ask you a couple of

101
00:05:20,510 --> 00:05:25,480
Speaker 1: follow up questions. So what is the balance between making payments, ubiquitous,

102
00:05:25,790 --> 00:05:31,599
Speaker 1: easy to do against ID, theft and scamming or fraud

103
00:05:31,609 --> 00:05:32,630
Speaker 1: or theft outright.

104
00:05:32,940 --> 00:05:35,489
Speaker 1: Who's doing a better job in this when you look

105
00:05:35,500 --> 00:05:38,149
Speaker 1: around the world? Because regulators in India may have a

106
00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:40,459
Speaker 1: different approach than the regulators in China or the ones

107
00:05:40,470 --> 00:05:42,010
Speaker 1: in Brazil. What's your sense?

108
00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:45,000
Speaker 2: So I think the world and payments have sort of

109
00:05:45,010 --> 00:05:49,118
Speaker 2: been split into three parts. I'm going to leave China

110
00:05:49,130 --> 00:05:51,200
Speaker 2: aside for a second because China is a very different

111
00:05:51,209 --> 00:05:54,369
Speaker 2: market with a couple of big platforms that are not

112
00:05:54,380 --> 00:05:56,589
Speaker 2: just payment, but tie everything into your life together.

113
00:05:56,890 --> 00:05:59,600
Speaker 2: The other two sort of regimes in the world are

114
00:05:59,609 --> 00:06:03,149
Speaker 2: the credit card world, which is us Europe, part of

115
00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:06,290
Speaker 2: Singapore and largely India Brazil. And this is sort of

116
00:06:06,299 --> 00:06:09,010
Speaker 2: what I would call the bank to bank payment world, right?

117
00:06:09,019 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 2: And this is real time payments and the regimes have

118
00:06:12,609 --> 00:06:16,209
Speaker 2: evolved differently in terms of security and identity. The credit

119
00:06:16,220 --> 00:06:18,940
Speaker 2: card world actually kind of assumes that there's going to

120
00:06:18,950 --> 00:06:22,000
Speaker 2: be some of fraud that some amount is gonna get used.

121
00:06:22,010 --> 00:06:24,618
Speaker 2: You will get go through wrong places. And so

122
00:06:24,850 --> 00:06:27,209
Speaker 2: the way they have approached it is you can call

123
00:06:27,220 --> 00:06:30,230
Speaker 2: your credit card company, your bank and you're protected against

124
00:06:30,238 --> 00:06:33,670
Speaker 2: the responsibility sits on the bank to sort of ensure

125
00:06:33,678 --> 00:06:36,899
Speaker 2: that their credit card users are adequately protected, right? So

126
00:06:36,910 --> 00:06:39,589
Speaker 2: you have two factor and things like that and that's

127
00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:43,019
Speaker 2: worked pretty well. And, you know, over the years, industry

128
00:06:43,029 --> 00:06:45,269
Speaker 2: sort of done a lot of work led by Visa

129
00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:48,549
Speaker 2: Mastercard to sort of create a risk free system, not

130
00:06:48,559 --> 00:06:50,178
Speaker 2: risk free but a risk manage system.

131
00:06:50,910 --> 00:06:56,510
Speaker 2: The second part, India, Brazil, these countries don't have, didn't

132
00:06:56,519 --> 00:06:59,750
Speaker 2: traditionally have a risk infrastructure where you could do credit

133
00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:00,890
Speaker 2: ratings and things like that.

134
00:07:01,100 --> 00:07:03,910
Speaker 2: So they evolved national identities. So India has a system

135
00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:07,920
Speaker 2: called Adar in Singapore. Actually, we have very strong identity

136
00:07:07,928 --> 00:07:11,540
Speaker 2: tied to fast. All bank accounts are tied to our numbers.

137
00:07:11,790 --> 00:07:15,160
Speaker 2: Brazil has a similar system called picks. And what these

138
00:07:15,170 --> 00:07:18,299
Speaker 2: systems did was they allowed the government to create sort

139
00:07:18,309 --> 00:07:22,470
Speaker 2: of a layer of security that's based on digital identity

140
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,839
Speaker 2: provided by the government by the overall infrastructure. So in India,

141
00:07:25,850 --> 00:07:25,959
Speaker 2: for

142
00:07:26,036 --> 00:07:31,066
Speaker 2: example, by account of having another card or an ID number,

143
00:07:31,186 --> 00:07:33,355
Speaker 2: you can immediately open a bank account, you don't need

144
00:07:33,365 --> 00:07:35,985
Speaker 2: anything else. Now your bank account then gets tied to

145
00:07:35,996 --> 00:07:39,696
Speaker 2: your other ID. So that helps mitigate fraud and risk

146
00:07:39,786 --> 00:07:41,656
Speaker 2: quite a bit. So I think those are the two

147
00:07:41,665 --> 00:07:44,696
Speaker 2: regimes that have evolved. Singapore is interesting. We sort of

148
00:07:44,726 --> 00:07:46,966
Speaker 2: have a bit of the credit card world and a

149
00:07:46,976 --> 00:07:50,805
Speaker 2: bit of the cash, digital payments world. And it will

150
00:07:50,816 --> 00:07:50,895
Speaker 2: be

151
00:07:50,971 --> 00:07:53,191
Speaker 2: interesting to see how the rest of the world evolves.

152
00:07:53,691 --> 00:07:57,261
Speaker 1: So when I used to travel to Japan 1520 years ago,

153
00:07:57,272 --> 00:08:00,391
Speaker 1: I thought that was the future hub for all the

154
00:08:00,402 --> 00:08:02,622
Speaker 1: innovation and digital payment, they had like three G, four

155
00:08:02,631 --> 00:08:05,881
Speaker 1: G phones before everybody else. NTD Docomo seemed to be

156
00:08:05,891 --> 00:08:08,582
Speaker 1: like in the forefront of innovation and they sort of

157
00:08:08,592 --> 00:08:10,821
Speaker 1: lost their way. And then we saw a huge amount

158
00:08:10,832 --> 00:08:13,071
Speaker 1: of innovation happening in China and then like the likes

159
00:08:13,082 --> 00:08:15,832
Speaker 1: of India where there was a lot of ground up development.

160
00:08:16,209 --> 00:08:20,769
Speaker 1: So what explains success of certain economies and countries and

161
00:08:20,779 --> 00:08:24,190
Speaker 1: ecosystems and not that much success in other places? That's

162
00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:27,269
Speaker 2: a great question. This is something that we thought about

163
00:08:27,279 --> 00:08:28,989
Speaker 2: a lot when we were at Google. Like what is

164
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:33,630
Speaker 2: the key difference between a system like up really flourishing

165
00:08:33,640 --> 00:08:37,608
Speaker 2: or a system like ps flourishing versus to an extent,

166
00:08:37,619 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 2: even Singapore where fast is used but nothing close to

167
00:08:40,929 --> 00:08:43,030
Speaker 2: up and things have happened.

168
00:08:43,739 --> 00:08:46,179
Speaker 2: And I think it comes down to, in my opinion,

169
00:08:46,190 --> 00:08:49,609
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert, you're an economist. You know, my

170
00:08:49,619 --> 00:08:54,520
Speaker 2: view is it's about interoperability and open systems. So Japan

171
00:08:54,530 --> 00:08:56,700
Speaker 2: in a way is a classic example of this. They

172
00:08:56,710 --> 00:08:59,789
Speaker 2: were an early adopter of many technologies, but they kind

173
00:08:59,799 --> 00:09:03,510
Speaker 2: of went on their own evolutionary branch in history, right?

174
00:09:03,520 --> 00:09:06,449
Speaker 2: So if you see the tap and pay in Japan

175
00:09:06,719 --> 00:09:07,909
Speaker 2: for transit

176
00:09:08,030 --> 00:09:11,119
Speaker 2: works faster than most other countries, it's called swa but

177
00:09:11,130 --> 00:09:13,729
Speaker 2: it's a different standard. Nowhere else in the world uses

178
00:09:13,739 --> 00:09:15,619
Speaker 2: that standard. So in a way, the risk of being

179
00:09:15,630 --> 00:09:18,340
Speaker 2: an early adopter was they kind of went off a

180
00:09:18,349 --> 00:09:20,849
Speaker 2: little bit on their own branch, right? And that, that

181
00:09:20,859 --> 00:09:24,210
Speaker 2: then doesn't benefit from the scale economies. On the other hand,

182
00:09:24,219 --> 00:09:27,210
Speaker 2: once you get to standards, and this is why from

183
00:09:27,219 --> 00:09:29,390
Speaker 2: a Google perspective, when I was there, we pushed very

184
00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:30,609
Speaker 2: hard for open standards

185
00:09:31,049 --> 00:09:35,590
Speaker 2: that were interoperable across banks across other players because then

186
00:09:35,599 --> 00:09:38,890
Speaker 2: the entire ecosystem is pushing today in India, for example,

187
00:09:38,900 --> 00:09:41,299
Speaker 2: or not super familiar with the latest in Brazil. but

188
00:09:41,309 --> 00:09:42,960
Speaker 2: that's how a couple of years back when I was

189
00:09:42,969 --> 00:09:45,119
Speaker 2: still enrolled, it was set up, you know, when you

190
00:09:45,130 --> 00:09:47,940
Speaker 2: have one particular payment app, you can make a payment

191
00:09:47,950 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 2: using somebody else's QR code, right? That instantly creates a

192
00:09:51,890 --> 00:09:56,539
Speaker 2: much bigger ecosystem and these are public goods in my view, right?

193
00:09:56,690 --> 00:09:59,059
Speaker 2: So these can't be designed in a way

194
00:09:59,719 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 2: where it only works one bank to one bank, right?

195
00:10:03,010 --> 00:10:05,359
Speaker 2: They have to work where when you use your credit

196
00:10:05,369 --> 00:10:07,580
Speaker 2: card you don't think about like, oh, is my DBS

197
00:10:07,590 --> 00:10:10,309
Speaker 2: credit card gonna work? What machine does the other person

198
00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:12,020
Speaker 2: have on the other side? Right? Is it, is it

199
00:10:12,030 --> 00:10:14,239
Speaker 2: some other banks? You know, it's gonna work and that's

200
00:10:14,250 --> 00:10:17,900
Speaker 2: what the ecosystem around Visa and mastercard and Amex have

201
00:10:17,909 --> 00:10:20,900
Speaker 2: sort of created the same system needs to be created

202
00:10:20,909 --> 00:10:23,260
Speaker 2: for this sort of digital payments world, right? Where it's

203
00:10:23,270 --> 00:10:24,020
Speaker 2: open and intro.

204
00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:26,369
Speaker 2: So I think that was one of the one of

205
00:10:26,380 --> 00:10:29,340
Speaker 2: the key things like one element of like India that

206
00:10:29,349 --> 00:10:32,599
Speaker 2: worked very well is this thing called the Bharat QR, right?

