How to Lend Money to Strangers

How lenders are navigating volatility in 2026, with David Silverstein

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year! I'm in Tallinn, hopefully showing my South African nieces some snow, though this winter is staying stubbornly mild. Anyway, that's not why you're here. The flipping over of the calendar is also a great time to think of the year ahead, and the trends that might shape it - and that's exactly what I did with David Silverstein, founder and CEO of Ned, whose 'Beyond the Breaking Point' report describes how lenders are looking to navigate volatility and rebuild for 2026.

Built for growth. Powered by cash flow. Ned's white-label platform transforms real-time financial data into faster credit decisions, smarter portfolio management, and more transparent borrower experiences. You can find them at home online at https://www.nedhelps.com/

David is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-silverstein-b904a27b/ (or https://www.linkedin.com/company/nedhelps/)

I'm there, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

Please also follow, share, and talk about the show using https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/

Friends of the show include:

https://www.ogmara.com/ (customised risk management and analytic consulting)

https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs)

https://flatwhiteorfoff.com/ (ask for anything other than a flat white, the answer is in the name)

https://www.joinhumoni.com/ (helping international students find accommodation, work, and financial services on day one)

https://www.haboomoney.com/ (making collections personalised, flexible and intelligent)

https://beetlesense.ai (AI-powered day one pest detection for forestry)

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How AI and behavioural economics can re-humanize financial services, with Diederick van Thiel

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:00:00 GMT

"We live in a world where AI is transforming everything, but the real opportunity isn’t in automation: it’s in reimagining systems around people." In today's episode, I'm speaking to Dr Diederick van Thiel, fintech entrepreneur, executive, academic, and, most recently, author of Brilliant Data, a call to leaders, innovators, and policymakers to create intelligent systems that don’t just think quickly, but also care deeply. "The future doesn’t belong to those with the most data. It belongs to those who understand it".

Oh, and because Dr van Thiel is a fintech founder, too, we also discuss a range of other topics, including how AdviceRobo's personality-based credit scoring can open up new sectors and thus approve more loans than traditional methods.

AdviceRobo is at https://advicerobo.ai/ and at https://www.linkedin.com/company/advicerobofixingglobalcredit/

Find links to the book at https://advicerobo.ai/brilliant-data/ (or via my featured book page https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads)

Connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

As is the show, please follow its page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/ (once you have followed, look for the circle with the three dots in the header section, click that and then 'invite connections' and invite any of your colleagues who you think might like the content

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, https://www.haboomoney.com/, and https://beetlesense.ai

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Giving credit credit in the board room, with Marlize Buys

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 06:00:00 GMT

Data analytics is no longer an isolated and arcane backroom activity to be understood by only a handful of geeks, it's at the core of every successful lending business.

For those of us that have grown up in data science, that's great news, but that rising prominence also means that a new audience must now come to terms with the implications of machine learning versus logistic regression scores, with gini coefficients and information values and bins and weights, etc. And that new audience is an important one: the Board.

Marlize Buys started her career getting hands-on with credit scorecards, then she helped to build a lending business of her own, and now she is advising the boards of major banks with that particular transition.

Marlize has been so busy optimising lending businesses that she hasn't quite got her website up and running, but Most Probably is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/most-probably/

Or you can speak to her directly https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlizebuys/

I'm on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Put a bit of juice in the tank, with Katherin Chan

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 06:00:00 GMT

We typically explain SME under lending as a supply gap: staid banks don't want to, or simply don't know how to, lend to new-fangled businesses. And to some extent, that is true, but there is also a demand gap. "There is a lack of knowledge, confidence, and trust when it comes to seeking growth capital through loans. While many founders hesitate to borrow, nearly 60% abandon loan applications midway, citing fear of rejection or complex terms".

This "confidence gap" - and how Juice's Smart Growth Capital - is what I'm discussing today with Katherine Chan.

You can get Juice (or just read more about them) at https://www.getmejuice.com/ (head on over to their Growth Hub for some great content https://www.getmejuice.com/growth-hub/growth-hub)

Meanwhile, Katherine is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chankatherine00/

I'm on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

As is the show, please follow its page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/ (once you have followed, look for the circle with the three dots in the ehader section, click that and then 'invite connections' and invite any of your colleagues who you think might like the content

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your branch on your phone, with Albert Howard

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT

For a long time now, the prevailing narrative has been branch versus phone, and phone has been winning. But there is another option, branch and phone, or rather branch in phone, and it gives us the best of both worlds plus a few fresh advantages to boot.

Connect with Albert on LinkedIn using https://www.linkedin.com/in/albert-howard-mb/

And while you're there, stay up to date with the Mini Branch story at https://www.linkedin.com/company/minibranch/

Or jump straight to their homepage at https://www.minibranch.com/

I'm on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

As is the show, please follow its page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/ (once you have followed, look for the circle with the three dots in the ehader section, click that and then 'invite connections' and invite any of your colleagues who you think might like the content

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to teach money to students, with Latreace Wells and Rod Griffin

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT

While it is true that our mistakes are a great source of learning, it is also true that they can be a very expensive source of learning. This is particularly true when it comes to credit, where human nature and compound interest mean that many of us first learn about the true mechanics of credit when collections are on the phone and our debts have ballooned. Luckily, Latreace Sankey-Wells, with help from the team at Experian, is making sure that the students at Fisk University are better equipped than that.

In this episode, we chat about the importance and impact of consumer education, especially for young consumers.

Our discussion was inspired by Latreace's OpEd for American Banker, which you can read here: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/banks-need-to-be-more-proactive-in-promoting-youth-financial-literacy

Rod's broader work can be followed, most easily, over here https://www.experian.com/blogs/news/about/creditchat/

You can find Latreace on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/latreacewells/

Rod is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodgriffin1/

And I'm there, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

P2P funding for Europe's farmers, with Nikita Goncars

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT

Agricultural loans offer a unique combination of high collateral and EU subsidies – in a crisis-resistant sector. Lande gives us exclusive access to these loans, and this week I'm speaking to the founder, Nikita Goncars.

Meet Nikita on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikita-goncars-lande/

Or jump straight to Lande's homepage at https://lande.finance/

BadIdeas.fund is at, you guessed it, https://www.badideas.fund/ and Fintech Latvian is at https://fla.lv/

You can find me on LinkedIn, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ Follow the show, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The loans that fund life's biggest moments, with Scott Baker

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 06:00:00 GMT

People don't want mortgages; they want houses, and mortgages are just the unavoidable, often overly-complicated means to that end. Scott Baker understands this, and has embedded it into the very fabric of Toast.

Join us as we talk about Scott's journey from retail to finance, the state of the Australian mortgage landscape, and how he built Toast to help consumers dream big and plan bigger.

Toast is online at https://www.toastfinance.com.au/

It is also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-finance/

Or jump straight to Scott at https://www.instagram.com/scott_thebroker_baker/ or https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottybaker/

And you can find me on LinkedIn, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ Follow the show, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern fraud solutions for modern fraud problems, with Rob Meakin

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 06:00:00 GMT

We’re increasingly seeing collaboration between cybercrime, fraud, organised crime and money laundering. Organisations face mounting challenges in protecting their digital infrastructure and customers from fraudulent activities - and this is true in developed and developing markets. Developed countries tend to have more developed risk controls, but they remain attractive to fraudsters because of the scale of opportunity they represent - more work for frausters, yes, but more reward. Developing countries, on the other hand, typically have less robust digital ecosystems but they have the perfect opportunity to leapfrog into a secure and trusted new online world.

In today's episode, I find out how Rob Meakin and his Fraud and Identity team at CreditInfo are helping lenders adjust.

You can start your CreditInfo journey over at https://creditinfo.com/# and jump from there to the market that you're most interested in, or find the study we speak about right here: https://chronicle.creditinfo.com/2025/04/22/the-importance-of-trust-in-digital-interactions-the-cornerstone-of-a-digital-economy/

You can find Rob on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/robmeakin/

And you can find me there, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ Folloe the show, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cashflows and credit for SMEs, with Guga Gorenstein

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Corporate cards, payments, accounting, and credit for growing businesses in 25+ countries - there's a lot to cover today, and then we also chat about Brazzilion fintech and Guga's impressive career!

If you're in Mexico as this comes out, I think you can still catch the Jeeves team at Mexico Tech week (https://www.mexicotechweek.mx/). If not, you can try Jeeves over at https://www.tryjeeves.com/br (or for any of the other 6 regions by removing the extension, but you all know how the internet works)

You can find Guga (Gustavo) on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gorenstein/ or Jeeves at https://www.linkedin.com/company/tryjeeves

I'm on LinkedIn, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Collecting from debtors is hard, but often not as hard as selling to strangers, with Amanda Morrison

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 05:00:00 GMT

If you're fed up with chasing unpaid invoices and debts, iCollect's DIY debt collection software might be the solution for you. You don't have to be a lender to have creditors, but you often have to be a lender to afford a full team to chase those creditors when they start to default - that's where Amanda Morrison steps in.

icollect is at https://www.icollect.co.nz/

Guardian Credit Services are at https://www.guardiancredit.co.nz/

Or jump right to LinkedIn, where Amanda is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-morrison-nz-b07b7226/

I'm on LinkedIn, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Flexible and intelligent collections for improved returns, with Hannah Baynham

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Getting out of debt has never been harder, and, yes, a sluggish economy and the cost of recovering from a global pandemic play a big role in this, but lenders are not entirely blameless. For too long, it felt cheaper to deliver rigid and unpleasant collections processes, because 'it's not like the customer has a choice'.

But they do, they have the most important choice available: to pay or not to pay.

Collections is not just about 'how do we make the customer pay', it's about 'how do we let them pay' and so, yes, getting out of debt has never been harder, but in today's episode, Hannah Baynham explains how Haboo Money is fixing this with personalised, flexible and intelligent collections.

Haboo Money can be experienced at https://www.haboomoney.com/

Hannah can be reached on LinkedIn at http://linkedin.com/in/hannah-baynham/

As is Haboo, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/haboo-money

I'm on LinkedIn, too, of course, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Work's a joke anyway, so they made it a game!

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 05:00:59 GMT

Suren Rastogi started his career in financial services, but, called to do something a little more exciting, he has broken away to pursue his dream of launching a board game. We'll talk about his roots, his pivot, and what it took to create Burnout: a chaotic strategic party game about mental health and the daily grind.

Head on over to https://www.burnoutgame.com/ to get on the waitlist, it's the perfect office Secret Santa gift!

Follow the team on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/end_burnout/

And follow Suren on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/surenrastogi/ - you can chat to him about game development, corporate tie-ins, and just about anything to be honest.

I'm on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

And if you're interested in other lending folk following their dreams, check out Gideon's episode at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-55

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Banking (and lending) for the eco-conscious masses

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Banking that's good for you and the planet. You can see the GreenFi offering first-hand at https://www.greenfi.com/. GreenFi helps you save money, earn cash back, and plant trees - all while keeping your money out of fossil fuels. No mandatory fees. No greenwashing. Just a better way to bank.

You can follow Tim on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothynewell/

Follow GreenFi at the saem time over at https://www.linkedin.com/company/greenfibanking/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unbankable, making a movie about lending

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Luke Willms is an award-winning writer, director, and producer... and he's interested in lending. Unabnkable is the culmination of a seven-year, seven-country journey to unravel whether Africa's rich tapestry of tradition, innovation and experimentation to find out if it holds the key to Western economic revitalisation.

Find all the details at https://unbankablemovie.com/ (or watch it on https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/unbankable/umc.cmc.2b51h3w0b2lbdrvt0af8vklx2 or https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbankable-Luke-Willms/dp/B0F4767PNF

Follow Luke on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-willms-87250049/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Embracing GenAI in credit risk

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 05:00:00 GMT

McKinsey recently surveyed senior credit risk executives from, among others, nine of the top ten US banks, and they asked them about their organisations’ adoption of GenAI, its current use cases, their future plans for it, and the challenges they expected. Twenty percent of the respondents had already implemented at least one GenAI use case in their organizations, and a further 60 percent expect to do so within a year.

With how quickly AI is embedding itself in our daily lives, we have to assume that's already increased significantly, so I sat down with Arv Govindarajan, one of the authors of that article and a partner at McKinsey & Company, to talk about how lenders are embracing generative AI in credit risk.

McKinsey & Co is online at https://www.mckinsey.com/ (also here, to jump straight to the Risk Dynamics team https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/how-we-help-clients/risk-dynamics)

Click here to read the article we're talking about https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/risk-and-resilience/our-insights/embracing-generative-ai-in-credit-risk

McKinsey are, of course, also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/mckinsey/

Arv, in turn, is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvindgovindarajan/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Wedgwood Steeped in a rich heritage, over 260 wonderful years later, Wedgwood continues to be renowned for quality, innovative British design and timeless elegance: https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?s=2447792&v=3370&q=369217&r=2069741

GoWithGuide 100% customizable, private and high-quality tours delivered by local, quality-assured guides and backed by 24/7 efficient and caring 24/7 customer service. You can book a tour in 500 cities around the world: https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?gid=510974&mid=87121&awinaffid=2069741&linkid=3852288&clickref=

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An AI-powered link in the chain

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Simplified funding for SMEs: pre-qualification in minutes, funded within a day, this is not the business lending of yesteryear.

Credibly is at home online at https://www.credibly.com/

You can find Ryan on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-rosett-262b642/

While Credibly is there at https://www.linkedin.com/company/credibly/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show, at https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are the odds?

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

I've just added a new section to the website, featuring affiliate links to all the books written by the great guests we've featured on this show - https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads. If you scan that list before you listen to this show, you'll find among them Dr Michael Orkin with What Are the Odds? and Probability & Statistics Made Interesting. Dr. Orkin is a statistics professor and consultant, and a nationally known authority on probability and gambling games who has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, on various conference stages, and, of course, on the cover of several books.

So I was delighted to chat to him, not least of all because I've recently started teaching analytics myself and, in the process of designing my course, started to fall back in love with some of the quirks and nuances of probability.

You can find Dr Orkin on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mike-orkin-5600584/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Outsourcing AI

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Very early in my career, back in the days when the details from paper forms had to be typed into a computer to get the application process started, I heard about companies scanning application forms and then sending the files to India to have the data capture done there. A decade later, the guy I was chatting to in a hotel bar in Nairobi promised me he could build a collection call centre in India, staffed by Swahili-speaking staff at a fraction of the local cost. And now, as I hear from Rajul Sood, we can outsource an entire AI infrastructure - the back-end of intech is changing just as fast as the front-end!