207
00:10:32,609 --> 00:10:34,950
Speaker 2: That was a standard that was set by the government

208
00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:38,219
Speaker 2: and as anyone could acquire a merchant and now any

209
00:10:38,229 --> 00:10:40,489
Speaker 2: user with any payment app could use that.

210
00:10:40,890 --> 00:10:44,849
Speaker 2: So I think that inter operability is super, super interesting.

211
00:10:44,859 --> 00:10:47,030
Speaker 2: I mean, Singapore went a little bit in that direction

212
00:10:47,039 --> 00:10:50,218
Speaker 2: with SG QR, but I think the implementation is terrible

213
00:10:50,719 --> 00:10:54,539
Speaker 2: and wasn't as easy and seamless as you know, as

214
00:10:54,549 --> 00:10:57,069
Speaker 2: the Indian Indian system was right?

215
00:10:57,520 --> 00:10:59,690
Speaker 1: You want to put China aside earlier a little bit.

216
00:10:59,700 --> 00:11:01,419
Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about China now.

217
00:11:01,659 --> 00:11:05,849
Speaker 1: So when I look at Elon Musk's ambition with X,

218
00:11:05,859 --> 00:11:07,789
Speaker 1: it seems like he wants to have this sort of

219
00:11:07,799 --> 00:11:11,630
Speaker 1: a broad ecosystem that embeds social media and shopping and payment,

220
00:11:11,640 --> 00:11:15,039
Speaker 1: everything within one app. It hasn't really taken off anywhere

221
00:11:15,049 --> 00:11:17,760
Speaker 1: else other than China. What's the story

222
00:11:17,770 --> 00:11:21,199
Speaker 2: there? That's actually not quite correct in India, Google Pay.

223
00:11:21,210 --> 00:11:23,000
Speaker 2: And I would say one of our main competitors, phone

224
00:11:23,010 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 2: pay both have built that.

225
00:11:24,809 --> 00:11:28,409
Speaker 2: So today in a it's a super app and they

226
00:11:28,419 --> 00:11:30,679
Speaker 2: evolved in a different direction from the Chinese products. They

227
00:11:30,690 --> 00:11:33,830
Speaker 2: started as Chinese products typically started as chat apps first.

228
00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:37,570
Speaker 2: That was wechat Alipay was more of a traditional approach

229
00:11:37,580 --> 00:11:40,348
Speaker 2: where wechat started as a chat product and then added payments, right?

230
00:11:40,750 --> 00:11:43,260
Speaker 2: And maybe Twitter will go in that direction. Google Pay

231
00:11:43,270 --> 00:11:46,559
Speaker 2: started as a payments app primarily facilitating peer to peer payments.

232
00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:50,030
Speaker 2: And then enabled merchants today on Google pay, you can

233
00:11:50,039 --> 00:11:53,380
Speaker 2: get a loan, you can put saving stuff in, you

234
00:11:53,390 --> 00:11:56,539
Speaker 2: can buy air tickets, you can order pizza, you can

235
00:11:56,549 --> 00:11:59,340
Speaker 2: order flowers like everything is on it. Right? There's a

236
00:11:59,349 --> 00:12:03,280
Speaker 2: whole architecture of micro apps that in ways are similar

237
00:12:03,289 --> 00:12:08,069
Speaker 2: to wechat experience that enables you to do a

238
00:12:08,145 --> 00:12:12,364
Speaker 2: variety of things on the product. You can even chat on,

239
00:12:12,375 --> 00:12:14,934
Speaker 2: on the product. I mean, we tend, when I was there,

240
00:12:14,945 --> 00:12:18,064
Speaker 2: we tended, it was quite surprising. We saw it was

241
00:12:18,075 --> 00:12:21,145
Speaker 2: one of Google's most used chat apps. It had nothing

242
00:12:21,155 --> 00:12:22,875
Speaker 2: to do with chat, but it would be like a

243
00:12:22,945 --> 00:12:26,174
Speaker 2: vegetable seller word, right? Quote you a price and you

244
00:12:26,184 --> 00:12:28,844
Speaker 2: would negotiate on that and then you would make the

245
00:12:28,854 --> 00:12:32,645
Speaker 2: payment and rather than doing it across different products going

246
00:12:32,655 --> 00:12:34,684
Speaker 2: and doing it in this was a was a more

247
00:12:34,695 --> 00:12:35,645
Speaker 2: natural use case.

248
00:12:37,039 --> 00:12:41,118
Speaker 2: So I'm interested in seeing where Elon takes Twitter is

249
00:12:41,390 --> 00:12:45,500
Speaker 2: one of the smartest, most innovative product builders in the world.

250
00:12:45,510 --> 00:12:49,909
Speaker 2: But it remains to be seen whether you can take

251
00:12:49,919 --> 00:12:51,260
Speaker 2: a social network app

252
00:12:51,640 --> 00:12:54,439
Speaker 2: and transition it to a payments app in most markets

253
00:12:54,789 --> 00:12:58,169
Speaker 2: because what people's expectations are, are very different. And I

254
00:12:58,179 --> 00:13:00,640
Speaker 2: think payment tabs like even when we build Google Pay,

255
00:13:00,650 --> 00:13:02,949
Speaker 2: we build it separate from all of other Google products

256
00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:05,239
Speaker 2: because it had to convey a certain level of security,

257
00:13:05,260 --> 00:13:08,640
Speaker 2: a certain level of reassurance, you know, Google pay had

258
00:13:08,650 --> 00:13:11,119
Speaker 2: a phone number anybody could call if they had an

259
00:13:11,130 --> 00:13:13,369
Speaker 2: issue because when you're dealing with payments,

260
00:13:13,664 --> 00:13:16,484
Speaker 2: it's not the same as, you know, any consumer products.

261
00:13:16,494 --> 00:13:18,875
Speaker 2: It's not like putting up photos or sharing your much

262
00:13:18,885 --> 00:13:22,125
Speaker 2: greater sense of urgency, much greater sense of urgency, the reliance,

263
00:13:22,135 --> 00:13:24,445
Speaker 2: the confidence has to be very different, right? So it's

264
00:13:24,455 --> 00:13:27,593
Speaker 2: somewhere between those two. So it be interesting to

265
00:13:27,604 --> 00:13:31,784
Speaker 1: see and what about sort of meta whatsapp environment? I mean,

266
00:13:31,794 --> 00:13:33,684
Speaker 1: how come we are not seeing it like more payment

267
00:13:33,695 --> 00:13:35,645
Speaker 1: and again, like a Chinese style super app?

268
00:13:36,210 --> 00:13:38,960
Speaker 2: So that's probably, I mean, that's probably a great question, right?

269
00:13:38,969 --> 00:13:42,909
Speaker 2: WhatsApp launched up payments but hasn't had an impact in

270
00:13:42,919 --> 00:13:44,599
Speaker 2: India at all. Right. And

271
00:13:45,119 --> 00:13:48,250
Speaker 2: I don't know why there are lots of hypothesis. One

272
00:13:48,260 --> 00:13:51,880
Speaker 2: of the hypothesis that people think of chat apps in

273
00:13:51,890 --> 00:13:54,679
Speaker 2: a different part of their brain as a lightweight thing

274
00:13:54,690 --> 00:13:57,630
Speaker 2: versus payment apps where there's a lot more interest of

275
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:00,140
Speaker 2: reliability and reassurance. Right.

276
00:14:00,260 --> 00:14:03,369
Speaker 1: Right. OK. So you have alluded to your experience in

277
00:14:03,380 --> 00:14:05,780
Speaker 1: Google several times. So let's talk about that. How did

278
00:14:05,789 --> 00:14:07,709
Speaker 1: you get into the world of digital payments?

279
00:14:09,109 --> 00:14:12,669
Speaker 2: It was actually in a way very fortuitous. So I,

280
00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:18,439
Speaker 2: I had been Google for 78 years, my boss then

281
00:14:18,450 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 2: who is a CEO soar P, he had just taken

282
00:14:22,090 --> 00:14:24,520
Speaker 2: over as CEO. And one of the things that he

283
00:14:24,530 --> 00:14:28,710
Speaker 2: was worried about was that Google wasn't investing enough in

284
00:14:28,719 --> 00:14:31,140
Speaker 2: sort of the new trends coming out of the younger

285
00:14:31,150 --> 00:14:32,929
Speaker 2: users and newer users of the internet,

286
00:14:33,679 --> 00:14:35,289
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot of these users, we were

287
00:14:35,299 --> 00:14:38,989
Speaker 2: starting to see huge adoption of Google products and services,

288
00:14:39,109 --> 00:14:44,859
Speaker 2: Android search maps, youtube from countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria,

289
00:14:44,869 --> 00:14:49,640
Speaker 2: even China. And he wanted to have a very specific

290
00:14:49,650 --> 00:14:51,219
Speaker 2: focused effort on that

291
00:14:51,570 --> 00:14:54,369
Speaker 2: my family and I wanted to move back to Singapore

292
00:14:54,380 --> 00:14:56,429
Speaker 2: for a while. So he put two and two together

293
00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:58,260
Speaker 2: and he said, why don't you move back to Singapore

294
00:14:58,549 --> 00:15:01,409
Speaker 2: and start the next billion users effort? And part of

295
00:15:01,419 --> 00:15:03,369
Speaker 2: it is I want you to help make all of

296
00:15:03,380 --> 00:15:07,159
Speaker 2: Google's products better. And so think about what you would

297
00:15:07,169 --> 00:15:09,489
Speaker 2: do to sort of make these products work better for

298
00:15:09,500 --> 00:15:12,010
Speaker 2: these next billion users. But also you have a charter

299
00:15:12,020 --> 00:15:13,099
Speaker 2: to create new products.

300
00:15:13,619 --> 00:15:15,690
Speaker 2: And so in the former, we did a bunch of

301
00:15:15,700 --> 00:15:19,940
Speaker 2: stuff like youtube offline, Google Maps offline, great partnerships with

302
00:15:19,950 --> 00:15:22,369
Speaker 2: those teams, Android, one with the Android team.

303
00:15:22,799 --> 00:15:26,929
Speaker 2: But when we look deeper into the new opportunities, it

304
00:15:26,940 --> 00:15:30,750
Speaker 2: was very clear to us that digital payments and being

305
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:33,809
Speaker 2: able to play a role in enabling that at a

306
00:15:33,820 --> 00:15:36,909
Speaker 2: scale would be transformed. So, c which year was this,

307
00:15:37,159 --> 00:15:42,979
Speaker 2: this was 2015, 2015. So 2015, you know, we started

308
00:15:42,989 --> 00:15:45,090
Speaker 2: looking into it, we could see what was happening in China.

309
00:15:45,099 --> 00:15:48,330
Speaker 2: China was sort of midway through the transition, traditional payments.