You can find Acuity Knowledge Partners online at https://www.acuitykp.com/

Rajul is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajul-sood-vohra-2475b417/ and Acuity Knowledge Partners at https://www.linkedin.com/company/acuity-knowledge-partners

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

Commercial partners include: GoWithGuide 100% customizable, private and high-quality tours delivered by local, quality-assured guides and backed by 24/7 efficient and caring 24/7 customer service. You can book a tour in 500 cities worldwide by clicking this affiliate link (I'll earn a small commission, but you won't pay a cent more): https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?gid=510974&mid=87121&awinaffid=2069741&linkid=3852288&clickref=

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Behind the scenes: investing in loans

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

You can't lend money if you don't have capital. And you can't grow your capital if you don't deploy it. There have long been matchmakers to link those two sides together, but traditionally they've only come into play when the numbers involved started b's or even t's. Exaloan closes the global funding gap for individuals, entrepreneurs, and SMEs by connecting institutional capital with the digital lending ecosystem, digitizing the refinancing processes for lenders.

So today we're taking the loan for granted and looking, instead, at what we do to generate fresh capital and strong returns for investors.

Exaloan can be found online at https://www.exaloan.com/

Luca is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/luca-andre-frignani/

Exaloan's page is at https://www.linkedin.com/company/exaloan/

You can find me on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ - please do connect

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

Meanwhile, my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is discussed at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Growing a business in vitro

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with high ability on a given task tend to underestimate their competence, while those with low ability overestimate theirs. It's typically examples of the second half of that antithesis that make the headlines, but the first half is problematic, too, because sometimes the experts best placed to start a new business are the ones most held back by doubt. And that's why I love the controlled environment that In Vitro Capital has created to, essentially, employ potential founders to build businesses without all the unknowns of traditional entrepreneurship. And it works

Amir Barsoum is the founder, managing partner, and CEO of InVitro Capital, and he takes us through the vision behind it all. You can find Amir on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirmbarsoum/

I'm there, too, and open to all new connection requests (just mention the show) https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

You can find In Vitro online at https://invitrocapital.com/about-us/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/invitrocapital

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Funding the green home revolution

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

This is an unscientific guess, but I have to believe that the vast majority of us would prefer to get our power needs met by renewable sources in our own backyards - cleaner, yes, but also free from the price shocks that have become so common recently.

That said, heat pumps and solar panels are expensive and complicated - a daunting combination that holds many people back, myself included. That's where Cloover steps in. Born in Sweden but now finding a lot of traction in Germany, Cloover partner with renewable energy professionals to make sustainable home upgrades simple and affordable with flexible payment options.

Now, as you'll hear, this episode was originally recorded a year ago before an unplanned long break kept it dusty and on the shelves. And as you'll also hear, it wasn't alone in that fate. But Peder and I recorded a follow-up to bring the story up-to-date, and it's one that's rising to the fore in more and more markets.

You can find Peder on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pederbroms/

You can find Cloover at https://cloover.co/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloover

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page while you're there.

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to Lend Money to Billders

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Recorded live in Austin, Texas at the offices of Billd, this episode of HTLMTS explores the ways in which Christopher Doyle and his team are removing financing friction from the building process. Few of us look forward to a building project, but all of us make use of the end results, so let's take a look behind the scenes at how the money does (and doesn't flow) between lenders, general contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers.

To find out more about how Billd's financial solutions built for subcontractors, head on over to https://billd.com/

Or follow them on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/billdco

Chris is on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherldoyle/, as am I, https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology. You can already start to follow it wherever you're listening to this one - there's only a trailer there at the moment, but we've recorded some of the early episodes and it's going to be a fun ride!

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to Lend Money to Regenerative Farmers

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

"I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it." - Wendell Berry

The world that Robbie Vitrano and the team at Mad Agriculture is striving to create is so vastly different than the world that is, that nearly everything that they do bears certain madness. From heart to head, poetry to science, financing to markets, and soil to shelf, MadAg help farmers thrive in regenerative organic agriculture. And sure, it's a little different from our normal fare on this show, but there is lending involved and, more importantly, if we are what we eat, we'd all do well to understand how farmers are making our food as good as it can be.

You can learn more about Mad Ag at https://madagriculture.org/

Or find Robbie on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbievitrano/

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page while you're there.

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Selling clarity in a volatile market

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Twenty years ago, the economy of Zimbabwe hit global headlines for its hyper-inflation: Wikipedia tells me prices rose 89.7 sextillion percent in 2008. And while the decimal point here may create the illusion of something measurable, in all real terms, it is an incomprehensible number - something which The Zimbabwean Newspaper cleverly circumvented when it ran a protest campaign using a trillion dollars of actual bank notes as a backdrop to billboards and posters. This was brought under control for a decade until, like something out of a Joseph fever dream, those ten stable years were followed by a fresh set of five hyper-inflationary ones before a gold-backed new currency was launched last year. You may think it is hard to predict default rates in your market, but imagine how difficult it is when even the most foundational aspects of the economy are prone to upheaval!

It's a frightening thought, and one that might have me running for the hills, but the volatility that scares me has fortified George Nachamba, who saw opportunity and market need. And he responded, building Credisafe to give lenders and vendors the ability to credit score the informal sector. It's a fascinating example of allowing necessity to force innovation, and I think they're building features that credit bureaus in the biggest markets should be paying attention to.

You can find CrediSafe at www.credi-safe.com

George is also the author of 3 books, two related to business management and the other to personal development: you can get them by emailing him using gnachamba@credi-safe.com

You can connect with George on LinkedIn, like I did: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-nachamba-423b8223/

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to set goals and actually achieve them this time!

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 06:00:45 GMT

A cross-over episode to celebrate our crossing over from 2024 to 2025 😜 a time we traditionally think about goals for the future. But while goal setting is common, goal achieving tends to be somewhat rarer - I'll personally be entering my 20th successive 'Year of the Body' with nothing but an even softer belly to show for the previous 19 years of good intentions.

In this episode, we sat down with John Assaraf to find out how we can not just set bold goals but go on to achieve them. John is an entrepreneur, author, motivator, and one of the leading high-performance success coaches in the world, so this was a perfectly timed treat!

If you head on over to MyNeuroGym via this link, you will give the show a little financial boost in the process at no cost to yourself: https://links.myneurogym.com/hAIghtened

Or if you want the full at-the-feet-of-the-master experience, you can hire John as your own coach over at https://www.johnassaraf.com/ (it's also where you'll find links to all of his books, though they're also in all fine bookstores, both online and on the High Street)

Ebook: https://johnassaraf.isrefer.com/go/POVEBOOK/JAAFF13397/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnassaraf/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/johnassarafpage

YT: https://www.youtube.com/user/JohnAssaraf

X: https://x.com/johnassaraf

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

#GoalSetting #NewYearsResolutions #Achieveyourresolutions #GoalAchievement #MindsetMatters #PersonalDevelopment #SuccessMindset #AchieveYourGoals #GoalGetter #SelfImprovement #GrowthMindset #ProductivityTips #BrainTraining #Neuroplasticity #MindsetMastery #Innercise #neurogym #TrainYourBrain #MindsetCoach #Neuroscience #BrainHealth #FocusAndDiscipline #MentalStrength #PodcastMotivation #SelfHelpPodcast #GoalSettingPodcast #MindsetPodcast #SuccessPodcast #InnercisePodcast #TheSecret #TheAnswer #HavingItAll #InspirationDaily #MotivationMonday #SuccessTips #MindsetIsEverything #DreamBig #FocusOnSuccess #StayMotivated #PositiveMindset #LifeGoals #GoalCrusher

Impact-Site-Verification: 8fe4cbc1-71ec-454d-9065-dc4fc40b73c3

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to try a new podcast aka the hAIghtened senses feed take-over

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 05:00:52 GMT

I've been busy with the kids' end-of-year activities, with a bit of camping, with a bit of drinking in Belfast, with a bit of planning for a trip to Paris for the Olympics, with a bit of everything except podcast editing 😉 So, to fill the gap until next week, here's a taste of my other show: hAIghtened senses.

From drones scanning the forests of Sweden looking for early signs of pest infestations to artificial noses detecting spoiled milk or the presence of mildew to innovators building businesses on top of this fast-changing tech, our podcast uncovers the innovative ways AI-empowered machines are enhancing our understanding of the world around us.

You can email us at haightenedsenses@gmail.com or message us on LinkedIn

Images of spruce bark beetle infestations can be sent to barkbeetletracker@gmail.com

Christo and Brendan are both active on LinkedIn and open to all genuine new connections, you can find them at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christo-van-zyl-innovator/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ respectively

You can find more of Christo at chaos-out-of-order.com

Brendan's other podcast is www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

Show art is created with Dall-E, show music is created with suno.ai

Website: https://www.haightenedsenses.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/haightened-senses

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@hAIghtenedsenses

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557906028730

Instagram: @haightened.senses

TikTok: haightened.senses

#Innovation, #Entrepreneurship, #AIRevolution, #BusinessGrowth, #FutureTech, #DisruptiveInnovation, #InnovativeIdeas, #AIInBusiness #machinelearning #tech #hitech

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Innovation for interesting markets

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 05:00:53 GMT

Adrian Pllay has an unusually deep understanding of some of the world's more interesting markets. We've heard a lot about the US and the UK on this show but today, Adrian takes us off the beaten path: having been based at times in Africa and at times in the Middle East, he now oversees both of those regions as well as a little in-between! We talk about what he's learnt along the way, we get teased with the possibility of a future book, and we hear how Provenir is helping banks, fintechs, and other financial services providers make smarter decisions faster with their AI-Powered Risk Decisioning Platform.

Provenir is online at https://www.provenir.com/ (or jump straight to their excellent resources page for their latest thought leadership)

Adrian is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianpillay/ (and last I saw, he was hiring)

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lenders leaping forward, with Paul Weiss (Simbuka)

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 05:00:35 GMT

"If my mom asks me what I do, I say I work for a company that helps financial institutions worldwide to make lending simple". Paul Weiss is talking about Simbuka in this quote, a young and passionate software development company, focusing on financial institutions that operate in developing and emerging markets. And since the name Simbuka originates from the Kinyarwanda language, what better location to find Paul than in Kigali.

Simbuka is online at https://www.simbuka.com/ or find and follow them on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/simbuka/)

Paul is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-weiss123/

You can seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page while you're there.

And finally, I'm also co-creating a new podcast called hAIghtened senses which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology. You can already start to follow it wherever you're listening to this one - there's only a trailer there at the moment, but we've recorded some of the early episodes and it's going to be a fun ride!

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A global study of credit self-monitoring, with Charlie Wise (TransUnion)

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 05:00:00 GMT

In the last five years, one hundred million Americans have started to monitor their credit reports with TransUnion for the first time. One hundred million. And the same thing is happening all around the world. But just because everyone is doing it, doesn't mean they're doing it for the same reason: some consumers are in a bind and looking for a way back to good credit; some are planning a major loan and want to optimise their options; some want to make sure everything is untouched and as it should be.

So, in their latest global study of the phenomenon, TransUnion set out to see if each of these goals is being helped by the credit self-monitoring, and I'm chatting to Charlie Wise to find out what they learned.

Charlie is Senior Vice President, Research and Consulting at TransUnion and is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-wise-959570/

TransUnion is at https://www.transunion.com/

This particular research is also being discussed here for the US and here for the UK: https://www.transunion.co.uk/lp/consumer-monitoring-motivations

Please seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A modern, digital loan for India with Kabeer Chaudhary (ClickMyLoan)

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 05:00:29 GMT

"So as I as I always say, Brendan, India is now the coolest party in town and if you are late, you might not get in!"

The story of Indian fintech is one of almost unimaginable speed and scale, and watching it from the front lines was Kabeer Chaudhary. So I sat down with him to talk about digitising loans and learning from banks and fintechs to deliver a project that works with loss rates that allow you to sleep peacefully at night.

You can find ClickMyLoan at https://clickmyloan.com/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/clickmyloan/

You can find Kabeer at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabeer-chaudhary-18bb7984/

Please seek me out on LinkedIn, too, where I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building a green credit score, with Daniel Mclean (4most)

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 05:00:38 GMT

As an industry, we've been using scorecards as objective and comparable measures of credit risk for generations. We've used this experience to get more and more accurate in those models, but there are other uses, too, like maybe an objective and comparable measure of environmental risk...

I'm sitting down with Daniel Mclean, Client Partner at 4most, a specialist credit analytics firm that became a specialist analytics firm and went on to win awards for its new "green" credit score - an ESG score that can be adapted and utilised across all regions and tailored to a lender's available data, individual portfolios and unique sustainability goals.

You can find Daniel on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-mclean-351278169/ where you can also follow the 4most page https://www.linkedin.com/company/4most/

But for that, you might want to jump straight to their homepage: https://4-most.co.uk/

There's a page dedicated to all their wonderful insights - https://4-most.co.uk/insights/ - but go even if you're just interested int he rebrand!

Please seek me out on LinkedIn, I'm open to all genuine new connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Closing the SME funding gap, recorded live at Money20/20 with Rob Straathof (Liberis)

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 07:00:00 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting back-to-back live recordings of this podcast in the MoneyPot studio, a glass-walled thing of beauty on the Money20/20 show floor. The second of those was a data-backed dive into the world of frictionless and fair embedded business finance with Rob Straathod, CEO of Liberis - what I think could be one of the best use cases for Open Banking out there.

You can find Liberis at https://www.liberis.com/

You can find Rob on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-straathof-3b56152/ (Liberis are there, too, of course)

Don't leave LinkedIn before reaching out to me - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and following the show's page.

Money20/20 is the place(s) to be, find out how you can attend the next event here: https://www.money2020.com/

Keep well, Brendan

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Real-time data for collections, recorded live at Money20/20 with James Hill (Flexys)

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 05:00:39 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting back-to-back live recordings of this podcast in the MoneyPot studio, a glass-walled thing of beauty on the Money20/20 show floor. The first of those was an inspiring discussion about real-time data in collections with James Hill, CEO of Flexys Debt Management & Collections Software - what I think could be one of the best use cases for Open Banking out there.

Flexys is at home online at https://www.flexys.com/

You can reach out to James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-hill-07850167/ (where Flexys are, too)

James' own podcast - Flexys meets... - is available where you're listening to this, or directly at: https://www.flexys.com/resources/podcasts/

But don't leave LinkedIn before reaching out to me - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and following the show's page.

Money20/20 is the place(s) to be, find out how you can attend the next event here: https://www.money2020.com/

Keep well, Brendan

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Lessons from the Chinese model, with Richard Turrin (Author & Consultant)

Thu, 30 May 2024 05:00:34 GMT

Five years ago, cash was involved in every fourth POS transaction in China. Today, it is involved in 1 in 14, and in two years, it is expected to be involved in just 1 in 33. The size and speed of that evaporation are undeniably impressive, but the most important lessons will be found by studying neither the size nor the speed at which those cash transactions evaporated but from studying where those transactions went.

In the West, cash transactions became debit card transactions and the big banks saw them all. In China, cash transactions went into the new mobile wallet ecosystems, and as the banks became blind, the Super Apps were born. Fed with transaction data at a scale never seen before, a new type of lender emerged, and in their growth, a thousand lessons might be found.