310
00:15:48,770 --> 00:15:51,500
Speaker 2: And so as we started looking around the region. We

311
00:15:51,510 --> 00:15:54,270
Speaker 2: realized that in the Indian government and particularly some parts

312
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,169
Speaker 2: of the Indian government, like the National Payments Corporation of

313
00:15:57,179 --> 00:16:00,690
Speaker 2: India and PC, which is a quasi government body. There

314
00:16:00,700 --> 00:16:03,729
Speaker 2: was a very great partner who really wanted to see

315
00:16:03,739 --> 00:16:06,859
Speaker 2: something like this happen. And so we started working together

316
00:16:06,869 --> 00:16:09,090
Speaker 2: with them, with some of the largest banks in India,

317
00:16:09,099 --> 00:16:14,729
Speaker 2: all the top four banks, HDFC, Access I State Bank

318
00:16:14,739 --> 00:16:15,340
Speaker 2: of India.

319
00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:19,840
Speaker 2: And together we said, look, we can pull our complementary

320
00:16:19,849 --> 00:16:24,109
Speaker 2: skills together and create something that truly helps the Indian economy.

321
00:16:24,419 --> 00:16:27,239
Speaker 2: And you know, that's how Google Pay came to be

322
00:16:27,250 --> 00:16:32,530
Speaker 2: built on UPUP. Launched somewhere in 2017, I forget early 2017,

323
00:16:33,250 --> 00:16:36,659
Speaker 2: Google Pay launched in September. And if you look at

324
00:16:36,669 --> 00:16:39,039
Speaker 2: the curve of up, it's like sort of going like

325
00:16:39,049 --> 00:16:41,570
Speaker 2: this and then it just goes vertical and it's been

326
00:16:41,580 --> 00:16:43,090
Speaker 2: near vertical since then.

327
00:16:43,429 --> 00:16:47,799
Speaker 2: And obviously COVID helped massively with adoption because at that point,

328
00:16:47,809 --> 00:16:50,690
Speaker 2: there was no choice but to use this, but that's

329
00:16:50,700 --> 00:16:53,369
Speaker 2: how I got into it. And I realized the tremendously

330
00:16:53,380 --> 00:16:57,640
Speaker 2: powerful impact that combining the best of finance and the

331
00:16:57,650 --> 00:17:01,330
Speaker 2: best of technology can have on an entire ecosystem.

332
00:17:01,580 --> 00:17:04,260
Speaker 1: So look back and give us a sense of stock

333
00:17:04,270 --> 00:17:07,459
Speaker 1: taking of the next billion users initiative. So what has

334
00:17:07,469 --> 00:17:10,000
Speaker 1: it been so its legacy if you will,

335
00:17:10,579 --> 00:17:14,879
Speaker 2: I'd like to believe like Google today works much better

336
00:17:15,109 --> 00:17:18,849
Speaker 2: for the next billion users and new people coming online

337
00:17:18,859 --> 00:17:23,780
Speaker 2: than it did pre 2014. Right? So, um you know, today,

338
00:17:23,790 --> 00:17:26,729
Speaker 2: for example, if you think about it, when somebody buys

339
00:17:26,739 --> 00:17:30,050
Speaker 2: a low cost phone in India, at some point of time,

340
00:17:30,349 --> 00:17:33,250
Speaker 2: it was really crap. Right. It was just like really,

341
00:17:33,260 --> 00:17:34,290
Speaker 2: really low standard.

342
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:37,500
Speaker 2: So we started at that level, working with the Android team,

343
00:17:37,510 --> 00:17:41,260
Speaker 2: with the hardware manufacturers so that people could buy $100

344
00:17:41,270 --> 00:17:43,959
Speaker 2: Android phone, that was actually good quality that would last

345
00:17:43,969 --> 00:17:46,699
Speaker 2: them a couple of years. Then we worked up the stack.

346
00:17:46,709 --> 00:17:49,380
Speaker 2: We said, what are the, what are the experiences on search?

347
00:17:49,390 --> 00:17:52,550
Speaker 2: We realized people were using Google very differently from how

348
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:55,859
Speaker 2: you and I use Google. People in villages in India

349
00:17:56,010 --> 00:17:57,520
Speaker 2: would talk to their phones.

350
00:17:57,930 --> 00:18:01,619
Speaker 2: And so Google spent a lot more effort in putting

351
00:18:01,630 --> 00:18:05,089
Speaker 2: like local language, voice recognition to be much better. And

352
00:18:05,099 --> 00:18:07,729
Speaker 2: interestingly that helped all of our voice recognition systems get

353
00:18:07,739 --> 00:18:10,719
Speaker 2: better globally because guess what people have accents, even if

354
00:18:10,729 --> 00:18:14,579
Speaker 2: they're speaking in English, right? Similarly, we added Google Maps

355
00:18:14,589 --> 00:18:17,140
Speaker 2: offline for Indonesia. That was the first country it launched

356
00:18:17,150 --> 00:18:17,300
Speaker 2: in

357
00:18:17,729 --> 00:18:20,260
Speaker 2: now today, like wherever you go in the world, people

358
00:18:20,270 --> 00:18:23,119
Speaker 2: are using offline, youtube offline was added for India. It

359
00:18:23,130 --> 00:18:25,290
Speaker 2: launched first in India. So there was a set of

360
00:18:25,300 --> 00:18:27,979
Speaker 2: these things and then products like Google Pay, we launched

361
00:18:27,989 --> 00:18:30,099
Speaker 2: Google Pay in India, then we bought it to Singapore.

362
00:18:30,109 --> 00:18:31,989
Speaker 2: Then we took it to 80 countries around the world,

363
00:18:32,150 --> 00:18:34,589
Speaker 2: not in the same depth as we can do in

364
00:18:34,599 --> 00:18:37,458
Speaker 2: India or Singapore. But in most other countries, you can

365
00:18:37,469 --> 00:18:41,069
Speaker 2: tap and pay using Google pay, using credit cards. I

366
00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:43,770
Speaker 2: think now I believe the product is called Google Wallet

367
00:18:43,780 --> 00:18:44,849
Speaker 2: and part of the product,

368
00:18:45,449 --> 00:18:47,349
Speaker 2: but you can pay for transit, you can pay for

369
00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:50,780
Speaker 2: other stuff. So I think I would love to believe that,

370
00:18:50,790 --> 00:18:55,310
Speaker 2: you know, we, my team and I left Google as

371
00:18:55,319 --> 00:18:58,170
Speaker 2: well as our users who were ultimately serving in a

372
00:18:58,180 --> 00:19:02,899
Speaker 2: better position, space than, than, you know, we were in 2014,

373
00:19:03,319 --> 00:19:06,139
Speaker 1: right? Ok. So I'm going to play devil's advocate for

374
00:19:06,150 --> 00:19:06,479
Speaker 1: a second,

375
00:19:07,189 --> 00:19:10,020
Speaker 1: whether it's your next billion user initiative or any other

376
00:19:10,030 --> 00:19:12,129
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, sort of track record of mobile

377
00:19:12,140 --> 00:19:16,198
Speaker 1: payments in the last 7, 10 years, lots of people

378
00:19:16,209 --> 00:19:18,829
Speaker 1: are using mobile payments, lots of people are doing it faster,

379
00:19:18,839 --> 00:19:21,290
Speaker 1: transactions are happening. That's all self evident.

380
00:19:21,750 --> 00:19:24,660
Speaker 1: But is it really clear that that has led to

381
00:19:24,670 --> 00:19:28,930
Speaker 1: improvement in companies that are associated with payments into greater profitability?

382
00:19:29,150 --> 00:19:31,810
Speaker 1: Is it evident that people who are using payments on

383
00:19:31,819 --> 00:19:33,660
Speaker 1: a day to day basis? Other than saying that my

384
00:19:33,670 --> 00:19:36,579
Speaker 1: life is easier, they are actually seeing an improvement in

385
00:19:36,589 --> 00:19:40,698
Speaker 1: their livelihood or income. What's your with

386
00:19:40,890 --> 00:19:43,449
Speaker 2: our, there have been a number of studies done on this,

387
00:19:43,709 --> 00:19:48,810
Speaker 2: particularly for the smaller merchants. The ability to take digital

388
00:19:48,819 --> 00:19:51,489
Speaker 2: payments has improved their cash flow situation.

389
00:19:51,780 --> 00:19:54,880
Speaker 2: It has made them more credit worthy. So now, merchants

390
00:19:54,890 --> 00:19:57,479
Speaker 2: can get credit because they have a track record of credit.

391
00:19:57,780 --> 00:20:02,239
Speaker 2: It's helped them get access to additional systems so they

392
00:20:02,250 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 2: can buy from, you know, not just the local market,

393
00:20:06,170 --> 00:20:08,900
Speaker 2: but they can look at supply chains, help them evolve

394
00:20:08,910 --> 00:20:12,280
Speaker 2: on that. It's helped them think about their inventory.

395
00:20:12,569 --> 00:20:15,419
Speaker 2: There have been multiple billion dollar companies that have been

396
00:20:15,430 --> 00:20:17,560
Speaker 2: built on top of the Indian ecosystem, right? And this

397
00:20:17,569 --> 00:20:19,718
Speaker 2: is not just India, we've seen this happen in China,

398
00:20:19,729 --> 00:20:23,729
Speaker 2: we saw this happen in Kenya in the past. And so,

399
00:20:23,739 --> 00:20:27,310
Speaker 2: you know, this is truly like the ability to make

400
00:20:27,319 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 2: payments move faster, more efficiently at a lower cost in

401
00:20:30,369 --> 00:20:33,550
Speaker 2: an economy has had a trans is transformative.

402
00:20:35,020 --> 00:20:37,890
Speaker 2: I'm sure some set of economists can measure what impact

403
00:20:37,900 --> 00:20:41,438
Speaker 2: it has had on GDP. But I think India doing

404
00:20:41,449 --> 00:20:45,599
Speaker 2: digital payments at scale has probably been one of the big,

405
00:20:45,770 --> 00:20:50,540
Speaker 2: big driving factors for the Indian, the Indian people seeing

406
00:20:50,550 --> 00:20:53,229
Speaker 2: a much better economy, much better system and infrastructure.

407
00:20:53,609 --> 00:20:56,880
Speaker 2: I can tell you today, I meet tourists who come

408
00:20:56,890 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 2: from India to Singapore and they get confused because they're like,

409
00:21:00,770 --> 00:21:03,319
Speaker 2: why can't I pay with my phone and all these places?

410
00:21:03,329 --> 00:21:05,339
Speaker 2: Why do I have to take out cash like the

411
00:21:05,349 --> 00:21:08,680
Speaker 2: inefficiency of it? Right. So for certain in terms of

412
00:21:08,689 --> 00:21:11,589
Speaker 2: profitability for the ecosystem and this is something that was

413
00:21:11,599 --> 00:21:14,069
Speaker 2: very important to us at Google when we were there

414
00:21:14,079 --> 00:21:16,599
Speaker 2: is how does the whole ecosystem become profitable. And let

415
00:21:16,609 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 2: me give you one example before doing loans on Google pay,

416
00:21:22,589 --> 00:21:24,729
Speaker 2: one of the large banks in India would take about

417
00:21:24,739 --> 00:21:28,839
Speaker 2: three days to just process the loan for one of

418
00:21:28,849 --> 00:21:31,968
Speaker 2: their existing customers. So this is an existing customer who

419
00:21:31,979 --> 00:21:34,589
Speaker 2: has a bank, the bank understands their credit and they're

420
00:21:34,599 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 2: just trying to give them a loan for whatever they need, right?

421
00:21:37,699 --> 00:21:40,329
Speaker 2: Working with Google Pay, we got it down to a

422
00:21:40,339 --> 00:21:45,270
Speaker 2: couple of minutes, three screens, right? And so three days

423
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:46,239
Speaker 2: to three minutes

424
00:21:46,849 --> 00:21:49,099
Speaker 2: is a transformative difference, right? Like the number of people

425
00:21:49,109 --> 00:21:51,890
Speaker 2: who started taking, taking loans are availing of the same

426
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:55,349
Speaker 2: thing creates not only better opportunity for those people but

427
00:21:55,770 --> 00:22:00,150
Speaker 2: massive opportunity for the bank right today. Similarly, like fixed

428
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,459
Speaker 2: deposits in India, like can be done through products like

429
00:22:03,469 --> 00:22:07,389
Speaker 2: Google Pay. And that again has reaches many more people today. Like,

430
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:09,949
Speaker 2: you know, if you go into some of the smaller

431
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:11,180
Speaker 2: villages in India,

432
00:22:11,599 --> 00:22:14,030
Speaker 2: you will find people don't have to think about where

433
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,500
Speaker 2: did they get cash or how do they borrow cash?

434
00:22:16,819 --> 00:22:19,739
Speaker 2: I mean, these things have truly had a huge impact

435
00:22:19,750 --> 00:22:21,640
Speaker 2: and I think the government has had a massive role

436
00:22:21,650 --> 00:22:25,770
Speaker 2: to play in it. The government distribution, the public support systems,

437
00:22:25,790 --> 00:22:29,339
Speaker 2: welfare systems work through the same system. So it's reaching

438
00:22:29,349 --> 00:22:32,199
Speaker 2: more people, there's less loss in the process. So I

439
00:22:32,209 --> 00:22:33,660
Speaker 2: think it's one of those things that, you know, the

440
00:22:33,670 --> 00:22:37,649
Speaker 2: rest of the world should actually closely see how it's worked.

441
00:22:37,890 --> 00:22:43,069
Speaker 2: And it was actually an incredible partnership between government industry,

442
00:22:43,079 --> 00:22:48,979
Speaker 2: existing banks, new tech players, a set of people who

443
00:22:48,989 --> 00:22:51,468
Speaker 2: have helped build the India stack, led by people like

444
00:22:51,540 --> 00:22:52,589
Speaker 2: Nan that

445
00:22:52,989 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 2: uh that have transformed how commerce is done in that space.

446
00:22:56,989 --> 00:22:58,250
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the rest of the world

447
00:22:58,260 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 1: for a second. Uh Southeast Asia, you mentioned a little

448
00:23:01,449 --> 00:23:03,260
Speaker 1: bit about Indonesia, but just give us a sense of,

449
00:23:03,270 --> 00:23:05,839
Speaker 1: you know, the state of payment in this part of

450
00:23:05,849 --> 00:23:09,859
Speaker 1: the world relative to the successes in China and India.

451
00:23:10,079 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 2: So I think this part of the world is still

452
00:23:12,130 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 2: a little bit behind. There are different countries at different levels.

453
00:23:15,170 --> 00:23:17,899
Speaker 2: Um Thailand has prompt Bay, which is quite interesting.

454
00:23:18,310 --> 00:23:22,449
Speaker 2: Indonesia has a bunch of payment products that are enabling it.

455
00:23:22,770 --> 00:23:25,419
Speaker 2: I was, I was on the board of go to

456
00:23:25,430 --> 00:23:28,430
Speaker 2: Gojek and go pay for a while. Um the kind

457
00:23:28,439 --> 00:23:31,079
Speaker 2: of stuff go pay allows users to do has been

458
00:23:31,089 --> 00:23:34,619
Speaker 2: pretty transformative. But I think the missing ingredient has been

459
00:23:34,630 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 2: the inoperable

460
00:23:36,719 --> 00:23:40,319
Speaker 2: public goods left that hasn't been yet created in many

461
00:23:40,329 --> 00:23:42,420
Speaker 2: of these countries. And there are discussions that are happening.

462
00:23:42,609 --> 00:23:44,619
Speaker 2: I'm not close to them anymore because I haven't been

463
00:23:44,630 --> 00:23:46,459
Speaker 2: in that space for the last couple of years. But

464
00:23:46,790 --> 00:23:50,109
Speaker 2: a lot of the governments were looking at what India

465
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,530
Speaker 2: had done, what Brazil had done and they were starting

466
00:23:53,540 --> 00:23:56,099
Speaker 2: to think like, how do we create similar infrastructures. Brazil

467
00:23:56,109 --> 00:24:00,099
Speaker 2: is actually another great example led by their central banker,

468
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,339
Speaker 2: very forward thinking individual,

469
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,829
Speaker 2: they set up picks, picks is turning out to be

470
00:24:06,839 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 2: another huge success compared to up. I think in a

471
00:24:09,369 --> 00:24:11,229
Speaker 2: couple of years, people will look at pics as another

472
00:24:11,239 --> 00:24:14,449
Speaker 2: great example. So I think Indonesia and others should look

473
00:24:14,459 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 2: at Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and others should look at, look

474
00:24:18,209 --> 00:24:22,389
Speaker 2: at those systems. One of the interesting pieces is, you know,

475
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,060
Speaker 2: this is what I find strange is no government would

476
00:24:25,069 --> 00:24:30,030
Speaker 2: allow physical infrastructure to get built without some central planning

477
00:24:30,199 --> 00:24:31,030
Speaker 2: and some thinking,

478
00:24:31,689 --> 00:24:35,130
Speaker 2: why is that the case for digital infrastructure, right? Governments

479
00:24:35,140 --> 00:24:38,968
Speaker 2: and policymakers should be as forward thinking and lean in

480
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,149
Speaker 2: on digital infrastructure because when they do that, that's when

481
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:44,909
Speaker 2: the economy takes off, we have great roads, we have

482
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,139
Speaker 2: great like public transportation system. That's not what the industry

483
00:24:48,150 --> 00:24:51,069
Speaker 2: can build those kinds of planning. The process has to

484
00:24:51,079 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: be done in a, in a much more thoughtful manner.

485
00:24:53,790 --> 00:24:56,339
Speaker 2: So I feel like that's been my

486
00:24:56,729 --> 00:24:59,099
Speaker 2: lowly humble opinion is that's been one thing that's been

487
00:24:59,109 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 2: missing across a number of our markets in Southeast Asia,

488
00:25:02,410 --> 00:25:02,810
Speaker 2: especially

489
00:25:02,819 --> 00:25:06,479
Speaker 1: the example you gave about up being set up exactly

490
00:25:06,489 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: at the time when the banks and sort of the

491
00:25:09,050 --> 00:25:11,150
Speaker 1: tech companies were all coming together to figure out all

492
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,979
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts of the digital highway of payments

493
00:25:13,989 --> 00:25:14,630
Speaker 1: if you will. And

494
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,430
Speaker 2: part of it is also, you know, you need somebody

495
00:25:17,439 --> 00:25:19,938
Speaker 2: who is thinking not just about a particular company's P

496
00:25:19,949 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 2: and L, but it is thinking at a broader level

497
00:25:22,209 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 2: about the economy.

498
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,208
Speaker 2: And that's what happened in India, what happened in Brazil.

499
00:25:26,479 --> 00:25:28,829
Speaker 2: And even though there was a transition to make for

500
00:25:28,839 --> 00:25:32,379
Speaker 2: a number of the existing incumbents in the markets, they

501
00:25:32,390 --> 00:25:35,530
Speaker 2: as well as the government and the policy makers were

502
00:25:35,540 --> 00:25:38,239
Speaker 2: forward thinking enough to say, look, this is a transition

503
00:25:38,250 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 2: we need to make because this gets us to a

504
00:25:39,770 --> 00:25:42,569
Speaker 2: better end state, right? So rather than being stuck in

505
00:25:42,579 --> 00:25:45,660
Speaker 2: a local Maxima, they could go find another global Maxima.

506
00:25:45,670 --> 00:25:45,939
Speaker 1: Correct.

507
00:25:46,290 --> 00:25:51,109
Speaker 1: Um Domestic payments within a country is one thing, international payments,

508
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:54,900
Speaker 1: cross border has other layers of complications and regulation. Uh

509
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:56,510
Speaker 1: How's it going there?

510
00:25:57,479 --> 00:26:00,430
Speaker 2: To be honest, I'm not an expert in that space.

511
00:26:00,439 --> 00:26:03,829
Speaker 2: We started looking a little bit at it, but it

512
00:26:03,839 --> 00:26:08,069
Speaker 2: seemed to be something, you know, where, where the banks

513
00:26:08,079 --> 00:26:13,069
Speaker 2: are already pretty, pretty engaged on with swift and other

514
00:26:13,079 --> 00:26:16,130
Speaker 2: ways of looking at it. There are clear inefficiencies. Anyone

515
00:26:16,140 --> 00:26:20,780
Speaker 2: who sent a swift message knows that. But I've

516
00:26:20,890 --> 00:26:23,188
Speaker 2: heard that there's lots of efforts looking at how to

517
00:26:23,199 --> 00:26:26,969
Speaker 2: improve that and make that be much more efficient, effective

518
00:26:26,979 --> 00:26:30,770
Speaker 2: and sort of function at a much more scalable way, right?

519
00:26:30,780 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 1: But related to that, what's your view on the whole

520
00:26:34,969 --> 00:26:38,780
Speaker 1: Blockchain and crypto in the world of payments?