So in today's episode, I'm speaking to Richard Turrin, a Shanghai-based fintech, AI, and innovation consultant and best-selling author. We chat about his time with IBM Watson, his move to China, and how what they're doing there might inspire new ideas in the West.

Richard is the author of Cashless: China's Digital Currency Revolution and Innovation Lab Excellence both of which are available on, among other places, Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07PQP33TC

But as you will hear, he is also writing for over 2,000 followers on Substack:https://substack.com/@richturrin

You can find Richard on LinkedIn, and possibly become his 50,000th follower! https://www.linkedin.com/in/turrin/

I am on LinkedIn, too, and open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Funding growth in modern economies, with Ritwik Ghosh (Seedflex)

Thu, 23 May 2024 05:00:45 GMT

Grab is by far the largest ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia, the largest food delivery platform, one of the largest digital payment methods, and now, thanks in part to the work of my guest, Ritwik Ghosh, the largest embedded FinTech lending business. That's an impressive set of achievements, but Ritwick and his co-founder, Sauvik Datta, still saw a gap: while Grab is an important platform for many merchants, it is never their only platform, and so any platform-specific effort to deliver revenue-based financing is doing so with at least one eye off the ball.

So they created Seedflex, a frictionless - and platform agnostic - way for online merchants to stay in control of their business, capital and growth.

Ritwik is on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghosh-ritwik/

Seedflex are there, too, at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seedflex-tech/

But you may want to jump straight to their homepage at: https://www.seedflex.com/

I am on LinkedIn, too, and open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Fighting illegal money lending, with Catherine Wohlers (Stop Loan Sharks)

Thu, 16 May 2024 05:00:08 GMT

Last time the research was done in England, 1.1 million people were borrowing from illegal lenders... and that was two years ago, before the cost of living crisis which has surely pushed that number higher, so we're looking at somewhere between 1 in 30 and 1 in 40 adults. Those borrowers are facing a combination of threats and extortionate rates, and you're losing directly, too, because "if one of your customers is paying the loan shark, they won't pay your loan because the loan shall be the priority".

Stop Loan Sharks is at home online at https://www.stoploansharks.co.uk/

But it also just happens to be one of their bi-annual social media weeks, so why don't you also engage with their posts on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stoploansharksengland/

I am on LinkedIn, too, and open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Funding families, with John Aronica (Gaia)

Thu, 09 May 2024 05:00:34 GMT

"Roughly 15% of hopeful parents worldwide would be eligible for IVF - from a medical eligibility perspective - but today, only about 2% are able to access that care."

It's all well and good financing cars or boats or sneakers, but sometimes we get a chance to finance something a little more important, like a house or, in this case, a family to fill it. Gaia are a wonderful example of that, embedding finance and insurance into a healthcare workflow to build the better way to pay for IVF.

Gaia are at https://gaiafamily.com/

On LinkedIn they're over here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gaiafamily/ and they're on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, too

John is on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-p-aronica/

As am I, and I am always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please also follow the show's page while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Cross-border lending in the EU, with Kaido Saar (MiFundo)

Thu, 02 May 2024 05:00:59 GMT

I was going to use a quote from Drachen here, because I remembered being quite proud of how I described Tallinn in there, but it turns out I remembered... generously So let's just say that Estonia is a fantastic place to visit this summer. But don't stop there, explore the other Baltic States while you're at it, maybe make a road trip of it and check out Poland, Czechia, and Germany, too. The borderless EU is your playground.

And, before the disaster that is Brexit, I enjoyed that freedom of movement as a resident, spending two wonderful years living and working in Copenhagen. Many still do, and that's where Mifundo come into the picture. We've spoken about cross-border credit bureau solutions before, and how they help immigrants, Kaido Saar will talk about that today, too, but within Europe immigration is often more of a tidal flow than a river's unidirectional run to the sea so we'll also discuss how that's baked into their solution.

Kaidoo and the team will once again be at Money20/20 in Amsterdam next month as part of the Estonian Fintech booth - https://europe.money2020.com/ I should be there, too, provided I get my logistics sorted in time, so if you're going to be in town, let's make a plan to meet up at the event or at one of the many after parties 😉.

You can learn more about Mifundo and book a demo at https://banks.mifundo.com/

Or you'll find them and Kaido both on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mifundo-com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaido-saar/

For natural biodegradable straws from reed, go to https://sutustraws.com/

I'm on LinkedIn, too, and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page, too, while you're there.

Keep well, Brendan

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Understanding customers. Getting them into houses. with Chris Schutrups (The Mortgage Hut)

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 05:00:43 GMT

"It started by just going out and networking, listening to people, asking them what worked, what didn't work, you know, ringing up estate agents saying, look, I'd love to do your mortgages and walking up and down the high street with my briefcase."

As much as I love featuring VC-funded, AI-powered, alternative data-consuming startups on this show, it is well worth remembering that there's still a very big place for businesses built on human interactions - provided those interactions lead to better products, of course. In today's episode, I'm speaking to Chris Schutrups, founder of The Mortgage Hut and some of the UK's leading mortgage brands.

We cover that story of shaking hands and building businesses, of understanding people's needs and building products for them, but we also look at the role of professional advice in a world flooded with opinions, the current mortgage landscape and its opportunities there for brokers and lenders to work together for the benefit of borrowers, and how a changing drinking culture is changing pubs.

The Mortgage Hut is at home online at https://www.themortgagehut.co.uk/ They're also on LinkedIn over at https://www.linkedin.com/company/themortgagehut/ (Police Mortgages are there, too)

And speaking of LinkedIn, Chris is kind of a big deal on the platform, so you can join the 20,000+ of us following his insights over at https://www.linkedin.com/in/schutrups/

Or if it was the pubs that caught your interest, check out the great options at https://hendersonpub.co/. With summer finally showing signs of its approach, I might well take on the 2-hour coastal drive to get me to Romsey and The Hunters Inn.

I'm on LinkedIn, too, and eager to reach Chris's heights so I'm always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - and follow the show's page, too

Keep well, Brendan

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Zero interest Zero fees Zero new credit, with Alex Forsyth-Thompson (Float)

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 05:00:11 GMT

“Buy now and pay in up to 24 monthly instalments using your existing credit card. Zero interest. Zero fees. Zero new credit.” With copy that good, you might not actually need to listen to this week’s episode 😉 But please do, it’s a really good one as we hear first hand from one of South Africa’s most exciting new fintech founders.

Float is all about taking a payment tool that you already know and love, stripping away the cost, to providing cash flow management that enables spend without an unnecessary expansion of unsecured credit.

Float is at home at https://www.float.co.za/

And on social media at https://www.instagram.com/float.co.za/ and at https://www.linkedin.com/company/floatcoza/

Or reach out to Alex directly at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-forsyth-thompson-cfa-cfp%C2%AE-6b42a75a/

If you’re interested in Guy Kawasaki’s new book, you can buy it here: https://guykawasaki.com/books/think-remarkable/ (or at any online bookstore)

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

Keep well, Brendan

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Lending: it's a risky business, with Carolyn Rohm

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 04:00:55 GMT

Always curious, always outspoken, Carolyn Rohm has a deep passion for helping analysts and analytical teams to engage with the wider business and stakeholders to deliver solutions that provide real value and bottom-line benefits. In today’s episode, we talk about her career in credit risk, about the different nuances of credit risk analytics in high-risk and low-risk environments, about credit scores and credit strategies, about analytics for modern collections, and about how to build teams with hard and soft skills.

Carolyn is at home online at https://www.carolynrohm.com/ (or just straight in and book a complimentary 30 minute chat at https://calendly.com/carolynrohm/30min?month=2024-04)

Luckily, much of Carolyn’s insight and wisdom is captured in her book - It’s a Risky Business: A field Guide to Retail Consumer Credit Analytics - which you can get from her site but also on Amazon.com and .co.uk and, I imagine, all the others.

But also feel free to find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynrohm/

Scores4All is on LinkedIn, too, but their homepage is over here: https://www.scores4all.io/

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

Keep well, Brendan

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Automating complex data-driven decisions, with Martin Chudoba (Taran)

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 05:00:44 GMT

The global covid pandemic shut down a lot of things, but new vehicle supply chains were among the hardest hit. A knock-on effect of that was that Taran, an advanced analytics and AI consultancy saw their hot lead for a new contract evaporate. But sometimes setbacks are really opportunities in disguise, and as Taran's leadership team adjusted to put all their eggs in their remaining project, they realised that they were more than a consultancy, they had a product on their hands - and, more or less, that's how Taran Decision Manager was born.

In today's episode, I'm speaking to Martin Chudoba, co-founder and CEO about that journey, and about how Taran DM can help lenders to automate and improve their complex, data-driven decisions.

As you'll hear, you can find Taran on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/taran-ai/

Which is also where you'll be able to reach out to Martin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-chudoba-76703b15/) or Steve Henderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveghenderson/) who is the MD of their North American operations

Or you can go straight to the source, and find what you need over at https://tarandm.com/

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

But I'm also co-creating a new podcast called hAIghtened senses which will look at the intersection between human senses and technology, especially AI-powered technology. You can already start to follow it wherever you're listening to this one - there's only a trailer there at the moment, but we've recorded some of the early episodes and it's going to be a fun ride!

Keep well, Brendan

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Mobile-first lending in Tanzania, with Nassor Abubakar (NMB Bank)

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 06:00:28 GMT

Caleb Maru called M-Pesa the "company that changed Kenya forever", and the crazy thing is, its impact was even bigger than that - because the dominoes that M-Pesafirst tipped over in Kenya, seventeen years ago, are still having an impact all over East Africa. In today's episode, I'm speaking to Nassor Abubakar, an M-Pesa veteran and digital lending expert who is spreading mobile-first digital loans across Tanzania with NMB Bank.

You should follow Nassor on LinkedIn for https://www.linkedin.com/in/nassabuba/

NMB is at https://www.nmbbank.co.tz/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/nmb-plc/ and on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

The Finscope Report mentioned can be accessed here: https://www.afi-global.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Finscope-Tanzania-2023-Report-Insights-that-Drive-Innovation.pdf

Caleb Maru's TechSafari is at https://www.techsafari.io/ or jump straight to the M-Pesa story at https://techsafari.beehiiv.com/p/company-changed-kenya-forever

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

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Unleashing CreditPy, with Ayhan Diş

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 06:00:40 GMT

In the world of data science, there are people like me, who have signed up for an online Python course but just not got around to starting it yet, and then there are people like Ayhan Diᶊ, who, given a spare month, create a Python package to succeed the highly successful CreditR by simplifying tasks such as variable analysis, model development, and calibration and validation with unparalleled efficiency 😂

Ayhan Diş is a Quant Professional renowned for shaping sophisticated data-driven solutions across diverse sectors, and we discuss what AI and ML can bring to the world of credit risk modelling, a future with Generative AI tools further improving our toolbox, and what regulators have to consider in their rulings.

You can explore CreditPy on PyPI (https://pypi.org/project/creditpy/) and GitHub (https://github.com/ayhandis/creditpy)

You can reach out to Ayhan directly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayhandis/

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and In this episode, I got to have a bit of fun incorporating Daniele's drumming into the introduction - isolating them from the full track using https://splitter.ai/

Keep well, Brendan

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Have you talked to your kids about data science? With Daniele Forni (HSBC)

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 06:00:53 GMT

"Data is a bit like the blood of an organisation. It goes everywhere. However, because it goes everywhere, you cannot just silo it somewhere. Of course, you need to have some standards around data, but every part of the of a business has to be responsible for the data".

Daniele Forni cuts through systems and technologies to solve the complex data issues that otherwise prevent financial institutions and startups from unlocking their data potential. And luckily, he loves sharing those insights with us: on LinkedIn, at conferences, in articles, in free-to-download reports such as his Guide to Data for AI, and in books for professionals and their kids alike!

You can find all of Daniele's work at https://www.danieleforni.com/

Or follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieleforni/ And he's just moved to Hong Kong, so if you're there, pop into HSBC and say hello 😁

The Pirate and R is on your local Amazon or directly at www.littledatascientist.co.uk

Is It Pronounced Data or Data? is at https://lnkd.in/e3HZRN-d (USA), https://lnkd.in/excjrGCW (UK), https://lnkd.in/eAy2nsPT (IT), and https://lnkd.in/eyYdYw3U (ITA)

Daniele's music (Doctor Shall Burn) is at https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KR0BUcZj5eOV9mxLgrniw?si=SPhptSMoTU-GchQruC-PmA

I'm on LinkedIn and always open to new genuine connections - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange - please do reach out, and follow the show's page, too

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and In this episode, I got to have a bit of fun incorporating Daniele's drumming into the introduction - isolating them from the full track using https://splitter.ai/

Keep well, Brendan

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Streamlining Australian home loans, with Vincent Turner (Uno Home Loans)

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:36 GMT

Designers speak about 'the job to be done' - you don’t need a taxi or an Uber or tuk-tuk, you need to get home to bed; you don’t need a mortgage, you need to finance your house purchase; you don’t need to spend every second weekend researching market rates, you just need to be on the best deal you qualify for. In this episode, I speak to Vincent Turner about Australian mortgages, about startups and why ‘early-stage businesses’ is perhaps a better term, about design thinking and deep working, and about a rather special belt.

Uno is at home online at https://unohomeloans.com.au/ Or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/uno-home-loans/

You should check out Yoku belts at https://yokumensbelt.com/ (you know you need a smart new belt)

And you should also follow Vincent at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vhturner/

LinkedIn is also where you can find and connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (please do reach out, follow the show's page, and share the content with your networks)

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

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Rwanda on the rise, with Sam Tayengwa (TransUnion)

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 06:00:05 GMT

Rwanda is rising as a regional financial centre, catching the East African fintech wave to drive economic and social transformation and to broaden financial inclusion. In today's episode, I'm speaking to TransUnion's CEO for Rwanda and Head of Africa Growth Regions, Sam Tayengwa to hear about the energy and progress that's bubbling to the surface there. We talk about mobile loans, of course, but also the emergence of old classics like mortgages and vehicle loans.

TransUnion is, as Sam said, at https://www.transunion.com/ but also at https://www.transunion.co.za/ and https://www.transunionafrica.com/rwanda (I think he got that a little wrong in the episode)

You can jump straight to Sam at https://www.linkedin.com/in/samtayengwa/, he's well worth the follow, and also check our TransUnion Africa's regional president, Lee Naik at https://www.linkedin.com/in/naikl/ and subscribe to his Elewa newsletter at https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/elewa-africa-thinking-6706525337850781696/

LinkedIn is where you can find and connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (please do reach out, follow the show's page, and share the content with your networks)

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

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A massively more inclusive credit score, with Charles Wandia (gnuGrid CRB)

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 06:00:24 GMT

The story of East African fintech is built around the mobile phone. Not the smartphone, mind you, but the humble feature phone. In markets where all but the most significant of locations lacked an established infrastructure of landlines and local bank branches, these phones leapfrogged both: powered by pre-paid sim cards that often served as a secondary currency and cleverly leveraged USSD technologies. But it has been seventeen years since M-PESA arrived on the scenes and yet traditional credit tools have often failed to cross the floor - in Uganda, the credit bureaus are filled with the data of there are just 2.4 million traditionally banked consumers, while a further 14 million sit waiting, with their data-rich mobile banking histories all but ignored.