521
00:26:39,270 --> 00:26:43,369
Speaker 2: So I'm a big uh I would say I can

522
00:26:43,380 --> 00:26:45,579
Speaker 2: see a role for Blockchain in sort of the bank

523
00:26:45,589 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 2: to bank settlement space, particularly internationally,

524
00:26:48,819 --> 00:26:53,170
Speaker 2: maybe even in some other spaces. Blockchain has impact in

525
00:26:53,180 --> 00:26:56,219
Speaker 2: as a technology in other areas, supply chain, things like

526
00:26:56,229 --> 00:27:01,020
Speaker 2: that where you need a distributed set of trust creators

527
00:27:01,239 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: for want of a better word. I'm not a big

528
00:27:04,810 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 2: believer in crypto for consumer payments,

529
00:27:07,790 --> 00:27:11,859
Speaker 2: not because of any personal religious belief. Like I'm a technologist,

530
00:27:11,869 --> 00:27:13,689
Speaker 2: I'll go where it is. But I don't think the

531
00:27:13,699 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 2: regulators around the world are willing to live with the

532
00:27:15,969 --> 00:27:19,729
Speaker 2: risk of um all the,

533
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:25,270
Speaker 2: all the potential nefarious uses of consumer crypto payments that

534
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:26,079
Speaker 2: we've seen happen

535
00:27:26,089 --> 00:27:28,349
Speaker 1: from ransomware to,

536
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,750
Speaker 2: to terrorism to all this kind of stuff. So I

537
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,239
Speaker 2: think that makes it very hard for crypto on the

538
00:27:33,250 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 2: consumer side. That's why I've never sort of felt like it's,

539
00:27:37,010 --> 00:27:39,530
Speaker 2: it's been an area where, you know,

540
00:27:40,109 --> 00:27:42,290
Speaker 2: we will see a lot of traction because payment sits

541
00:27:42,300 --> 00:27:46,729
Speaker 2: in this interesting space where it is regulated. But it's also,

542
00:27:46,739 --> 00:27:49,890
Speaker 2: it's also something that has to be adopted by consumers.

543
00:27:49,900 --> 00:27:53,229
Speaker 2: You know, just consumer adoption doesn't guarantee success. It has

544
00:27:53,239 --> 00:27:57,369
Speaker 2: to work within the system. And, you know, from all

545
00:27:57,380 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 2: my conversations with regulators around the world,

546
00:28:01,140 --> 00:28:06,589
Speaker 2: it's, I would be surprised if consumer crypto takes off.

547
00:28:07,050 --> 00:28:09,409
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting, you see central banks sort of

548
00:28:09,420 --> 00:28:13,189
Speaker 1: struggling between, not being seen as anti innovation, but at

549
00:28:13,199 --> 00:28:15,829
Speaker 1: the same time being very guarded about the sanctity of

550
00:28:15,839 --> 00:28:19,089
Speaker 1: cross border payment or the risk of fraud

551
00:28:19,180 --> 00:28:22,380
Speaker 1: and ransomware and so on. But the central banks are

552
00:28:22,390 --> 00:28:25,300
Speaker 1: also trying to do their own digital currency initiative and

553
00:28:25,310 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: we're seeing pilots everywhere. So I'm a big

554
00:28:27,209 --> 00:28:30,750
Speaker 2: believer in central bank, digital currency, huge believer. In fact,

555
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:32,339
Speaker 2: when we were at Google, there was a bunch of

556
00:28:32,349 --> 00:28:36,609
Speaker 2: like open source efforts we were trying to encourage along

557
00:28:36,619 --> 00:28:40,199
Speaker 2: with Gates Foundation and others where this again, I think

558
00:28:40,209 --> 00:28:42,170
Speaker 2: is a global public good. I wish like if I

559
00:28:42,180 --> 00:28:44,439
Speaker 2: had been at Google still or I wish some tech

560
00:28:44,449 --> 00:28:47,060
Speaker 2: company would just build an open source stack for every private,

561
00:28:47,109 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 2: every central bank.

562
00:28:48,699 --> 00:28:51,130
Speaker 2: This doesn't need to be something because the quality of

563
00:28:51,140 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: technology matters here. And if somebody builds out a scalable

564
00:28:55,810 --> 00:28:59,329
Speaker 2: central bank, digital currency infrastructure, tech infrastructure,

565
00:28:59,790 --> 00:29:02,380
Speaker 2: every central bank should adopt it, right? And if it's

566
00:29:02,390 --> 00:29:04,699
Speaker 2: open source, everybody can look at it contribute to it.

567
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,420
Speaker 2: It could be a very, very worthy cause central bank

568
00:29:07,430 --> 00:29:10,140
Speaker 2: digital currency would be very, very interesting because I think

569
00:29:10,150 --> 00:29:16,250
Speaker 2: it marries the security and the regular regulations with with

570
00:29:16,260 --> 00:29:21,729
Speaker 2: some of the advantages that you can get from scalable Cryptocurrency.

571
00:29:22,380 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: When you scan the near term, a 3 to 5

572
00:29:25,290 --> 00:29:28,349
Speaker 1: year horizon, what else is there in the payment space

573
00:29:28,359 --> 00:29:30,430
Speaker 1: or are we like done innovating? And this is just

574
00:29:30,439 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: gets refined or?

575
00:29:31,439 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 2: No, no, I think there's a huge amount left to innovate.

576
00:29:34,130 --> 00:29:35,890
Speaker 2: I think first of all, you know, the rest of

577
00:29:35,900 --> 00:29:36,770
Speaker 2: the world is left,

578
00:29:37,180 --> 00:29:40,540
Speaker 2: right. And there was again a a effort that Google

579
00:29:40,550 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 2: was working on with Gates Foundation called Moja Lo. It

580
00:29:43,170 --> 00:29:45,989
Speaker 2: was an open source infrastructure. It was essentially an open

581
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:51,140
Speaker 2: source piece of technology that any country could adopt and

582
00:29:51,150 --> 00:29:53,349
Speaker 2: just build their own version of up.

583
00:29:53,930 --> 00:29:56,829
Speaker 2: I know up itself. N PC itself is trying to

584
00:29:56,839 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 2: take up and offer it to other countries. So I

585
00:29:59,729 --> 00:30:03,339
Speaker 2: think there's a huge huge amount of innovation left where

586
00:30:03,540 --> 00:30:08,670
Speaker 2: globally people can actually adopt company countries can adopt that

587
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:10,660
Speaker 2: kind of a system. And you know, think about Africa,

588
00:30:10,670 --> 00:30:11,579
Speaker 2: every country,

589
00:30:11,959 --> 00:30:18,489
Speaker 2: all the different currency systems, but having an infrastructure stack

590
00:30:18,500 --> 00:30:22,770
Speaker 2: that really makes payment sufficient could be transformative for economies

591
00:30:22,780 --> 00:30:25,079
Speaker 2: in many places, it would bring many people into the

592
00:30:25,089 --> 00:30:29,199
Speaker 2: financial fold, open up credit to them, help them build

593
00:30:29,209 --> 00:30:32,119
Speaker 2: their financial histories. So just sort of formalize a lot

594
00:30:32,130 --> 00:30:35,359
Speaker 2: of the finance that today happens in that informal world,

595
00:30:35,439 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: which also exposes people to risks. So that's one area.

596
00:30:40,219 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: I think there's a huge amount of impact on using

597
00:30:42,890 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 2: A I to do better credit ratings, to be able

598
00:30:45,810 --> 00:30:49,459
Speaker 2: to sift out the good people, good businesses that you

599
00:30:49,469 --> 00:30:51,719
Speaker 2: really want to put money into from sort of the

600
00:30:51,729 --> 00:30:54,010
Speaker 2: fraud that happens in the space. So I think that

601
00:30:54,020 --> 00:30:56,979
Speaker 2: whole space has a lot, a lot of innovation left

602
00:30:56,989 --> 00:30:57,079
Speaker 2: to

603
00:30:57,089 --> 00:31:01,020
Speaker 1: do. And on the security and trust side, I just

604
00:31:01,030 --> 00:31:04,150
Speaker 1: read this article, I think earlier this week that Apple

605
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:09,109
Speaker 1: discovered very basic but rather precarious sort of flaws in

606
00:31:09,119 --> 00:31:09,589
Speaker 1: its

607
00:31:10,079 --> 00:31:12,939
Speaker 1: uh you know, pass code using system and how, you know,

608
00:31:12,949 --> 00:31:16,660
Speaker 1: people would just see other people using their passcode. And

609
00:31:16,670 --> 00:31:19,829
Speaker 1: despite all these, you know, thumbprint and Irish scanners that

610
00:31:19,839 --> 00:31:21,849
Speaker 1: seemed to be sufficient to, for people to sort of

611
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,069
Speaker 1: uh get inside and, and steal a lot of money. So,

612
00:31:25,079 --> 00:31:29,130
Speaker 1: from a two factor authentication to other sort of senior

613
00:31:29,150 --> 00:31:31,540
Speaker 1: security features, I mean, do you think that, you know,

614
00:31:31,550 --> 00:31:34,420
Speaker 1: we have a secure payment system in the world or

615
00:31:34,430 --> 00:31:35,979
Speaker 1: there are still some innovations needed

616
00:31:35,989 --> 00:31:38,329
Speaker 2: there? Oh, absolutely. There's huge amounts of innovation need.

617
00:31:38,505 --> 00:31:43,135
Speaker 2: Look, there is no, there is never a secure system 100%

618
00:31:43,145 --> 00:31:47,185
Speaker 2: because there's never 100% secure system because as you are

619
00:31:47,194 --> 00:31:51,765
Speaker 2: increasing your security, the bad actors are also increasing their

620
00:31:51,775 --> 00:31:54,454
Speaker 2: level of technical sophistication. So it's always a race, right?

621
00:31:54,739 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 2: And this is why companies have to constantly keep innovating

622
00:31:58,050 --> 00:32:01,939
Speaker 2: in that space. But has this got better? Yes, absolutely.

623
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,729
Speaker 2: And you look at the track record of human history

624
00:32:04,890 --> 00:32:07,670
Speaker 2: payments and digital has only gotten more and more secure

625
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,530
Speaker 2: over time, right? Like there was a time when people

626
00:32:10,540 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: stored cash in there under their mattresses, right? And I

627
00:32:13,770 --> 00:32:16,250
Speaker 2: would say that security was based on a stick, somebody

628
00:32:16,260 --> 00:32:18,329
Speaker 2: would come with a stick and take your money, right?

629
00:32:18,339 --> 00:32:20,630
Speaker 2: And then today we've got to a point where, you know,

630
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,869
Speaker 2: today I can let my old parents use payments and

631
00:32:24,140 --> 00:32:27,780
Speaker 2: they use DBS cards and their app everywhere. And I

632
00:32:27,890 --> 00:32:30,569
Speaker 2: feel very comfortable that yes, they may not be fully

633
00:32:30,579 --> 00:32:33,790
Speaker 2: aware of all of technology, but they are efficiently protected

634
00:32:34,729 --> 00:32:36,630
Speaker 2: and I think they'll just keep getting better as you

635
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,869
Speaker 2: get multi factor authentication. And there's a huge step forward

636
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,170
Speaker 2: that the tech platforms have done. Now, Microsoft Apple, Google,

637
00:32:44,180 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 2: all working together called PAS. Pas keys are a massive

638
00:32:48,770 --> 00:32:51,079
Speaker 2: leap on top over passwords.