But no more. In today's epsidoe I'm speaking to Charles Wandia of gnuGRID who, with Airtel, have built a national-level mobile credit score.

gnuGRID is the first and only indigenous credit reference bureau in Uganda, enabling financial inclusion through credit information sharing - and you can find them online at https://gnugridcrb.com/

You can also watch the official launch of that score at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VbEI_0l57A&t=19s

gnuGRID is also on LinkedIn, of course, as is Charles Wandia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-wandia-983b4a65/

As you'll hear on the show, Charles also offers tailor-made training on credit scorecard development via Credit Tick Consulting at https://www.linkedin.com/company/credit-risk-tick-consulting/

Speaking of LinkedIn, that's where you can also find and connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (please do reach out, follow the show's page, and share the content with your networks)

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

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A canary in the credit mine, with James Fell (Credit Canary)

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 06:00:21 GMT

"At its core, Credit Canary is a data platform that consolidates and reconciles multiple different data sources in a standardised way to produce a really rich set of flags and real contextual insights. And the essence of that is flexibility within lending. With the data that we have, there is a great opportunity not just to help make better decisions, but to help make better lending products." - James Fell, Founder and CEO

All too often, a borrower and their unique circumstances are thought about at the point of application and then entirely forgotten until a payment or two is missed. That might have been OK in a world of slow and scarce data, because what else could you do, but that excuse doesn't hold up any more - and with credit data, open banking data, and more, Credit Canary are helping us to put that right.

You can find Credit Canary and view their offerings at https://www.creditcanary.co.uk/

James gives his email in the episode, or you can find him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesafell/ In fact, the whole team is available there (https://www.creditcanary.co.uk/about)

And while you're there, find and connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The only mortgage you'll ever need, with Arjan Verbeek (Perenna Bank)

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 06:00:12 GMT

"It's important that in every interest rate environment, in every market environment, an average family can afford an average home" - Arjan Verbeek, co-founder at Perenna Bank.

The UK mortgage market has long been underpinned by the belief that, as long as the music kept playing, you would be able to refinance from one lender's short-term teaser rate to the next, without ever having to pay the full price... but then the music stopped and UK borrowers found themselves saddled with fast-rising standard variable rates. Household budgets were torn to shreds, and all while inflation ran rampant on the High Street, too.

Few escaped. And perhaps fewer still realised that variable rates were the reason they'd been unable to qualify for a mortgage in the first place. Variable rates can, of course, vary, and so, not wanting to carry the risk for this, lenders build a buffer to protect themselves through both a regulatory stress-test applied to affordability calculation and a significant down payment requirement. In a world where we all have to stretch ourselves incredibly thin to afford a house, that can be the difference between renting again and owning.

If only there was another way... like, say, the way they've been doing it in Denmark for the last two hundred years! In today's episode, I'm speaking to Arjan Verbeek, co-founder and CEO at Perenna Bank and vocal proponent of fixed-price long-term mortgages in the UK.

Perenna Bank is over at: https://perenna.com/

They're also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/perenna/

As is Arjan himself, who is well worth the follow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%87%B3%F0%9F%87%B1-arjan-verbeek-5884681/

And while you're there, find and connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Turbocharged AI analytics, with Carey Anderson (1datapipe)

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 06:00:57 GMT

Big data analytics used to require multiple sources of data, fed into your systems via a complex array of pipes of varying structural integrity: leaks, hassles, and something to be left to only the most advanced of data organisations. In today's episode, we find out how all that has changed:

"As the name suggests, we are one big data pipe with a lot of information flowing through it, and we fuse that with AI to produce some high-value analytical products coming out the other end. And this 360 degree view of a customer, with more than 500 unique attributes, is a pretty powerful position to be in. And from there, we can do some wonderful things in real-time."

1datapipe is at home at https://www.1datapipe.com/ and that's where you can arrange a demo

Or you can find both 1datapipe (https://www.linkedin.com/company/1datapipe/) and the wider Provenir Group (https://www.linkedin.com/company/provenir-global/) on LinkedIn

And while you're there, come and find and connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tokyo: Asia's next FinTech hub, with Morris Iwai

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 06:00:08 GMT

Japan is an uncommon blend of known and unknown: I drive a Nissan, you might drive a Toyota, my TV is a Sony, and since my time in Hong Kong, my go-to beer on hot days is an ice-cold pint of Asahi... but I know little about their FinTech scene. So, to set that right, I sat down with Morris Iwai, a seasoned business executive with 20+ years of experience in the credit card, consumer lending, and payments industries of the US, Taiwan, Singapore, and, of course, Japan.

Morris shares that experience - and some hard numbers - as we cover:

An overview of the credit card and payments markets in Japan
Tokyo, the new Fintech Hub in Asia
Digital Payment trends and the push towards cashless
Insight on the Japanese consumer mindset
The rise of BNPL and leading players in Japan
Acceleration of e-commerce spend
Challenges with the credit underwriting process
The state of Open Banking in Japan
The impact of Digital Wallets and QR payment providers
Future of payments in Japan and new opportunities

You can find Morris on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/morris-iwai/

And while you're there, come and find and connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

Or see this all happening in the flesh by attending one of these great upcoming events: Japan Fintech Festival, Sushi Tech Tokyo, or Fintech Summit

Need help launching your startup in Japan? Check out www.launchstarz.com/ for more details.

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agile decision systems for modern lending needs, with Dmitriy Wolkenstein (Timvero)

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 06:00:57 GMT

You can't afford rigid systems in a world that moves fast, but also, for a long time at least, you couldn't afford agile systems in a more dollars and cents sort of way. But these days you can.

Timvero's solutions are all laid out at https://timvero.com/ or head towards a demo by jumping straight to https://timvero.com/request-a-demo/

You're welcome to start a discussion with Dmitriy over on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitriy-wolkenstein-7a19b79a/

And while you're there, come and find and connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

As mentioned more than once in this episode, my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aiming when you can't see the target, with Clare McCaffery (DirectID) and Jacobus Eksteen (Matogen AI)

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 06:00:59 GMT

When you want a model, you typically start with a target variable in mind. But sometimes that's not possible. Perhaps you're entering a new market or expanding into a new niche, you could start lending on a small scale and wait to see what happens. We used to call that a deep risk test, often somewhat euphemistically when a cohort was accidentally approved through a gap in the system. But even if you're happy to take a chance, that takes time - there's no way to shortcut a 12-month outcome.

Enter the u-score, Matogen AI's novel approach to applying an analytical layer to the old-fashioned expert model. In today's episode, I'm speaking to Jacobus Eksteen to learn more about how they did this with Open Banking data from DirectID. This provides a way to jumpstart an Open Banking modelling project, but Open Banking has many arrows in its quiver, so I also speak to Clare McCaffery about the state of the landscape.

Clare is Chief Commercial Officer at DirectID and can be found at https://www.direct.id/

Jacobus is CEO at Matogen Applied Insights and they can be found at https://ai.matogen.com/

And of course, they're both on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-mccaffery-045a7113/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobuseksteen/

And while you're there, come and find and connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Optimising credit limit increases for profit, with Cristian Bravo (Western University)

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 06:00:40 GMT

"Causality is the new explainability."

We all know credit limit increases are one of the most, if not the most, important levers in the card profit model. And we all know the reality of managing credit limits is far more complicated than the theory - every action has a reaction and all of that. So we focus on pulling back and releasing the spring of the pinball machine and then just get ready to react as best we can.

But as data analytic techniques become more advanced, we can plan more and leave less to chance. So in this episode, I sit down with Dr Cristian Bravo, from Ontario's Western University, to talk about Sherly Alfonso-Sánchez's research into "Causal Learning for Credit Limit Adjustment in Revolving Lending Under Adversarial Goals"

Western University has data science programs at https://uwo.ca/sci/datascience/index.html

The Banking Analytics Lab is at https://thebal.ai/

If you'd like to speak to Cristian, or just stay up to date with the work he and the BAL are publishing, you can find him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristianbravor/

In our chat, Cristian mentions an early version of this research - that paper can be found and downloaded here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.15585

Or go read Sherly's blog on this same topic at https://thebal.ai/2023/07/11/optimizing-credit-limit-adjustments-under-adversarial-goals-using-reinforcement-learning/

Then come and find me on LinkedIn, and while you're there, send me a connection request: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Multi-currency and cross-border lending, with Jorge Juttner (Ritmo) and Maggie Gemmill (Currencycloud)

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 06:00:09 GMT

I've got a drawer in my bedside table that is filled with an assortment of foreign notes and coins: euros and dollars and Rands that I need relatively often but that I'll nevertheless forget to take when I travel next; some Indian rupees that have long since been decommissioned; some Hong Kong dollars because how can it have taken me four years to find an excuse to get back; some, what I think are Cambodian riel; and an unseemly number of hotel room keys. It's chaotic, but even more organised people than me have to work extremely hard to keep international trade relatively efficient, with multiple accounts at different banking institutes to Rands into American dollars so those can be turned into Hong Kong dollars.

Or at least they did, Currencycloud makes this easy to do, enabling efficient cross-border lending at cross-border lending operations at scale. One example doing it really well, is the Spanish startup Ritmo.

Ritmo is at home online at https://www.getritmo.com/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritmo-capital/

And as he mentions on the show, you can either email Jorge directly, or find him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-juttner-cfa-55a3a068/

Currencycloud can be found at https://www.currencycloud.com/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-currency-cloud/

And if you'd like to learn more about what Currencycloud can do for your international business, Maggie can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-gemmill-779697119/

LinkedIn is also where you'll find me, and when you do, send me a connection request: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who defaults on Covid loans, with Maurizio Fiaschetti (University College London)

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 06:00:19 GMT

No good deed goes unpunished and no well-intentioned government loan program goes undefaulted upon, even more so when that government program was designed and implemented in the chaotic early days of the COVID lockdowns.

We've all seen the headlines, but what do the numbers say, what sort of businesses have been defaulting on COVID loans in the UK? Well, Dr Maurizio Fiaschetti is writing the paper on it - along with Drs Ahmed Barakat, Meryem Duygun, Eddie Gerba (PhD), Tian Han, Enrico Onali, Afshin Sabri, Mike Tsionas and Huamao Wang - so I sat down with him to learn more.

You can reach out to Maurizio at https://www.linkedin.com/in/maurizio-fiaschetti-6979073/ to learn more about the research and the publication schedule

If you're interested in studying further at UCL, or indeed in reading their research, you can find the Institute of Finance & Technology at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-finance-technology/ucl-institute-finance-technology

And they're also on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/ucl-institute-of-finance-and-technology/)

Surprise, surprise, LinkedIn is also where you'll find me, and when you do, send me a connection request: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

My action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

I met Maurizio while in Edinburgh at the 18th meeting of the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference - the next one is in two years' time and it’s well-worth planning for. In the meantime, follow the CRC’s work at https://www.crc.business-school.ed.ac.uk/home

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI-powered lending for Colombian businesses, with Viviana Siless (Quipu Bank)

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 06:00:10 GMT

Nearly two out of every three Colombian jobs are in the informal economy! That's a huge number that needs to come down, and no doubt it will, but until then, someone really needs to bring the benefits of formal financing to the small business owners in the informal sector. Enter Quipu with whose AI-powered loan decisions "growing is easier, fairer and more alternative".

You can find Viviana on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/viviana-siless/

There's a Quipu page there, too, https://www.linkedin.com/company/quipulatam/ but there's even more information on their homepage over at https://quipu.com.co/

I am on LinkedIn, too, so feel free to find me and send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

I met Viviana while in Edinburgh at the 18th meeting of the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference - the next one is in two years time and it’s well-wroth planning for. In the meantime, follow the CRC’s work at https://www.crc.business-school.ed.ac.uk/home

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The right content in the right hands at the right time, with Nicky Senyard (Fintel Connect)

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 06:00:56 GMT

We all love how easy it is to change bank accounts these days... until it is our customers (and their planned-on deposits) who are moving. After all, we just sent them a pamphlet that very clearly invited them to apply for a loan at an APR of between 5% and 25% variable on term and risk and changes in the base rate, and subject to final credit checks, and late fees and penalties could apply in certain circumstances - that's a good deal, what was there to not understand?

Our lending business have changed dramatically, the way in which we communicate with our customers needs to change, too. In this episode, we chat about deposits and, in particular, about how influencer marketing and affiliate marketing is moving attention and balances to the organisations who know how best to speak to their customer base

In this episode, I'm speaking to Nicky Senyard from Fintel Connect: the leading partner marketing solution for financial services.

Fintel Connect is at https://www.fintelconnect.com/ but of course, being in the influencer game, they're all over social media, too. Find them at LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintelconnect/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/fintelconnect/) for a start.

Nicky is on LinkedIn, too https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickysenyard/ And that's where you'll find me https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange (send me a connection request there)

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and as mentioned, you should be following Marcel van Oost if you are not already https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelvanoost/

Keep well, Brendan

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Lithuanian fintech is compact and agile, with Jekaterina Rojaka (Creditinfo)

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 06:00:19 GMT

It's only thirty years since Lithuania's broke free from the Soviet Union, but already it's home a buzzing fintech scene: "Leapfrogging was probably the largest idea behind the Lithuanian success". Join me and Jekaterina Rojaka, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Creditinfo Lietuva, as we explore the roots of that success.

Creditinfo Lithuania can be found at https://lt.creditinfo.com/en/ or jump straight to https://lt.creditinfo.com/en/strongest-in-lithuania/ for award-winning Lithuanian businesses

But, as we've covered on this show before, they've got operations all over the world, so you can also head to https://creditinfo.com/ to find your closest office

On LinkedIn, you can follow them at https://www.linkedin.com/company/creditinfo-lietuva/ but they're also on Facebook and Youtube

And that's where you'll find Jekatarina, too: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jekaterina-rojaka-49909910/

I am on LinkedIn, too, so feel free to find me and send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

KYC Better, with Sasha Marley (Bonafidee)

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 05:00:05 GMT

"Trust matters more than ever, but in today's anonymous landscape, it is becoming rarer by the day. (At Bondafidee) we want to change that."

I recently sat down with Sasha Marley for one of the most personal interviews I've done here, because fraud isn't just a numbers thing, it has very real human impacts.

Bonafidee is at home online home at https://bonafidee.com/ (or jump straight to YourQNA at https://bonafidee.com/features/your-qna-kba/)

As she mentioned in our chat, Sahsa is very active on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-marley-19156a2/), where you can also find Bonafidee (https://www.linkedin.com/company/bonafidee-com/) But as I went to get the right links, I saw they have just been awarded the Digital Innovation of the Year - Cyber Security/ID Verification Award at the Motor Finance Europe Awards for the Consumer Duty Package we discussed, so you might also want to read more about that (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7122962260506882048/)

Find the police's tips at https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

Or walk a very different path by going on your own reiki retreat https://fayjohnstone.com/

I am on LinkedIn, too, so feel free to find me and send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building the scaffolding for a Nigerian credit boom, with Adedeji Olowe (Lendsqr)

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 05:00:26 GMT

Nigeria is Africa's biggest economy. Or maybe not quite, economic variables can be hard to measure and somewhat fickle, but whatever way you slice this cake, it is in the top three with Egypt and South Africa. Fintech has played a growing role in that economy, but until now, almost none of the 'fin' that the 'tech' has been modernising was lending-related.

"I knew that if Nigeria was going to grow and the middle class was going to emerge, there has to be a credit culture, right? And I knew that one person wouldn't be able to do it... so I want to be that platform that makes the creation and discovery of credit significantly easy, cheap and very secure."

Adedeji is a Top Leadership Voice on LinkedIn, follow him there for his regular insights at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adedejiolowe/ Check out his work at Lendsqr (https://www.linkedin.com/company/lendsqr/) and Open Banking Nigeria (https://www.linkedin.com/company/openbankingnigeria/) while you're there

But Lendsqr's real home on the internet is https://lendsqr.com/ - go see how they've 'cracked the lending code'

I am on LinkedIn, of course, so feel free to send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Loans to build communities, with Moishe Gubin (Optimum Bank)

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 05:00:34 GMT

Moishe Gubin is a workhorse, a mule. And now it's paying off: for him, for the banks he leads, and for the communities they serve. In today's episode we chat about work ethic and an old-fashioned path from the bottom to the top, we chat about what communities are, and we talk about bankers becoming a footnote in someone else's success story.

Optimum Bank are at home at https://www.optimumbank.com/ (but as mentioned, you can also find more investor news by searching OPHC on the NASDAQ and financial press, https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/OPHC/)

You can find Optimum Bank on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimumbank/

LinkedIn is also where you’ll find me (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/) and this show (https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/) - so pop over and send me a connection request

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending against distressed properties not to distressed borrowers, with Todd Pigott (ZINC)

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 05:00:39 GMT

"Distressed property can always be repaired, not so distressed people. And so we focus on distressed properties. And that platform has worked very, very well for us: I've done a billion dollars of this, and I will tell you, I have never ever lent on a property that I was not able to fix."

The modern mortgage model is designed to work at scale, so when a deal pops up that's a little outside the norm it can often be more efficient to say no quickly than to spend time thinking it over. But that means that a lot of great deals never see the light of day within the big lenders. But it has to be that way... doesn't it? You couldn't possibly employ a team of property experts to select hidden gems in good neighbourhoods and then ensure they're well restored while still protecting your margin... could you?

I love a lending model that leverages community knowledge and that's what ZINC does - providing financing to contractors who are looking to improve neighbourhoods by buying good but distressed properties and fixing them up. Margins are good. Collateral grows in value. Borrowers have skin in the game and every reason to make it work for your mutual benefit. In this episode, I speak to Todd Pigott about their win-win-win-win approach to private lending for property developers.

ZINC Financial's homepage is at https://zincfinancial.com/ (or at https://zincinvesting.com/ for investors)

But you can also find the ZINC companies on LinkedIn: the lending side at https://www.linkedin.com/company/zinc-financial-inc-/ and the capital side at https://www.linkedin.com/company/zinc-income-fund/

Todd is there, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-pigott-893aa861/

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enhancing decision accuracy, with Maik Taro Wehmeyer (Taktile)

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 05:00:24 GMT

"If you help a bank to create lending IP, there's always a question around 'who now understands how it works' and 'who owns it'. And the lending IP, that is something that, as a fintech, as a bank, you should own yourself.

And that is why (instead of consulting) we decided to build software that helps internal risk teams and internal credit teams to create more lending IP, faster, and on their own without having any external dependencies."

Data used to be scarce and rigid, and so the legacy systems we built were designed with that in mind. But data is now everywhere and fluid, and those rigid legacy systems are starting to hold us back. Taktile is a modern decision engine built on a local no-code platform that makes it really easy for credit and risk teams to build and run automated underwriting decisions with a really high level of accuracy.

Find Taktile at https://www.taktile.com/ or jump directly to their State of Lending report at https://www.taktile.com/state-of-lending-2023

As Maik mentions on here, both he (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maik-taro-wehmeyer) and Taktile (https://www.linkedin.com/company/taktile1/) are active on LinkedIn. I'm there, too, so feel free to send me a connection request while you're there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the end, it's all about the people, with Robbie Blake (Northreach)

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 05:00:33 GMT

We've spoken about lending systems, we've spoken about lending models, and we've spoken about the nuance of diverse markets and even more diverse market niches, but in the end, there's one thing that ties every successful lending business together: people. In this episode, I welcome Northreach's Robbie Blake about how fintechs can attract and grow the right talent, and about how the current market conditions are bringing new recruiting strategies to the fore.

Northreach is over at https://northreach.uk/ (or jump straight to their jobs at https://northreach.uk/search-jobs/)

You can find Robbie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbie-blake-16095616a/ and while you're there, follow the Northreach page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/northreach-uk/

If Instagram is more your flavour, they're here: https://www.instagram.com/northreach_uk/

But as mentioned, you can also find their own podcast, called Coffee Mornings with Northreach, on all the main platforms of by clicking here https://open.spotify.com/show/62vRWLXSzz7FUi7SOtMZSy

I am on LinkedIn, of course, so feel free to send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bridges to Credit: Alternative Data and Inclusive Finance, with Santiago Espinoza (LexisNexis Risk Solutions)

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 05:00:21 GMT

One of the most exciting things about working in emerging markets is the opportunity to leap frog old systems - a tool that once had a cutting edge is now an anchor, and to be free of it a means to be nimble.

Now, I’m not suggesting traditional data has reached the point of being an anchor, but markets rich with it have created fully developed ecosystems that may be stifling innovation on other alternative data fronts.

This is why it was so exciting for me to be given a chance to see what’s happening in Latin America, a region that, by and large, fixing gaps in traditional with new and varied alternative data experiments.

I’m spoke to Santiago Espinoza, LexisNexis’s Director of Market Planning for LATAM, to learn more.

You can find LexisNexis Risk Solutions at: https://risk.lexisnexis.com/

They’re also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/lexisnexis-risk-solutions/

Santiago is also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/santiago-espinoza-6385ba

I am on LinkedIn, of course, so feel free to send me a connection request there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cross-border BNPL in Brazil, with Vinícius Vieira (BEXS)

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 05:00:50 GMT

The Fifa World Cup is the biggest prize in football. So, about ten years ago now, the world's best men's team headed to Brazil with glory on their minds, but it wouldn't be easy: home to loud and loyal fans of the sport's most storied national team, winning in Brazil would take a monumental effort. In fact, many thought it would be impossible. Global lenders know the feeling. Home to half of the people in South America, the Brazilian market is oh so tempting, but oh so hard to break into. But not impossible. Like Germany ten years ago, if you play it right, you can win.

In today's episode, I'm speaking to Vinícius de Andrade Vieira, Head of Business Development at BEXS - connecting Brazil to the world through a digital platform with payment and exchange solutions. We chat about fintech and BNPL in Brazil, the growing global trade, and how international companies can crack the market.

Bexs is over at: https://www.bexs.com.br/

Vinicisu is on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viniciusdeandradevieira/

And I' writing this from the airport, having lost track of the day in the pre-holiday chaos 😳 You can also find and follow me on LinkedIn (or connect) at: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=brendanlegrange

Otherwise, my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Advanced analytical models, with Dr Joseph Breeden (Deep Future Analytics)

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 05:00:31 GMT

Dr Joseph Breeden is an entrepreneur and a researcher. or perhaps I should describe him as an entrepreneur and a discoverer, so keen is his curiosity. And, with 30 years spent at the sharp point of credit analytics innovation, he is also a fantastic speaker on some of the most important topics of the day: machine learning, AI, and managing economic cycles among others. In fact, just yesterday, he delivered a phenomenal keynote address on the topics at the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference in Edinburgh.

I was there, but if you weren't, don't worry, we have those insights and more on today's episode of HTLMTS.

Deep Future Analytics is at home on the internet at: https://deepfutureanalytics.com/

Joseph himself can be found on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephlbreeden/, or, if it is his research you're after, the root to all of that starts here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph-Breeden

Not content with just that, Jospeh is also the associate editor of two journals you may want to add to your reading list: https://www.risk.net/journal-of-risk-model-validation and https://www.risk.net/journal-of-credit-risk

Oh, and his work on forecasting the auction prices of fine wine can be found here: https://auctionforecast.com/

As mentioned, yesterday saw Joseph on the stage at a packed Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference in Edinburgh, delivering the opening keynote. It's an exceptional event for those in the industry and while you're busy missing this year's edition, it will be back in two years https://www.crc.business-school.ed.ac.uk/conferences

You can also find and follow me on LinkedIn (or connect) at: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Resilience and speed, with Svitlanka Sergiichuk (NeoFin)

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 05:00:33 GMT

Today is Ukraine’s National Day, so there's no better time than to support the people in their endeavours to survive and resist the Russian invasion: donate to World Kitchen at https://donate.wck.org/give/499865/#!/donation/checkout or to Save Life in UA at https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate-en/#donate-army-card-monthly

“Launch any lending business in an hour.” Normally I write a bit of a blurb here, but really it comes down to that. Launch any lending business in an hour. Actually, as you’ll hear, it’s more like 20 minutes. In a world that is changing, you need to be able to change even faster, which is where no code solutions come to the fore. In today’s episode, I’m speaking to Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, co-founder at Neofin - Ukrainian tech going global.

Follow the Neofin story over at https://neo-fin.com/

Svitlanka is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/svitlanaromaniuk/

And follow Neofin while you’re there: https://www.linkedin.com/company/neofin-solutions/

You can also find and follow me on LinkedIn (or connect) at: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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A look at revenue-based finance, with Pratik Sawal

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 05:00:56 GMT

It’s hard enough for consumers who earn precipitable salaries to manage unpredictable expenses, so imagine the situation for fast-growing e-commerce businesses that have unpredictable incomes and unpredictable expenses. To compensate for the perceived risk, big banks tend to take a very conservative view of repeatable earnings, hampering these businesses' ability to fund their growth.

But what if loan obligations were tied to revenue instead of fixed every month? That’s a great question, and one answered by revenue-based finance. In today’s episode, Pratik Sawal teaches me about revenue-based finance and what it means to turn e-commerce data into growth-powering loans.

Pratik is on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratiksawal/

You can find and follow me on LinkedIn (or connect) at: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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A path to profitable lending, with Maik Taro Wehmeyer (Taktile)

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 05:00:01 GMT

"Profitability is paramount for the global lending industry in 2023. But for lenders to increase profitability under the new status quo, much of the industry must undergo change. To stay ahead of the game, lenders need to fully enable every level of their business to react quickly to market changes and proactively steer their risk selection."

Taktile is using cutting edge data tech to allow businesses to build, run and evaluate automated decision flows quicker and more data-driven than ever before. You can't guess your way to the right decision, as they say. That's right in the target area of this show and yet, we're largely skipping over their skills for this episode, and delving instead into the results of their first annual State of Lending Report. When people ask me about this show, one of the first questions they ask is about reach. And my answer is it's small. But it is also mighty: the most common job titles in my audience run, in descending order, from CEO to founder to co-founder to Managing Director to Credit Manager. Quality over quantity and all of that.

That's also one of the reasons I love this State of Lending Report - at a time we need it more than ever, it builds a guiding star from the combined insights of global lending leaders, half of whom are credit leaders and another quarter of whom are CEO, CPOs, or CTOs. It's a treasure trove, and today we going through it with Maik Taro Wehmeyer, Taktile's co-founder and CEO.

You can - and should - download your own version of the report over here: https://www.taktile.com/articles/taktile-s-state-of-lending-report-reveals-how-lenders-plan-to-grow-more-profitably-in-2023

Or read more about Taktile over here: https://www.taktile.com/

If you're more socially minded, you can - and should again - follow the Taktile journey over on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/taktile1/)

Since we're talking bout LinkedIn, you can - and should - follow me there, too: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=brendanlegrange

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and Taktile are one fo the big sponsors of the big AltFi Lending Summit coming to London on the 18th of October - register to meet the team there: https://www.altfi.com/events/altfi-lending-summit-2023

Regards, Brendan

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Know good | catch bad, with Sjoerd Slot

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 05:00:43 GMT

Criminals keep changing the game. Which is annoying, don't they know our models depend on them re-enacting the past behaviours over and over and over again? Sygno have flipped the script by modelling the good behaviour of your customers... because they're not trying to outmanoeuvre you. Also, there are a lot more of them. Sygno's automated machine learning technology generates monitoring models for Anti-Money Laundering and fraud to make transaction monitoring more effective at a lower cost.

You can start a conversation with Sjoerd over on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjoerdslot/

Sygno is at home at https://www.sygno.com/ but also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/sygno/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Scaling your impact, with Adriaan Schiphorst (Lendahand)

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 05:00:26 GMT

This week sees a Dutch double-header on HTLMTS, with two episodes I recorded in Rotterdam while attending Money20/20. First up, a bonus episode that explores how Lendahand gathers capital from socially conscious European investors to empower loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

250+ investors are backing d.light, for example, who, with a next loan of EUR 120,000, will provide product financing to families living in rural off-grid communities of Kenya. That project is currently fund-raising over here, by the way; Kaebauk Investimentu no Finansas is raising $150,000 to fund agri-loans to small farmers in Timor-Leste; or, if Modlova is more your scene, Mikro Kapital will provide loans to about 17 small and micro-entrepreneurs there. You get the picture. Choose from proven companies. Invest in the projects that fit your needs. Fight poverty in emerging markets.

It is a simple but effective model.

Lendahand is at https://www.lendahand.com/ (or jump straight to the Impact Report at https://www.lendahand.com/en-EU/blog/856-5-surprising-insights-from-the-impact-report)

Have you ever wondered why your non-ginger friend has a ginger beard? As you'll hear, Adriaan also has you covered on that in one of Vice's most-read articles: https://www.vice.com/en/article/ezv38a/why-do-so-many-men-have-red-beards-but-not-red-hair

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Financing everyday essentials for everyone, with Mayur Patel (M-Kopa)

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 05:00:48 GMT

We Finance Progress... when you visit www.m-kopa.com you're met with this brief but powerful message that, I think, captures the dual business and social impacts of their connected financing platform. In today's episode, I speak to Mayur Patel, Chief Commercial Officer at M-KOPA, about financing life-changing assets collateralized by the service those assets provide. And we talk about a lot more. M-KOPA was founded in 2010 to combine the power of digital micropayments with GSM connectivity to make life-enhancing assets more accessible and has since deployed $1 billion in products and credit to the financially excluded.