639
00:32:51,530 --> 00:32:54,709
Speaker 2: And so as Pask get adopted more broadly,

640
00:32:55,449 --> 00:32:57,079
Speaker 2: it will get better and better. And some of this

641
00:32:57,140 --> 00:33:00,579
Speaker 2: is only possible because people are now starting to carry

642
00:33:00,589 --> 00:33:03,729
Speaker 2: mobile phones and they have mobile phones that have biometric

643
00:33:03,739 --> 00:33:06,550
Speaker 2: built into them and are more capable, right? You have

644
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,140
Speaker 2: NFC chips. So I think this is it, it's a

645
00:33:09,150 --> 00:33:12,910
Speaker 2: story where today I tell people look anything you can

646
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,770
Speaker 2: do individually to secure yourself. You can trust that the

647
00:33:16,780 --> 00:33:19,689
Speaker 2: bank or the tech company that you are using any

648
00:33:19,699 --> 00:33:21,500
Speaker 2: of these tech companies is going to do about 1000

649
00:33:21,510 --> 00:33:22,109
Speaker 2: times better.

650
00:33:22,439 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: So it's best to like trust, trust that that is

651
00:33:26,010 --> 00:33:27,310
Speaker 2: there are systems that are working at

652
00:33:27,319 --> 00:33:29,810
Speaker 1: scale. So, Cesar, we're recording this at the headquarters of

653
00:33:29,819 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: D BS. Uh one floor below, there are a whole

654
00:33:31,930 --> 00:33:34,349
Speaker 1: bunch of ATM machines. If you and I come back

655
00:33:34,359 --> 00:33:36,089
Speaker 1: here 10 years from now, will there be any ATM

656
00:33:36,099 --> 00:33:36,900
Speaker 1: machines left?

657
00:33:37,500 --> 00:33:38,349
Speaker 1: I hope not.

658
00:33:38,790 --> 00:33:40,359
Speaker 2: No cash. I hope not.

659
00:33:41,170 --> 00:33:46,109
Speaker 2: I hope absolutely not because I think like cash was

660
00:33:46,119 --> 00:33:49,670
Speaker 2: the physical aspect of cash. You know, there was a

661
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,020
Speaker 2: time when humanity exchanged tokens, right? We exchanged rocks or

662
00:33:53,030 --> 00:33:56,939
Speaker 2: shiny bits of metal and now we've evolved, but we're

663
00:33:56,949 --> 00:33:58,099
Speaker 2: still exchanging things.

664
00:33:58,670 --> 00:34:00,829
Speaker 2: The point of digital. The point that we all have

665
00:34:00,839 --> 00:34:03,479
Speaker 2: mobile phones means I should just be able to pay

666
00:34:03,489 --> 00:34:05,380
Speaker 2: you next. When I'm sitting next to you, we already

667
00:34:05,390 --> 00:34:07,699
Speaker 2: can do that in Singapore using a phone number. I

668
00:34:07,709 --> 00:34:09,689
Speaker 2: can just pay now money to you. Right? In India,

669
00:34:09,699 --> 00:34:12,870
Speaker 2: I can use a VP or a up handle and

670
00:34:12,879 --> 00:34:17,530
Speaker 2: pay anyone, right? China. That's true for, you know, depending

671
00:34:17,540 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 2: on the ecosystem you're on, that should work in every place.

672
00:34:20,570 --> 00:34:22,299
Speaker 2: Like it's shocking to me every time I go back

673
00:34:22,310 --> 00:34:24,489
Speaker 2: to the US that it's still not happened in the US, right?

674
00:34:24,899 --> 00:34:27,509
Speaker 2: And that has to happen across the world. But I

675
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,109
Speaker 2: hope at some point in time we can get rid

676
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:33,020
Speaker 2: of these things, green pieces of paper or, you know,

677
00:34:33,379 --> 00:34:34,009
Speaker 2: around

678
00:34:34,020 --> 00:34:36,020
Speaker 1: the world. But what happens if there is a cyber

679
00:34:36,030 --> 00:34:38,070
Speaker 1: attack or a great failure of electricity,

680
00:34:39,290 --> 00:34:42,139
Speaker 2: you will have to have systems in those big in

681
00:34:42,149 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 2: that work, right? And this is not technical issue. Technically

682
00:34:45,610 --> 00:34:48,469
Speaker 2: you can solve for that. You can have, you can

683
00:34:48,479 --> 00:34:51,629
Speaker 2: have offline payments, you can have wallets that stay on

684
00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:54,260
Speaker 2: your phone. So technically you can solve these things. It's

685
00:34:54,270 --> 00:34:57,790
Speaker 2: the same way as you know today, for example, my

686
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:01,479
Speaker 2: daughter who's 15 when we land in any holiday anywhere.

687
00:35:01,659 --> 00:35:04,649
Speaker 2: Her first question is, is there wi I and how

688
00:35:04,659 --> 00:35:05,439
Speaker 2: do I get online?

689
00:35:05,679 --> 00:35:09,459
Speaker 2: Because to her, a world where there is no connectivity

690
00:35:09,469 --> 00:35:12,419
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. And so I think we are heading

691
00:35:12,429 --> 00:35:14,189
Speaker 2: in that direction gradually it will take time. It will

692
00:35:14,199 --> 00:35:16,199
Speaker 2: not be an easy transition. There will be many of us,

693
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:18,340
Speaker 2: there will be little bits of like even now we

694
00:35:18,350 --> 00:35:21,409
Speaker 2: live in Singapore and we have perfect infrastructure. But a

695
00:35:21,419 --> 00:35:25,259
Speaker 2: few weeks back, like one of our transformers in our

696
00:35:25,270 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 2: building blew up in our apartment complex lost power for

697
00:35:28,370 --> 00:35:29,340
Speaker 2: three or four hours

698
00:35:29,820 --> 00:35:33,779
Speaker 2: happens, right? But it happens increasingly less and less and less.

699
00:35:34,050 --> 00:35:35,850
Speaker 2: And we'll get to a point where there is enough

700
00:35:35,860 --> 00:35:40,790
Speaker 2: resiliency in any kind of public infrastructure that these things,

701
00:35:40,879 --> 00:35:41,729
Speaker 2: these things will

702
00:35:41,739 --> 00:35:44,850
Speaker 1: work. OK? Tell us about art.

703
00:35:47,469 --> 00:35:53,350
Speaker 2: So um is a Singaporean us 200 corporate company. We

704
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 2: started two years back. It was started to have eight

705
00:35:55,250 --> 00:35:58,850
Speaker 2: co founders. It was basically the leadership team from Google

706
00:35:58,860 --> 00:36:03,379
Speaker 2: Pay and we were at Google leading all Google Pay,

707
00:36:03,389 --> 00:36:06,860
Speaker 2: Google finance, all payment infrastructure, any commercial dollar that went through,

708
00:36:07,030 --> 00:36:10,509
Speaker 2: went through Google. And we decided to start out based

709
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,459
Speaker 2: on a problem that we face in our own lives

710
00:36:12,870 --> 00:36:16,030
Speaker 2: as we were sort of progressing along Google. You know,

711
00:36:16,179 --> 00:36:18,649
Speaker 2: none of us come from rich families. We're all professionals,

712
00:36:18,659 --> 00:36:22,159
Speaker 2: we all sort of worked, worked our way, studied hard

713
00:36:22,169 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 2: and got there and we kind of didn't naturally know

714
00:36:25,370 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 2: a lot about the nuances of money or all these

715
00:36:28,850 --> 00:36:31,330
Speaker 2: secret superpowers that the rich had. Right?

716
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,300
Speaker 2: And as we start progressing at some point, you know,

717
00:36:34,310 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 2: we some of us started using private banks and started

718
00:36:36,729 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 2: being exposed to maybe some other friend who had just

719
00:36:40,010 --> 00:36:43,379
Speaker 2: taken a company public and had their own family office

720
00:36:43,830 --> 00:36:47,580
Speaker 2: and we would hear about these amazing financial superpowers, right?

721
00:36:47,590 --> 00:36:47,969
Speaker 2: And

722
00:36:48,709 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 2: few thoughts came to end, these are powerful, right? Rather

723
00:36:51,570 --> 00:36:53,489
Speaker 2: than just buying etfs and putting your money in a

724
00:36:53,500 --> 00:36:56,939
Speaker 2: Robo advisor and tracking everything in my spreadsheet. What if

725
00:36:56,949 --> 00:36:59,070
Speaker 2: I actually could get access to a private bank and

726
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,419
Speaker 2: I could, you know, get access to alternative assets and

727
00:37:02,429 --> 00:37:05,699
Speaker 2: think about my public markets exposure in a really sophisticated way,

728
00:37:06,020 --> 00:37:09,250
Speaker 2: get advice in the right places, think about tax in

729
00:37:09,260 --> 00:37:12,649
Speaker 2: the US context, tax, that's very important, think about estate planning,

730
00:37:12,830 --> 00:37:14,260
Speaker 2: all of that kind of stuff.

731
00:37:14,790 --> 00:37:17,229
Speaker 2: But then we realized two things. One was all our

732
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:19,969
Speaker 2: experiences were really old school, there was no technology. I mean,

733
00:37:19,979 --> 00:37:24,219
Speaker 2: we were making payments, we were booking cars using a phone,

734
00:37:24,229 --> 00:37:27,209
Speaker 2: ordering food. But when it came to money and our

735
00:37:27,219 --> 00:37:27,909
Speaker 2: wealth

736
00:37:27,919 --> 00:37:29,790
Speaker 1: signing actual forms, signing

737
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,819
Speaker 2: forms and scanning and you know, somebody calling us back

738
00:37:32,830 --> 00:37:36,570
Speaker 2: and saying your signature doesn't match, right? And we were

739
00:37:36,580 --> 00:37:38,489
Speaker 2: like this can be changed.

740
00:37:38,969 --> 00:37:42,989
Speaker 2: And the second, the third thought that occurred was first powerful. Second,

741
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,830
Speaker 2: it's old school and third was we should have had

742
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,669
Speaker 2: this 10 years back in our lives. Like how transformative

743
00:37:48,679 --> 00:37:51,300
Speaker 2: would this have been if instead of getting into private

744
00:37:51,310 --> 00:37:53,169
Speaker 2: banking when we were in our forties, if you could

745
00:37:53,179 --> 00:37:55,310
Speaker 2: stop thinking of this in our 30 like the one

746
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,199
Speaker 2: secret of finance we all know is compounding the earlier

747
00:37:58,209 --> 00:38:00,679
Speaker 2: you get started on stuff, the better it is, right?

748
00:38:00,989 --> 00:38:04,489
Speaker 2: And so we set out to build a new kind

749
00:38:04,500 --> 00:38:07,250
Speaker 2: of private bank from scratch that was built to be

750
00:38:07,260 --> 00:38:10,699
Speaker 2: digital forward from from the get go that could be

751
00:38:10,709 --> 00:38:15,149
Speaker 2: built for professionals where somebody once they get started with

752
00:38:15,159 --> 00:38:18,689
Speaker 2: the professional career, maybe they're in their early thirties, mid thirties, whatever.

753
00:38:18,699 --> 00:38:21,850
Speaker 2: Whenever people start feeling like they are on the right track,

754
00:38:21,860 --> 00:38:24,449
Speaker 2: they are accumulating money where they could start availing of

755
00:38:24,459 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 2: the same financial superpowers that the ultra rich had.