"For the majority of our customers - over three-quarters of our customers today - this is the first time they are owning a 4G handset. Those individuals are living under 4G wireless spectrum that's above their heads, but it's really been the affordability of the handset, which is the gateway into that. We've been able to build a strong credit profile for them. That’s unique. We're building a consumer FinTech business here, where the first step with our customers is to help them get access to a productive asset, and then use that as a way to bring them into a much broader financial relationship."

M-Kopa is at https://m-kopa.com/ (and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/m-kopa/)

Mayur Patel is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayur-h-patel/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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How to lend money to astronauts, with Russell Shaw (Equatorial Launch Australia)

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 05:00:56 GMT

Today's episode stretches the lending niche, but fifty-four years ago, humanity landed on the moon, so I'm feeling flexible. And anyway, people lend to airport operators all the time, so it won't be too long until spaceports are seen as similarly stable fixed-cost operators.

When I was younger, if a conversation involved a South African tech billionaire and space, you were talking about Mark Shuttleworth (lovely nominative determinism there, by the way). More recently, the same talking points would more of course be associated with Elon Musk. I'll never not enjoy seeing a SpaceX rocket land back on a barge after a successful launch. But Elon's been busy with other matters, and now there's a new name in the Industry: Russell Shaw.

Is Russell a tech billionaire? No. But I'm not Joe Rogan, so I can't exactly point fingers 🤣 And Russell is involved in an exciting project launching satellites from equatorial Australia.

You should visit Equatorial Launch Australia at https://ela.space/ - the launch footage alone is worth our click.

If you're interested in investing, or indeed if you're interested in launching something into space, feel free to contact Russel on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellshaw/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Pioneering mobile fintech services, with Seymur Mammadov (Simbrella)

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 05:00:50 GMT

"Living without a bank account is not only a hindrance to everyday life, but also stunts the financial growth of families and communities. Seymur Mammadov, Founder and CEO of Simbrella, wants to improve the quality of life for unbanked populations through access to financial instruments and microloans." I don't usually quote a different source for these, but when your guest wins the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™, you feel like you have to aim the spotlight that way!

Today the show is taking you to Azerbaijan, an unexpected home to one of mobile fintech's pioneers: Simbrella. Simbrella have now served 220 million customers via 25 companies in 20 countries worldwide, many of whom would otherwise have no access to credit. You can learn more about SImbrella and their services here: https://www.simbrella.com/

They're also on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/simbrella/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Familiar but digital, with Rohit Bhargava (BOMTech)

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 05:00:29 GMT

When I lived in Hong Kong, which was not all that long ago, there were these rather complicated-looking ATMs around town, covered with instructions to help you correctly feed a passbook into them without the staples causing problems. I never actually saw a passbook in the flesh, but they were explained to me as a paper-based statement of record that you updated as needed, like an automated receipt stamp after a significant deposit or withdrawal, rather than the statements the bank sent to you on month end. Since I had internet banking, I never looked any deeper. But not everyone has internet banking.

Rohit Bhargava started his career in banking the year I was born, so he experienced passbooks in their prime, and he was running a retail bank in Malaysia when they were phased out. The arrival of text messages had made them less popular for most customers, and now only a shrinking segment of less tech-savvy consumers relied on them. As a result, the economics went underwater from the bank’s point of view.

Rohit realised that, so he helped the bank convert to monthly statements. But Rohit also realised that that shrinking segment relied on their passbooks. Relied. So when he retired, he set his mind to solving that problem with the BOMTech. I think of it as a Kindle, but for your loan data.

BOMTech is Banking on Mobile + Tech so you can learn more at https://bankingonmobile.com/

Or reach out to Rohit directly on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohit-bhargava-849aab5/) or through me if you’d like to have a chat.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Credit for African creators, with Chinedu Enekwe (Nandi Labs)

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 05:00:34 GMT

“So eventually we raised capital, left our previous platforms, and built this place where the black community around the world could feel like they belong, where their dreams can be financed, from innovation to stories. If they create content, we'll help finance it, we’ll help them grow. And that's the platform that we built.”

Chinedu Enekwe was a fine example of the American Dream: the son of Nigerian immigrants who became a lawyer and then an investment banker. But then he surprised his parents by following an opportunity that took him back to Lagos where the venture-building bug bit. Chinedu has been growing businesses in Africa and America ever since.

In today’s episode, I speak to him about one of those, Nandi Labs, and about how and why he is helping Africa’s premier creators access fair and efficient financing.

Nandi Labs are at https://nandimarket.com/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/nandilabs/

You can also find them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nandimarket

Passbook Ventures is at https://withkoji.com/@Passbook and https://www.linkedin.com/company/passbookvc/

Or if you prefer your interactions more human in nature, reach out to Chinedu directly on LinkedIn (and tell him you found him here)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Buy Now Report to the Credit Bureau Now, with Simon Forster (Experian)

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 05:00:46 GMT

It's no secret that I am a fan of the BNPL concept while still being a little nervous about how it has been implemented. Some of the valuations have been built on sand, but that's not what I'm concerned about here, instead, I'm referring to independent lenders all chasing growth with no thought to see the combined impact of their independent activities. Luckily, there's a relatively easy fixe for that: the good old-fashioned credit bureau. There's still work to be done to make the infrastructure fit the data, as you'll hear from Simon Forster, but the good news is that we're already a few months into this journey in the UK.

Picking up from what we covered with ZIlch on episode 102, today we're talking about what we're learning now that BNPL's are sharing their data with Experian, and the credit bureaus.

There's a huge amount of information over at https://www.experian.co.uk/business/ (or at https://www.experian.com/business/ for American listeners) However, if it's the given the topics discussed today that have you intrigued, you can go straight to https://www.experian.co.uk/business/industries/buy-now-pay-later for insights from their BNPL work.

As Simon said, his team create more than just BNPL insights, so also poke around at https://www.experian.co.uk/blogs/latest-thinking

Simon is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-forster-78b8897/ (the company as a whole is at https://www.linkedin.com/company/experian/)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well, Brendan

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How to lend money to underestimated entrepreneurs, with Demi Ariyo (Lendoe)

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 05:00:58 GMT

Lendoe are a UK-based lender focused on supporting black, ethnic minority and early stage entrepreneurs. Their journey started when a few young adults raised £220,000 to save their church building from repossession, and, in so doing, discovered first-hand the lack of support offered to small businesses from underrepresented communities. I caught up with one-time entrepreneur, one-time investment banker, and now founder of Lendoe, Demi Ariyo, while we were in Amsterdam last week for Money20/20 Europe.

We had a tight timeline to work within, so it's a snappy interview, but also one of my favourites to date!

You can find Lendoe (that's lend with an 'o' for owners and an 'e' for entrepreneurs) at https://www.lendoe.com/

Or via their socials: Instagram, Twiter with @wearelendoe and on LinkedIn where you can find Demi, too: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demi-ariyo-119548b7/

We were recording on a super tight schedule, so we had to rush the end, but if you like what you heard and you're in or around London, The Update (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-update-tickets-607190662617) is behind the Bike Shed in Shoreditch next Thursday (22 June 2023).

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

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It's people helping people, with Craig Smith (JustLend)

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 05:00:35 GMT

Recorded yesterday in front of live audience at Money2020 Europe, I welcome Craig Smith back to the show. Last time we spoke, all the way back in episode 9, Craig was busy launching JustLend but a lot has happened since so we chat about that journey, about where JustLend are today, about communities, and also about a certain appearance on our TV screens.

Anyone who caught Craig’s Dragon Den appearance will already know that their homepage is at: https://justlend.co/ (but also now at www.justlend.co.uk)

And anyone who didn’t, can find that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlWfgYT_4sY

Or watch a short on the swimming school in Poole (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s1qh_mE9HhY) - there are many others to be inspired by.

And honestly, this Money20/20 has shattered and then rebuilt my expectations for an industry. They run shows in the US, in Europe, and in Asia which you can read about at https://www.money2020.com/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

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Bridging the trade financing gap for Sri Lankan small businesses, with Lakshan De Silva (iLoan)

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 05:00:11 GMT

Recycling is a good thing, right? Well, in that case, let me recycle this from yesterday’s show notes. Most consumers borrow to manage expenses. It’s different for SMEs, though, who often borrow to drive income. As such, being denied credit is not just about having their lifestyle curtailed, it’s about having the business growth, and sometimes even their business survival, put at risk.

“When iloan launched back in 2018, the lending market in Sri Lanka was $5 billion, almost 40% was which was raised from loan sharks and individuals who have very dubious practices of charging excessive interest rates, as well as very unpleasant collection methods”. Lakshan da Silva is a Sri Lankan serial entrepreneur whose goal is to fix this for mom and pop stores around the island.

Lakshan is very approachable on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lakshan-de-silva-a9b11328/

Or you can look into his many ventures:

iLoan is at https://www.iloan.lk/

HyperGlase is at https://hyperglade.com/

Spectrify is at http://www.spectrifyai.com/

Also, and I really hate to link this, but if you’re interested in the terrible cricket game in question, you can see the drama here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKeOX9AAJXg (I hate-watched it, and was just reminded that poor old Lance Klusener was involved again, that guy deserved better)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

And finally, if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

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From bankrupt borrower to millionaire lender, with Matt Haycox (Funding Guru)

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 05:00:01 GMT

Most consumers have a fairly steady income stream that turns hours into wages on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. Sure, we hope those payments rise over time, but still, we’re typically talking in terms of percentages per year. And when we borrow, it's usually to spread a large expense into a series of smaller payments that better aligns with their earnings.

It’s different for SMEs, though. Not only can their income streams rise and fall in multiples, but they can rise or fall in multiples based on their ability to access credit. As such, it can be frustrating for business owners who get caught up in lenders' red tape: you might want to tick more boxes, but they really need that money. That's often where the Funding Guru steps in.

Matt Haycox was a borrower before he was a lender - a trait that gives him a unique perspective, that allows him to be more commercial as a lender.

You can find more info about the Funding Guru lending products at: https://www.fundingguru.com/

Or more about Matt's other projects at: https://matt-haycox.com/

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Oh, oh, and if you're at Money20/20 on the day this comes out, let me know!

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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The evolution of consumer lending in Poland, with Bartek Staszewski

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 05:00:32 GMT

Bartek Staszewski has seen the credit industry change during his career, but he's also seen his country change, and in the amplification of those two forces there's plenty of insights for all of us. Join us as we start Money20/20 week with a discussion of the Polish consumer credit landscape and about lessons learned from the coal face of one of the most changed markets in the world.

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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This unicorn wants to eliminate the cost of consumer credit, with Philip Belamant (Zilch)

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 05:00:05 GMT

“So how is it that we can make credit more equitable and affordable? The question hasn't changed, it is the answer that needs to change.”

In a traditional model, the end-to-end cost of consumer credit involves the merchant paying a commission to the credit card company for facilitating the payment, the consumer paying the credit card company fees and interest for maintaining a line of credit, and the merchant paying Google or Meta for presenting an ad to their audience. As a career credit guy, I’d only ever considered the first two, that in a low-risk segment where interest is lower then fees might compensate and vice versa. But that marketing spend is really the cornerstone, because people don’t borrow for borrowing’s sake, they borrow to purchase a thing or service.

“Now you can actually get in front of customers, and you know what they've bought in the past, you know what their affordability is, and you also know that they're spending in a sustainable way and that you, as a brand, are contributing to that sustainable commerce. And that's really where we think the sweet spot exists. Why don't we let brands rather pay our customers? In other words, use the brand's marketing budget to subsidise the cost of credit to our customer, and convince our customer to buy from that brand.”

Zilch is at home at https://www.zilch.com/uk/ (or find the app for Apple or Android )

Zilch is also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/payzilch/ (plus Youtube, TikTok and Instagram with the PayZilch handle)

If you want to follow the work of StepChange, the Debt Charity that got a shout-out in the episode, they’re at https://www.stepchange.org/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Bridging the academic-practitioner divide at the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference XVIII

Thu, 25 May 2023 05:00:21 GMT

When I first conceived of this show, I actually assumed it would be more academic in nature, more about the practical 'how' than the strategic 'how' as it were. When it went live, though, it quickly became clear that it would be more about fintech, more about uncommon global viewpoints. But that's not to say that I don't still love getting into the weeds of credit scoring minutiae!

So I am delighted to have weaselled my way into the Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference that's happening in Edinburgh this summer. You have a week left to get early bird pricing if you want to be there, too (find me there, and I'll even buy the first beer)

I'll be there in person from August 30 to September 1st to see what's happening on the cutting edge and to record some interviews, but first, I wanted to learn more about the conference’s goals, its philosophy, and its history, and about how and why it has garnered such a strong following among credit professionals. Seriously, I've spoken at Fintech Nexus and will recording live at Money20/20, but it's the CSCCC that makes my credit friends swoon 😅

So I’m speaking to the organising committee to learn more about the conference’s goals, its philosophy, and its history:

Professor Galina Andreeva, Credit Research Centre, University of Edinburgh Business School

Professor Jonathan Crook, Credit Research Centre, University of Edinburgh Business School

Mr David Edelman, Caledonia Credit Consultancy

Professor Christophe Mues, University of Southampton

The Credit Research Centre is at home online at https://www.crc.business-school.ed.ac.uk/home (or jump straight to the conference’s pages at https://www.crc.business-school.ed.ac.uk/conferences)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Bringing their financially inclusive world to the UK, with Matt Davies (Nova)

Thu, 18 May 2023 05:00:04 GMT

I've been an immigrant three times: into Denmark with Experian, into Hong Kong with HSBC, and most recently into the UK with TransUnion. So, I understand some of the issues immigrants face, but you'll also notice that each of my moves was made under the wing of a big financial services company, which made for soft'ish landings. Most people don't have the same support. And it is not just about getting a credit card in week one, it's about getting a phone contract, renting a house without needing to make a six-month layout, or maybe furnishing a new apartment.

That's what I'm discussing today with Matt Davies as Nova Credit expands its cross-border credit reference service to the UK.

More about Nova can be found here: https://www.novacredit.com/uk (or https://www.novacredit.com/uk/business if you want to get straight to work)

You can also check out American Express's use of the Nova plug-ins here: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/us-newcomers/

And Misha Esipov, co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit, was on this show in its early days: so if you're interested in more of the background, listen here https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-11

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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A Practitioner's Guide to Unsecured Lending Risk Management, with Frank Tian

Thu, 11 May 2023 05:00:30 GMT

A credit risk specialist with over two decades in credit risk spread across Canada and the US, Frank Tian now writes, teaches, and consults on a wide range of lending risk management topics - so in this episode, I pick his brain, delving into everything from content to creation to the regional bank crisis and how AI might actually be the productivity boost we need to navigate ageing populations in the developed world.