756
00:38:27,860 --> 00:38:31,110
Speaker 2: So art gives people access to alternative assets, private equity,

757
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:36,929
Speaker 2: venture capital, private credit, same high quality well diligence funds

758
00:38:36,939 --> 00:38:40,370
Speaker 2: that you would get when you had 2530 $50 million

759
00:38:41,399 --> 00:38:44,250
Speaker 2: to individuals with hundreds of thousands to even a couple

760
00:38:44,260 --> 00:38:45,489
Speaker 2: of million dollars in network.

761
00:38:46,159 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 2: We help people think about the public markets exposure in

762
00:38:49,330 --> 00:38:53,149
Speaker 2: a highly structured way, but also do that in a

763
00:38:53,159 --> 00:38:57,350
Speaker 2: completely automated manner, right? So that your trades can happen

764
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,770
Speaker 2: all the time. So there are things that are running

765
00:38:59,780 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 2: that are looking at what your public markets exposure is

766
00:39:02,290 --> 00:39:04,540
Speaker 2: doing even when people are sleeping. So the way

767
00:39:04,629 --> 00:39:07,350
Speaker 2: would think about it if you bought a tech approach

768
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,209
Speaker 2: to doing these things, we're helping people get started with

769
00:39:10,229 --> 00:39:14,050
Speaker 2: in the US tax and estate planning and insurance way

770
00:39:14,060 --> 00:39:16,510
Speaker 2: earlier in their lives. So that rather than waiting till

771
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,020
Speaker 2: they are in their fifties by their thirties, they are

772
00:39:19,030 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 2: actually already set up, sort of like the Rockefellers are

773
00:39:22,330 --> 00:39:23,009
Speaker 2: set up, right.

774
00:39:23,409 --> 00:39:27,020
Speaker 2: So we launched in the US in November. Um and

775
00:39:27,030 --> 00:39:31,439
Speaker 2: we're SCC registered investment advisor, so it's a highly regulated space.

776
00:39:31,850 --> 00:39:35,479
Speaker 2: Um We just got the principal approval in Singapore to launch.

777
00:39:35,489 --> 00:39:39,050
Speaker 2: So thank you so much. Um We are very grateful

778
00:39:39,060 --> 00:39:39,439
Speaker 2: and

779
00:39:39,709 --> 00:39:41,570
Speaker 2: in the next couple of months, we will open up

780
00:39:41,580 --> 00:39:45,100
Speaker 2: in Singapore also to a certain set of segments. And

781
00:39:45,110 --> 00:39:46,779
Speaker 2: then we are now starting to talk to a bunch

782
00:39:46,790 --> 00:39:50,570
Speaker 2: of our partner banks and friends in the ecosystem about

783
00:39:50,580 --> 00:39:52,850
Speaker 2: how we can take some of the technology we built

784
00:39:52,860 --> 00:39:54,060
Speaker 2: experiences we've built

785
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,550
Speaker 2: and be able to also help themselves their customers. So

786
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,379
Speaker 2: that's where our is today. So

787
00:39:59,389 --> 00:40:02,330
Speaker 1: walk me through the app that we haven't had the

788
00:40:02,340 --> 00:40:04,199
Speaker 1: pleasure of trying out. I'd like to looking forward to

789
00:40:04,209 --> 00:40:07,770
Speaker 1: it a couple of months. Yes. The experience that a

790
00:40:07,780 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 1: user would have when they use this app versus a

791
00:40:10,770 --> 00:40:11,699
Speaker 1: typical

792
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:14,580
Speaker 1: day to day interaction with the private bank.

793
00:40:14,969 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 2: So typically today, if you were working with a private

794
00:40:18,090 --> 00:40:20,429
Speaker 2: bank you would have a private banker, right? And you

795
00:40:20,439 --> 00:40:23,649
Speaker 2: would go through the private banker for everything you say.

796
00:40:23,659 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 2: I want alternative access. They'll send you a bunch of

797
00:40:25,929 --> 00:40:28,820
Speaker 2: slide decks. You look at them. If you have questions,

798
00:40:28,830 --> 00:40:30,770
Speaker 2: they'll pull in an expert who you can talk to.

799
00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:33,550
Speaker 2: Uh, if you want to think about the public markets,

800
00:40:33,729 --> 00:40:36,330
Speaker 2: they'll ask you risk tolerance, all of this kind of stuff.

801
00:40:36,340 --> 00:40:39,138
Speaker 2: Um They'll probably suggest like, ok, you should put some

802
00:40:39,149 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 2: money into, you know, this cash like thing, some money

803
00:40:42,370 --> 00:40:45,090
Speaker 2: into this thing into some sort of um you know,

804
00:40:45,100 --> 00:40:48,580
Speaker 2: investment products and some mutual funds, some ETF S uh

805
00:40:48,590 --> 00:40:50,209
Speaker 2: and they'll construct a portfolio for you

806
00:40:51,129 --> 00:40:53,679
Speaker 2: today. Lets you do all of that on the product itself.

807
00:40:53,689 --> 00:40:56,379
Speaker 2: When you want to talk to an expert, you absolutely can. Right.

808
00:40:56,389 --> 00:40:59,589
Speaker 2: But you don't have to go through a private banker

809
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:01,729
Speaker 2: to access everything. You can look at all the funds

810
00:41:01,739 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 2: yourself on your desktop, on your phone. We have web,

811
00:41:04,810 --> 00:41:07,909
Speaker 2: we have Android, we have IOS you can sit down

812
00:41:07,919 --> 00:41:11,679
Speaker 2: with your spouse and decide, you know, what makes more

813
00:41:11,689 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 2: sense for you. If you want to talk to somebody

814
00:41:14,090 --> 00:41:16,290
Speaker 2: who can help you plan it over allocation, of course,

815
00:41:16,300 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 2: you can talk to them. So there is a phone number.

816
00:41:18,129 --> 00:41:18,919
Speaker 2: Of course,

817
00:41:19,024 --> 00:41:21,665
Speaker 2: there's a phone number, there are video, it's better than

818
00:41:21,675 --> 00:41:24,685
Speaker 2: a phone number today. We do video so you can

819
00:41:24,695 --> 00:41:27,274
Speaker 2: set up a video time with anyone and and be

820
00:41:27,284 --> 00:41:30,495
Speaker 2: able to be able to talk. But more importantly, it

821
00:41:30,504 --> 00:41:33,564
Speaker 2: also helps educate the user a lot. So rather than

822
00:41:33,574 --> 00:41:37,625
Speaker 2: just delegating all your trust and your expertise to someone else,

823
00:41:37,915 --> 00:41:41,395
Speaker 2: the professional of today actually wants to know many of

824
00:41:41,405 --> 00:41:44,044
Speaker 2: these people are doing incredibly well in their careers. Right.

825
00:41:44,135 --> 00:41:46,844
Speaker 2: It's just that they haven't been focused on finance per se.

826
00:41:47,209 --> 00:41:50,020
Speaker 2: So being able to equip them with the right content,

827
00:41:50,030 --> 00:41:53,110
Speaker 2: the right education, the right tools actually puts more power

828
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,459
Speaker 2: in their hands. And of course, they are smart enough

829
00:41:55,469 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 2: to ask the experts when they need to, but it

830
00:41:57,530 --> 00:42:00,388
Speaker 2: gives them access, it gives them that level of control

831
00:42:00,399 --> 00:42:03,050
Speaker 2: and it gives them transparency. Right today, you have to

832
00:42:03,060 --> 00:42:04,580
Speaker 2: kind of trust one person

833
00:42:04,814 --> 00:42:07,104
Speaker 2: and in many cases that works. But you know, in

834
00:42:07,114 --> 00:42:09,125
Speaker 2: this case, like you have the numbers, you have the

835
00:42:09,135 --> 00:42:10,455
Speaker 2: data and you can make your own

836
00:42:10,465 --> 00:42:15,125
Speaker 1: conditions. So there are, you know, very fancy hedge funds

837
00:42:15,135 --> 00:42:18,114
Speaker 1: with very high threshold of entry, you have to put

838
00:42:18,125 --> 00:42:20,125
Speaker 1: in a huge amount of money and some of them

839
00:42:20,135 --> 00:42:22,044
Speaker 1: are big into sort of quantitative strategies.

840
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,100
Speaker 1: I always wonder that does it have to be that

841
00:42:25,110 --> 00:42:26,939
Speaker 1: you need hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to

842
00:42:26,949 --> 00:42:29,939
Speaker 1: access those quantitative strategies. So does your tech stack allow

843
00:42:29,949 --> 00:42:32,010
Speaker 1: you to replicate some of those very high end stuff

844
00:42:32,020 --> 00:42:33,620
Speaker 1: at a? Absolutely.

845
00:42:33,669 --> 00:42:36,899
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I'm glad thanks for bringing that up because

846
00:42:37,050 --> 00:42:39,888
Speaker 2: being able to drive access is a core part of

847
00:42:39,899 --> 00:42:42,899
Speaker 2: what we do. It's been true for our team and

848
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:44,649
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say just me, like I've worked with these

849
00:42:44,659 --> 00:42:48,270
Speaker 2: people 15 years from chromebooks to next billion users to

850
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,090
Speaker 2: what we're doing with data of being able to bring

851
00:42:50,100 --> 00:42:52,020
Speaker 2: greater access to more people using technology.

852
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,479
Speaker 2: And so here, what we do is whether it's alternative

853
00:42:54,489 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 2: assets or whether it's public market strategies, very sophisticated ones

854
00:42:57,530 --> 00:43:01,189
Speaker 2: like quant strategies, we bring down the access level to

855
00:43:01,199 --> 00:43:02,979
Speaker 2: a much smaller amount. So you can invest in a

856
00:43:02,989 --> 00:43:05,810
Speaker 2: very high quality pe fund, one of the top five

857
00:43:06,679 --> 00:43:09,899
Speaker 2: with $25,000 versus like a million dollars that a private

858
00:43:09,909 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 2: bank would do. Right? Suddenly, it becomes approachable for many,

859
00:43:12,250 --> 00:43:15,209
Speaker 2: many many more professionals. Similarly, Kwan strategies, one of our

860
00:43:15,219 --> 00:43:20,330
Speaker 2: strategies is, is a very well proven established strategy called

861
00:43:20,340 --> 00:43:21,580
Speaker 2: the M volatility.