Your best bet for all things Frank Tian is https://www.franktian.net/ but as he mentioned on the show, you’ll find him on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankgtian/

You can also buy Frank’s books and courses via the affiliate links below. Being affiliate links doesn't increase the price to you, but if you choose to buy something, I will earn a small commission. That said, these are also available on Amazon and Udemy, if sending billionaires to space is more your jam.

Courses:

Consumer Lending Risk Management Fundamentals (free) https://risk-school.thinkific.com/courses/consumer-lending-risk-management-fundamentals?ref=dfc750

Consumer Lending Risk Management Essentials https://risk-school.thinkific.com/courses/consumer-lending-risk-management-essentials?ref=dfc750

Books:

New Credit, New Finance (ebook) https://risk-school.thinkific.com/courses/new-credit-new-finance?ref=dfc750

Unsecured Lending Risk Management (ebook) https://risk-school.thinkific.com/courses/unsecured-lending-risk-management?ref=dfc750

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Flexible and adaptable loan terms, with Damien Burke (Custom Credit)

Thu, 04 May 2023 05:00:33 GMT

☝️ Click above ☝️ to follow the show, it is pretty much the only thing that keeps the show visible and it makes me very happy.

Paydown curves are one of my favourite things. Get a few glasses of wine in me and the right audience at an industry event, and I'll happily chat about them long into the night. The thing is, they can create the impression that there's only one route to Present Value = 0

And that really doesn't need to be the case. After all, everything else in life fluctuates, so why can't your loan balance follow a more fluid path downward? That's not the most elegant way of describing Custom Credit's philosophy, but it's not that far off.

Custom Credit was set up with three mission statements in mind: (1) to become the most customercentric fintech in the UK; (2) to ensure our colleagues better reflect our customers; and (3) to improve financial literacy, both in terms of our customers and the broader community.

Join us as we chat about spending time to understand customer needs, staffing to reflect customer needs, and, ah, designing products that react to customer needs.

Custom Credit is at https://www.customcredit.co.uk/

Custom Credit are also on Linked in at - https://www.linkedin.com/company/custom-credit/ - and as Damien said, you can find him on LinkedIn, too (just tell him the podcast sent you)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Special re-release: How to stop lending money to strangers and follow your dreams, with Gideon Griebenow (World Turtles)

Wed, 03 May 2023 05:00:31 GMT

Stephen Hawking starts A Brief History of Time with an anecdote he attributes to Bertrand Russel who, having just finished a lecture on the heliocentric nature of the planets’ orbits, was challenged by a lady in the audience.

“What you have told us is rubbish.” She said, “The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle."

"If your theory is correct, madam," Russell replied, "then what does this turtle stand on?"

"You're a very clever man, and that's a very good question," she replied, "but the first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."

"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted Russell patiently.

And I think we all know her answer to this, which was of course that “it's turtles all the way down."

The World Turtle is a mytheme of a giant turtle supporting the world. It occurs in Hindu mythology, Chinese mythology, the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and, of course, has nothing to do with lending. So why am I dedicating so much real estate to the idea?

Well, because the idea was reflected in Terry Pratchet’s incredibly popular Disc World Series of books, and those inspired today’s guest, Gideon Griebenow, to give up his credit risk career to become an independent game developer. World Turtles is a wholesome colony builder game where you guide a tribe of creatures, called Meeps, on their mission to save themselves and the world they live on... and it’s just gone live for early release on Steam (20% off until 8 May)

But you can also get involved on their Discord Server (https://discord.com/invite/2NEb4HxwhF), while the Youtube channel is here (https://www.youtube.com/c/RecOgMission) and there is a subreddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram account, too.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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Untangling bureau data, with Dillon Harindiran (Slipstream)

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 05:00:05 GMT

Last week I compared credit bureaus to city walls, defensive structures that, because they’re solid and immovable, can keep the riskiest of customers out, but, also because they’re solid and immovable, can’t always let all the good customers in. Today, we look at those walls from the inside, and it turns out, their design is keeping some defenders out, too.

Let’s say the first step is too high for some to step up onto. Am I stretching this metaphor too far? Possibly. The idea is that lenders and their data are the defenders, and that the process to bring new lenders onto a credit bureau is flawed. Now, if you’re sticking with me, you can think of Dillion Harindiran and his co-founders at Slipstream are building ladders, allowing more defenders to get to the top where they can be useful.

Or, in sensible adult language, Slipstream have built a single, simple API that allows lenders of all sizes - they count start-ups, unicorns, and household names among their early customers - to connect to the three major UK credit bureaus simultaneously, hyperfast and with minimal effort.

You can find Slipstream at: https://oneslipstream.com/

You can find Dillion on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/harindiran/

Or just arrange to speak to him in person via https://calendly.com/dillon . You can also read how he and the team got their cool Calendly links over here https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harindiran_allof-slipstreamsco-founders-have-a-calendlycom-activity-7051568664638021632-51tN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

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'New to credit' shouldn’t mean 'too risky for credit', with Charlie Wise (TransUnion)

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 05:00:49 GMT

About five years into my time in Hong Kong, I slipped my foot into a shoe only to bump into a frog sleeping inside it. Rough calculations say that, by that stage, I’d slipped a foot into a shoe 3,650 times in the city so the odds were greatly stacked in my favour. And yet, so great was my shock, and so increased was my awareness of what might slip under the door, that I checked every shoe every morning from there on out.

Lending is similar. The pain from the one loan you lose can overshadow the joy from the nine, or even ninety-nine, that pay you back. So you take precautions. You tip over the shoe. Or maybe you’re more scared of frogs than I am, and you poke a stick in there. Fair enough. But sometimes, those precautions become overkill. Maybe you’re that scared of frogs that you won’t settle for anything less than one of those bendy cameras surgeons use. Unfortunately, you don’t have one of those bendy cameras surgeons use so you go barefoot.

Or, if we bring this back to lending, new to credit borrowers get turned away, not because they’re risky, but because lenders lack the data we want to be one hundred per cent sure they’re safe. Lenders are too scared of frogs.

The study we’re speaking about is here: https://content.transunion.com/v/english_report_empowering-credit-inclusion-a-deeper-perspective-on-new-to-credit-consumers

And as we mentioned, your local TransUnion homepage will also have links to the country-specific versions where those are available: the USA, Canada, South Africa, among others.

Charlie can be found on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-wise-959570/

You can learn more about me on my LinkedIn page, my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

Oh, and I'll announce it properly, but I'll be recording an episode of this show at Money2020 Europe in June so if you're going to be there, too, let's meet up. And if you're not, but you would still like to participate in the show, reach out to me at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

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Community-sourced loans for SMEs, with George Cook (Honeycomb Credit)

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 05:00:46 GMT

I scheduled this episode to follow the Honey Badger episode because I liked the alignment of their names, but I could just as easily have linked it to the Wine Funding episode, because we're once again turning engaged fans into even more engaged financiers! Only this time, we're taking all comers.

So when George says Honeycomb is "helping business owners really activate this community of customers and fans and neighbours that they already have, and to level up those customers and turn them into evangelists for their business by getting them on board and then literally invested in the long term success of those businesses" we hear echoes of Maxime, who described his lenders as "the most sincere and genuine ambassadors you can dream of as a wine estate, because they're part of the adventure, and they share that with their friends."

You can find Honeycomb Credit and all their projects over at https://www.honeycombcredit.com/ Twisted's artisanal egg roll project is already funded in Chicago, but maybe check out InBox Beverage in Chestertown (MD) with their turnkey micro-brewing system; or Bless Thy Skin in Riverview (FL), a black-owned, woman-owned, family-owned business that specializes in skincare products and treatments; or even the Rockfish Oyster Bar, a new seafood restaurant coming to Cleveland’s Chagrin Falls neighborhood... there really are so many great options.

They're on LinkedIn, too, where they publish wonderful little glimpses into those projects and the impact that capitalised small businesses are making to their communities.

Regards, Brendan

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Imagery that only your customers will know, with Matt Salisbury (Honey Badger)

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 05:00:48 GMT

I'm bad at passing KYC checks. I know the classics, mother's maiden name, first pet, colour of my first car, all that sort of stuff. But, chances are, so do the fraudsters. Where I struggle is the financial data that banks now use, I simply don't pay that close attention to what they name their products, I don't know if my wife having a secondary card means I have two credit cards or one, I don't know which email address they have as their one on record, and I don't remember when I opened my last credit card.

The problem with these events they want me to recall, is that they are once off tasks that have quickly faded from memory. But every day I travel through my neighbourhood. Actually, that's not the best example as I work from home and the kids school is a thirty second walk away, but I've just got back into golf, so I do drive to the range a few times a week and I'm not a complete hermit yet 🤣 Anyway, as each day passes and I remember less about the details of opening that credit card, I remember more about my neighbourhood. And that's what Honey Badger's geo authentication product relies on.

In this episode, I'm chatting to Matt Salisbury, co-founder and CEO of Honey Badger, who are creating user-friendly authentication challenges to stop fraudsters in their tracks. Matt loves to chat to lending people on LinkedIn, so feel free to hit him up, and tell him the podcast sent you.

You can book a demo by, or first learn more about, Honey Badger at https://honeybadgerhq.com/ - including direct jumps to their geo authentication and their mobile data for credit risk and fraud solutions

Honey Badger were also at the Future Identity Finance event in London a couple of weeks ago, and technically this post is speaking about that, but it also gives a wonderful timeline of that relationship with Amplifi Capital that is discussed in our chat: https://honeybadgerhq.com/future-identity-finance/

Regards, Brendan

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Your interest paid in fine wine, with Maxime Debure (WineFunding)

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 05:00:24 GMT

When you lend someone money, you give up the usage of those funds - temporarily if things go well, permanently if they don't - and so, to make it worth your while, you charge the borrower interest. That's just business. But sometimes business is good to you, and instead of your interest being paid in boring old Euros, you get paid in fine wine!

That's the concept behind WineFunding, the world's first crowdfunding and alternative financing platform specifically for wine companies. With equity and debt-based model, any wine lover can now also become a wine producer, and drink the glorious rewards of that work.

"It's a passion investment, but it doesn't need to be irrational or risky."

WineFunding's home page is at https://www.winefunding.com/en, with the list of available and funded projects at https://www.winefunding.com/en/projects/explore (I picked this one essentially out of the hat for the episode, https://www.winefunding.com/en/domainebaudon but you're just out of time to participate now)

You can also find videos of those projects on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/c/Winefunding

WineHub, the co-working and events space dedicated to the wine industry and whose seed funding was raised on the WineFunding platform, can be found here: https://winehub.fr/ >>> And if you would like to get involved in any of those wine projects, use the code HTLMTS at checkout to save €20 on any investment or €100 if you invest over €1,000!

If LinkedIn is more your pace, you can find Maxime there (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximedebure/) as well as pages for WineFunding and WineHub. While you're there, send me a connection request, too.

The wine estates that were bought by the other Pierre's aboard the Berg China were https://cabriere.co.za/ and https://www.la-motte.com/, and are both worth a visit

If you would like to participate in the show, reach out to me at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

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A fintech pioneer and change bringer in Pakistan, with Naureen Hyat (Tez/ ZoodPay)

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 06:00:53 GMT

When Naureen Hyat and Humza Hussain joined forces with Nadeem Hussain, the founder behind the world’s second-largest branchless banking solution, they decided to pivot their B2B microfinance business towards the consumer, giving rise to Tez, the first FinTech in Pakistan to get a digital lending licence. They made mistakes quickly and learned from them, creating a scalable and digital lending model with risk at or below the levels of the OpEx heavy manual models of old.

"Our first cohort was probably the best part of the learning journey for us, because we actually got over 50% defaults on that first cohort... And then the credit scoring engine started taking shape. And we started bringing defaults down from 50 to 40, 40 to 30, 30 to 20, 20 to 15. Then the tougher bit came because it was not only about the credit scoring, it had to be about the experience of the consumer, how is the product structured, from the first interaction of the consumer with the company till after he or she has been paid, everything matters... the latest cohort actually closed at under three percent default. This was uncollateralized cash lending to the masses, so yeah, it was quite an interesting experience and we learned a lot from it."

Tez, now ZoodPay Pakistan, is at https://www.zoodpay.com/pakistan (or visit the group page if your interest are more global)

ZoodPay is on LinkedIn, too, where you can also follow Naureen, with 50,000+ others that are learning from her journey (https://www.linkedin.com/in/naureen-hyat/)

If you're interested in the broader fintech ecosystem in Pakistan, check out the Pakistan Fintech Network at https://pfn.org.pk/

The early growth of Tez was supported by, among others, Accion Venture Lab and Omidyar Network who have both got indirect links to this show, via episode 42 with Jayshree Venkatesan (a primer on microlending) and episode 68 with Elena Botella (a lesson in responsible lending)

If you would like to participate in the show, reach out to me at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

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Building a Canadian loan marketplace, with Vlad Sherbatov (Smarter Loans)

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 06:00:32 GMT

This whole show is built on the premise that lending money is a tricky endeavour, but, let's face it, borrowing money can sometimes be easier said than done, too: instalment or revolving, secured or unsecured, long-term or short-term, monthly cost versus APR, affordability versus need, etc.

There's a lack of transparency and a lack of knowledge. "And when there is a lack of knowledge, there is a lack of trust, and as long as there is a lack of trust, there's always going to be a hindrance to the advancement of the industry" says Vlad Sherbatov, President & Co-Founder of Smarter.Loans - helping Canadians discover top loan providers for any credit purpose.

Head on over to https://smarter.loans/ to see what's there, or https://smarter.loans/videos/ for a wealth of lending content.

Or get them ont he socials, they're big on TikTok (at https://www.tiktok.com/@smarter.loans?lang=en), YouTube (at https://www.youtube.com/c/SmarterLoans) and Instagram (at https://www.instagram.com/smarterloans/?hl=en)

We also discuss the Canadian Lenders Association, that's over here: https://www.canadianlenders.org/

If you would like to participate in the show, reach out to me at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

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Pay your rent and I'll give you the house, with Ike Udechuku (Pathway Points)

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 06:00:08 GMT

Imagine you rent your home. Now imagine your landlord gave you a straight choice: (1) pay rent for forty years, renewing the lease biennially for the rest of your life, or (2) pay the same rent for thirty years at the end of which your landlord gives you the house.

Pick your answer, but don't tell me yet, because I have one more pair of choices for you, this one from the funding side of things.

This time I want you to imagine yourself as an investment manager at a pension fund with £1 billion to invest, would you rather place it in (1) a 40-year gilt to earn an inflation-adjusted return of zero or (2) buy the right to receive monthly rent from a club of motivated renters that give you an inflation-adjusted yield of two or three per cent for forty years?