862
00:43:22,909 --> 00:43:26,139
Speaker 2: A lot of that has been proven in academia over time. Typically,

863
00:43:26,149 --> 00:43:28,469
Speaker 2: you would see hedge funds doing it and you know,

864
00:43:28,479 --> 00:43:31,550
Speaker 2: they lever up and create return out of that. We

865
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:36,439
Speaker 2: now let people do it in for $25,000. But more importantly,

866
00:43:36,449 --> 00:43:39,270
Speaker 2: we let them customize it. So instead of just doing

867
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,229
Speaker 2: this is something even the hedge funds won't do. You

868
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:42,928
Speaker 2: might be as rich as you want, but you can't

869
00:43:42,939 --> 00:43:45,489
Speaker 2: go to hedge fund and say, look, I work in tech,

870
00:43:45,500 --> 00:43:48,189
Speaker 2: I want my strategy not to have enough tech because

871
00:43:48,199 --> 00:43:49,469
Speaker 2: I want more diversification.

872
00:43:49,739 --> 00:43:52,820
Speaker 2: But when you build things with tech, with deep technology

873
00:43:52,830 --> 00:43:55,090
Speaker 2: and infrastructure, you can do that. So today for our

874
00:43:55,100 --> 00:43:58,250
Speaker 2: defensive growth strategy, someone can come pick a risk level,

875
00:43:58,260 --> 00:44:00,570
Speaker 2: say I want to be more in tech, less in tech,

876
00:44:00,580 --> 00:44:03,429
Speaker 2: more in Pharma, less in Pharma, whatever you care and

877
00:44:03,439 --> 00:44:05,209
Speaker 2: we will execute that for you and obviously at a

878
00:44:05,219 --> 00:44:09,409
Speaker 2: much lower price. So there are other strategies like there

879
00:44:09,419 --> 00:44:10,949
Speaker 2: is a very interesting strategy that we are about to

880
00:44:10,959 --> 00:44:13,729
Speaker 2: launch called direct indexing in the US. So in the US,

881
00:44:13,739 --> 00:44:16,780
Speaker 2: taxes make a big difference. But interestingly

882
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,948
Speaker 2: if instead of buying, say the S and P 500 ETF,

883
00:44:20,959 --> 00:44:23,439
Speaker 2: if you buy the individual components of the TF and

884
00:44:23,449 --> 00:44:26,979
Speaker 2: then you buy and sell them in a systematic structured manner,

885
00:44:27,209 --> 00:44:30,500
Speaker 2: you can generate tax losses. Now these tax losses can

886
00:44:30,510 --> 00:44:33,100
Speaker 2: be written off against capital gains that you have that

887
00:44:33,110 --> 00:44:36,070
Speaker 2: year or they could be carried forward, right? And this

888
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,709
Speaker 2: kind of structure was always available to the ultra wealthy.

889
00:44:38,879 --> 00:44:41,479
Speaker 2: But today, we can do that for $25,000 for a

890
00:44:41,489 --> 00:44:44,050
Speaker 2: whole bunch of Americans. So suddenly making it available to many,

891
00:44:44,060 --> 00:44:46,899
Speaker 2: many more people to be able to do it at scale.

892
00:44:47,179 --> 00:44:49,589
Speaker 2: When we come to Singapore, we're thinking about like what

893
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:54,479
Speaker 2: are the specific things that our infrastructure can enable Singaporeans

894
00:44:54,489 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 2: to do? And one of these we found is often

895
00:44:57,409 --> 00:45:01,959
Speaker 2: people in, you know, want to bet on long term themes,

896
00:45:02,229 --> 00:45:04,399
Speaker 2: you know, somebody has insight into like, look, I think

897
00:45:04,709 --> 00:45:10,689
Speaker 2: top population is aging and services and companies that cater

898
00:45:10,699 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 2: to this aging population is a good team that I

899
00:45:13,090 --> 00:45:15,629
Speaker 2: want to invest in for the long run. So we

900
00:45:15,639 --> 00:45:18,750
Speaker 2: will enable Singaporean users to do that super simply in

901
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,819
Speaker 2: a structured systematic manner where they just pick that team

902
00:45:22,830 --> 00:45:25,489
Speaker 2: are able to invest in it. We keep it rebalanced.

903
00:45:25,629 --> 00:45:27,790
Speaker 2: It's almost as if they were running their own index

904
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:29,370
Speaker 1: right now.

905
00:45:29,850 --> 00:45:33,020
Speaker 1: There are rich countries and they are developing countries and

906
00:45:33,030 --> 00:45:35,989
Speaker 1: I understand that, you know, there is a lot of

907
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,189
Speaker 1: wealth in the US and Singapore with sort of, you know,

908
00:45:39,229 --> 00:45:43,388
Speaker 1: a great sort of starting point for your, your initiative.

909
00:45:43,620 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 1: Do you see even for developing countries where people are

910
00:45:45,810 --> 00:45:49,169
Speaker 1: not as wealthy that there is a rule, a role

911
00:45:49,179 --> 00:45:51,020
Speaker 1: for financial literacy and

912
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,020
Speaker 1: financial planning coming together through your app? Oh,

913
00:45:53,030 --> 00:45:56,219
Speaker 2: absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's actually one of the things

914
00:45:56,229 --> 00:46:00,009
Speaker 2: that's most exciting is the amount of young professionals that

915
00:46:00,020 --> 00:46:03,169
Speaker 2: are in countries all over and the young professionals are

916
00:46:03,179 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 2: today are a lot more like each other around the

917
00:46:06,010 --> 00:46:08,209
Speaker 2: world because they are on the same products. They're all

918
00:46:08,219 --> 00:46:11,179
Speaker 2: on Instagram and Tik Tok and they're seeing the same,

919
00:46:11,189 --> 00:46:14,310
Speaker 2: they dress the same, they talk the same, they follow

920
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:15,169
Speaker 2: the same trends.

921
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,709
Speaker 2: And so we think there's a whole class of these

922
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,620
Speaker 2: people who are as they progress in their lives, as

923
00:46:21,629 --> 00:46:25,549
Speaker 2: their countries advance Bangladesh has been a huge economic success

924
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,129
Speaker 2: over the last 10 years in terms of growth. And

925
00:46:29,850 --> 00:46:32,330
Speaker 2: can you think of the number of professionals who are there?

926
00:46:32,399 --> 00:46:34,250
Speaker 2: It may not be the millions that you will see

927
00:46:34,260 --> 00:46:36,570
Speaker 2: in the US or China or India. But there is

928
00:46:36,580 --> 00:46:40,260
Speaker 2: definitely a class of professionals who are building the economy,

929
00:46:40,270 --> 00:46:43,310
Speaker 2: who are building great businesses, who will want this kind

930
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:44,629
Speaker 2: of sophisticated service. So

931
00:46:45,060 --> 00:46:46,629
Speaker 2: one of our goals is in the long run over

932
00:46:46,639 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 2: the next 1020 years, be able to take what we

933
00:46:49,409 --> 00:46:52,389
Speaker 2: built and bring it to every country, every country in

934
00:46:52,399 --> 00:46:55,770
Speaker 2: the world. There's no reason if a country, I mean,

935
00:46:55,780 --> 00:46:58,639
Speaker 2: the country is developing, they will have professionals who are

936
00:46:58,649 --> 00:47:01,310
Speaker 2: helping drive it. Today's wealth creation is not about the

937
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:03,979
Speaker 2: people who are born rich. Today's wealth creation is all

938
00:47:03,989 --> 00:47:04,469
Speaker 2: about people

939
00:47:04,570 --> 00:47:08,229
Speaker 2: who are creating more value for the ecosystem, for the system,

940
00:47:08,250 --> 00:47:12,110
Speaker 2: for the countries and large and partaking of that. So

941
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,729
Speaker 2: we want to serve as many of them, some will

942
00:47:15,739 --> 00:47:18,350
Speaker 2: serve directly, some will go and partner with the bank

943
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,830
Speaker 2: in that country to serve indirectly using our technologies.

944
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,109
Speaker 1: So if not the next billion, but the next 100 million,

945
00:47:24,750 --> 00:47:26,459
Speaker 2: I would hope to get to the next billion at

946
00:47:26,469 --> 00:47:29,489
Speaker 2: some point of time. Like, you know, from a humanity perspective,

947
00:47:29,709 --> 00:47:32,800
Speaker 2: there's no reason why a lot of the technologies we've

948
00:47:32,810 --> 00:47:36,090
Speaker 2: had and we've built should not be available to everyone today.

949
00:47:36,100 --> 00:47:38,969
Speaker 2: There are regulatory constraints today. Art is available only to

950
00:47:38,979 --> 00:47:40,290
Speaker 2: credited investors because

951
00:47:40,889 --> 00:47:43,469
Speaker 2: you know, regulators feel some of these products are too

952
00:47:43,479 --> 00:47:46,799
Speaker 2: sophisticated and I respect that. But I would also argue

953
00:47:46,810 --> 00:47:50,110
Speaker 2: that over time working together with the regulators, if we

954
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,610
Speaker 2: are able to show and help them understand that some

955
00:47:52,620 --> 00:47:55,169
Speaker 2: of these products, not all, maybe some of these products

956
00:47:55,389 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 2: could benefit everyone independent of how much wealth they have.

957
00:47:58,939 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 2: There's no reason why this should not be available to

958
00:48:01,050 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 2: somebody with $10,000 10,000 rupees, right?

959
00:48:04,449 --> 00:48:07,549
Speaker 2: When you use Google search today or Gmail, it doesn't

960
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,389
Speaker 2: matter whether you're a phd like you or whether you're

961
00:48:10,399 --> 00:48:13,280
Speaker 2: a kid in Nigeria, why should it be that way

962
00:48:13,290 --> 00:48:16,330
Speaker 2: for finance? Right? So that's my ultimate goal. Like I

963
00:48:16,340 --> 00:48:18,689
Speaker 2: want to take what we built and make them available

964
00:48:18,699 --> 00:48:20,569
Speaker 2: to every single person in the world at some point

965
00:48:20,580 --> 00:48:21,629
Speaker 2: in time. Love

966
00:48:21,639 --> 00:48:24,669
Speaker 1: it. That's a great note to I think. Conclude our chat,

967
00:48:24,679 --> 00:48:27,340
Speaker 1: Cesar so much. Thank you so much for your time

968
00:48:27,350 --> 00:48:28,109
Speaker 1: and insights

969
00:48:28,429 --> 00:48:30,129
Speaker 2: time. Thank you so much. Pleasure being here with

970
00:48:30,139 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: you. Great to have you and thanks to our listeners

971
00:48:33,050 --> 00:48:36,889
Speaker 1: as well. Copy time was produced by Ken Del Violet

972
00:48:36,899 --> 00:48:40,500
Speaker 1: Lee and Daisy Sherma provided additional assistance. It is for

973
00:48:40,510 --> 00:48:44,659
Speaker 1: information only and does not constitute any investment advice. All

974
00:48:44,669 --> 00:48:48,340
Speaker 1: 116 episodes of the podcast are available on youtube and

975
00:48:48,350 --> 00:48:51,820
Speaker 1: all major podcast platforms including Apple Google and Spotify.

976
00:48:52,100 --> 00:48:54,750
Speaker 1: As for our research publications and webinars. You can find

977
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,919
Speaker 1: them all by Googling D BS research library. Have a

978
00:48:57,929 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: great day.