OK, now let me guess... hmmm, you picked two and two, right?

Yeah, I'm not a genius for knowing that. It's simple. And yet... also quite complicated. My first degree was in structured finance, so I really should have a handle on this bond pricing stuff, and how to split income streams from asset growth, but when I went from university into lending instead, I promptly forgot it all.

My guest today, Ike Udechuku, has no such blind spot. With a, frankly astonishing, track record in the bond markets and a passion for property and property management, he looks perfectly positioned to shake up these two huge industries with Pathway Points - which will give both investors and renters a way to answer 'two' to those simple questions.

You can learn more about Pathway at https://thepathway.club/ (which includes some great little video clips explaining the process), but you should also follow them on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/pathway-points/) where they publish regular insights

If you're an investor, you can reach out to Ike on LinkedIn to start a conversation: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ikeudechuku/

We mentioned Ampersand House, and if you'd like to see more of that, check out this great article from 2017: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ampersand-house-everything-is-for-sale

Ike mentions Sharia mortgages in our conversation. In episode 88 of this show, Abdullo Kurbanov explains murabaha in more detail

I mention an accidentally pilfered Alvar Aalto glass vase, see how this vase may have inspired the swimming pools that inspired modern skateboarding https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-pool-and-the-stream/

If you would like to participate in the show, reach out to me at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

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Opening a beer faster, with Oli Tomson (Era)

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 06:00:43 GMT

This is a special episode for two reasons: (1) it is my long-awaited debut in Australia, a market that's slipped through the gaps for too long on this show, and (2) it's a birthday bonus episode. Well, no, actually, it's actually special for three reasons, because it is also a story about taking chances. First, someone had to take a chance on Oli, when he was a restaurant manager looking for a change into credit risk management. Then Oli had to take a chance on a restaurant of his own, when he was looking for a change out of credit risk.

Oli is now at ERA, which you can read about here https://era.bar/ and if you're in Brisbane, book yourself a table (they're at 3/75 Redcliffe Parade, Redcliffe, QLD 4020)

You can read more about the fight to save Suttons Beach Pavillion here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-29/qld-redcliffe-sutton-beach-pavillion-rally/101106584

On a happier note, Oli wants you to visit Tasmania, if you agree check this out: https://www.discovertasmania.com.au/

And you'll have heard about Oli's fantastic wine guy, he's at http://www.thewinetradition.com.au/#/home or if beer is more your thing, he also gave shout outs to https://www.catchmentbrewingco.com.au/, https://www.bentspokebrewing.com.au/pages/beer-core-range, and https://yourmatesbrewing.com/products/larry

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on my site: https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Regards, Brendan

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Closing a mortgage faster, with Eilon Shalev (Elphi)

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 06:00:01 GMT

The fact that it takes 45 days to close a mortgage in America today is not just a one-time hassle for home buyers, it can be a source of ongoing compounding costs. Nobody wants that, least of all Eilon Shalev my guest today and the co-founder and CEO of Elphi, a fintech that wants to bring that down to fifteen days.

“Elphi is a technology company. We provide enterprise software as a service to mortgage lenders, to help them close loans faster. That's the gist of it.”

You can find Elphi and more on its story at https://www.elphi.io/ (or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/elphi-inc/ )

Eilon is on LinkedIn, too, though don’t forget to mention the podcast when you reach out (https://www.linkedin.com/in/eilonshalev/)

Eilon also shares his email in this podcast, so listen out for that if you prefer to make direct contact - or find it in the transcript at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-88

We also talk a lot about Eilon’s time at MIT Sloan, if an entrepreneurial MBA is on your 2023 wishlist, learn more here (). Need to fund it, perhaps my guests from episode 22: https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-22?

Regards, Brendan

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Transforming the credit landscape in Central Asia, with Abdullo Kurbanov (Alif Bank)

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 06:00:16 GMT

Alif Bank has grown into one of the leading fintechs in Central Asia; and with its portfolio of Sharia-compliant lending, payments, and banking products it's showing that fintech can be based on noble values.

Alif Bank and all its products can be found at www.alif.tj (click the link to jump to English) or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/alif-capital/

Abdullo himself, who you've heard is very personable, is also there at https://www.linkedin.com/in/akurbanov/

You can read about the academy and how Alif are building future tech stars at https://fintechmagazine.com/financial-services-finserv/fintech-in-tajikistan-director-of-alif-academy-on-diversity

Then, in the episode Abdullo mentions how Alif are now an AWS case study, and he means that literally, you can read more about their hybrid migration to AWS at https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/alif-bank-case-study/

Somon.tj is exactly where you'd expect it: https://somon.tj/

Tajikistan is a mountainous, rugged country - if you'd like to visit it, read more here https://wikitravel.org/en/Tajikistan or here https://advntr.cc/the-not-knowing-an-adventure-in-tajikistan/

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

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Now you can buy that boat you've always had your eye on, with Joe Dalton (Salt)

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 06:00:56 GMT

So you want to own a boat but you don't know how to finance it? Then we've got you covered. I'm in Venice with the family this week, a city more closely linked to boats than almost any other. That's a coincidence. We're not talking about gondolas or cruise ships, today, but we are talking about pretty much every vessel in between.

You can read more about Salt and its launch at https://www.salt-finance.com/

Joe is on LinkedIn, as is Salt itself (they're also on Instagram, where their pictures are getting me a bit too interested in buying a boat myself).

Or if you're really quick, you can find them all in person at Boat Life 2023 in Birmingham where they're sponsoring the Live Stage

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

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Turning a customer obsession into retail credit, with Regan Adams (RCS)

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 06:00:47 GMT

"Retailers are obsessed about consumers." And it is by leveraging the fruits of this obsession, their understanding, that retail creditors can take on the bigger, more cheaply-funded banks

RCS is found at https://rcs.co.za/ and they're on LinkedIn, too (plus Facebook and Instagram)

Mobicred is at https://mobicred.co.za/

Read more about the RCS rising star tennis academy at https://www.tennissa.co.za/w/play/rising-star-tennis (or click here to read the announcement and at see a snap of Regan's formidable forehand in action)

Forest Whitaker's Peace and Development Initiative is an important one, and can be found at https://www.wpdi.org/ (for more on RCS's role with it, click here)

Piketberg where Regan found himself as a straight-out-of-university engineer, is a small town about a hundred miles north of Cape Town. It might not have been the most exciting location for a young man to start his career, but it seems to have embraced active tourism - so if you're looking for some mountain biking within reach of the (ice cold) sea and some exciting wine producers, check out their tourism offerings. Travel a little bit further up the coast and you'll find Lambert's Bay, where I once worked at the Crayfish Festival but there's a whole different story in there 😂

I tease Sam a little for his tennis here, he is remarkably talented when it comes to brand health tracking, so look him up and tell him I sent you if that's something you need.

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending innovation in Finland, with Kim Ahola (Creditstar)

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 06:00:15 GMT

When I moved to Scandinavia, Finland quickly became one of my favourite countries to work in. That much colder than my home in Copenhagen, it was where I first experienced 'proper snow'; visiting Helsinki before Moscow, meant it was where I got my first up-close experience of Russian-Byzantine architecture and a sense of being truly far from home; and thanks to its stoic people, it taught me to present to an audience with near zero interaction, a skill that served me well when Covid lockdowns meant I was suddenly doing all my webinars to a muted computer screen 🤣

So it was a delight to be returning for this episode, at least conceptually, as I speak to my old colleague Kim Ahola about his work at Creditstar and the emergence of tech-first digital lending in Finland and the broader region.

You'll find Creditstar at their home page (www.creditstar.com/) or if you want to find the Finnish business directly, that's at https://www.creditstar.fi/

Kim also mentioned Monefit, that's at www.monefit.com (and coming to the UK soon at https://www.monefit.co.uk/)

Kim and Creditstar are both on LinkedIn, at www.linkedin.com/in/kimahola/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/creditstar-group-as/ respectively

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Financing the property industry, with Paul Watts (Lenuity)

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 06:00:24 GMT

In any property transaction, you need a willing buyer and a willing seller. What you don’t need, but almost always have, is a disinterested lender.

That third wheel can be problematic, so Paul Watts is trying to get rid of it via owner financing for home builders.

As Paul mentioned, Lenuity’s home page is at https://lenuity.co.uk/ but you can also find him on LinkedIn

You can learn more about Barclays Eagle Labs and the Black Founder Accelerator here: https://labs.uk.barclays/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Credit management meets innovation and ethics in Nigeria, with Moses Nmor (BFREE)

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 06:00:17 GMT

Developing markets have a reputation for being unavoidably high-risk for lenders. And sure, developing markets are associated with less stable employment which can undermine repayments but in reality, how much of the observed historical losses could be avoided by embracing local knowledge and implementing better collections?

It turns out, quite a lot of it. And by better collections, mind you, I don't mean tougher collections. In fact, its almost the opposite. BFREE is a Nigerian fintech founded on a deep dissatisfaction with the available credit collection options which seemed to thrive on humiliating customers - so they set out to change the narrative by offering borrowers a clear path towards long-term financial stability through a combination of our self-servicing, messaging automation, contact centre, and machine learning solutions.

I'm speaking to Moses Nmor, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of BFREE, to hear the full story.

You can reach the team and learn more about their work at https://bfree.io/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/bfree-global/ (you'll also find the team there, and as Moses says, they're very friendly)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transformative change in credit scoring, with Sanjay Uppal (Finbots.AI)

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 06:00:42 GMT

“AI is not something that's come around today, right? What has changed is our ability to store an enormous amount of data economically; the processing speeds; and the speed of transmission of information. Those three in combination are the most fertile ground to bring AI to life.”

As we’ve heard on this show before, AI as such is not a new tool, but it is now really coming of age. And today’s guest, Sanjay Uppal, co-founder and CEO at Finbots.ai, saw an opportunity to use it to transform and democratise credit scoring.

“I just said, ‘the solution has to be transformative. So we're not talking about taking a task that takes six months and do it in four months, we're talking about, 'can I bring six months down to 60 minutes? Can I bring it down to six minutes?'“

You can read more about FinBots on their homepage (https://finbots.ai/) and, as Sanjay mentioned, they aim to get back to every contact within 24 hours so if you’re wanting to know more, feel free to start a conversation right at https://finbots.ai/contact/

And due to their great content, whether you need scoring transformation or not, you should follow them on LinkedIn, too: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finbots-ai-pte-ltd/ There, you can also find and follow Sanjay or previous guest of this show from all the way back in episode 10 and now current Chief Revenue Officer at Finbots, Andre Marques

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helping students to achieve their financial goals, with Ethan Fraenkel (ProGrad)

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 06:00:25 GMT

I'm almost old enough to start voicing opinions about youngsters needing to cut their hair and get themselves some jobs. Which is convenient, because that's sort of what we're talking about today with Ethan Fraenkel from ProGrad - a UK-based fintech that's taking an objective-first approach to improving student financing.

"You're not looking for car financing, you're looking to buy a car, you're not necessarily looking for credit, you're you're looking to make a purchase, you're not looking for mortgage, you're looking to buy a house. And so that's really the approach that we've taken with our algorithm as well, that allows us to predict how much money a customer will earn over the next five years."

You can learn more about ProGrad at https://www.prograd.uk/

I mention Guy Kawasaki in our chat, here's his 'must see' TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtjatz9r-Vc

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect). The show has its own page there, too, and is also present, but less active, on Instagram and Twitter using the @HTLMTS handle. My action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards,

Brendan

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Growth from a small island, with Mark van Beuningen (CIM Group)

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 06:00:43 GMT

To grow from a small island you need a dual aspect: looking inward, CIM has a relationship with about 60% of commercially active Mauritians; looking outward, CIM is expanding into East Africa and possibly beyond?

You can read more about CIM's finance arm at https://cimfinance.mu/mu/en/

Or, if you'd rather visit them and the beautiful island of Mauritius in person, here's where you can start your planning https://www.mymauritius.travel/ 🤣

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pioneering fintech in Uruguay, with Mateo Infantozzi (Prezzta and Octa.dev)

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 06:00:27 GMT

In one way, it's slightly surprising that Mateo Infantozzi Riembau was a fintech founder. Not because there were no signs of entrepreneurial thinking, but because his early successes came from the travel industry. And yet he's done it twice, at a time were "there was little room for startups in Uruguay, and even less room for fintechs". But local innovators have changed that quickly. Now "fintech is sexy", and Mateo and his co-founders played a significant role in that change.

You can find Prezzta at https://www.prezzta.com/ (or on LinkedIn)

You can find Octa at https://www.octa.dev/ (or on LinkedIn)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A credit bureau for emerging markets, with Burak Kilicoglu (CreditInfo)

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 06:00:31 GMT

When I was living in Denmark and working at Experian, my boss’s boss was a rockstar, you would never hear Burak Kilicoglu ’s name mentioned without an associated compliment. And I wasn’t the only one to notice, so he was soon snapped up by Creditinfo to be their Director of Global Markets - a perfect-sounding guest for this show, right? Unfortunately, though I tried, I never managed to get Burak on…

That’s how I introduced my episode with Paul Randall, CEO of Creditinfo but I’m pleased to say, it is no longer true. Because in this episode of HTLMTS, I’m sitting down with Burak himself to chat about data as a route to improved access to credit in emerging markets, about lending to SMEs, and about what it means to react quickly in volatile markets.

Creditinfo can be found at https://creditinfo.com/ or, as Burak mentioned, if you want to start a conversation with one of the team, their contact info is here https://creditinfo.com/about-us/our-group-management/

They are also on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/creditinfo-group/ (from which you’ll find links to the individual country pages)

The ESG data project he mentioned is explained in more detail here: https://chronicle.creditinfo.com/2022/10/24/creditinfo-launches-esg-data-platform/

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/contact-us

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building the P2P app she needed because no one else would, with Lika Osmanova (Lendwill)

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 06:00:18 GMT

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I feel an affinity for the peer-to-peer lending model. My initial interest was sparked during an MBA project 16 years ago and reinvigorated more recently by interviews on here with Monexo and Kiva. And I’m building on that today, with Anzhelika Osmanova, founder of Lendwill, a community-first P2P platform coming to us out of Norway.

You can read more about Lendwill, right where you’d expect to, https://lendwill.com/ (worth the click for the design touches alone) but both Lika and Lendwill can be found on LinkedIn, too.

During our chat, Lika raised issues around cross-border credit scores also covered by Misha Espiov and Ash Bhatt on this same show, so you can click those links if that’s your area of interest.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

And if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Strategy meets data science when it comes to SME lending, with Frank Gerhard (McKinsey & Company)

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 06:00:39 GMT

“This is not a small change, and it doesn't affect isolated groups. This is not just an IT problem. This is not just a modelling problem. This is not something the business can solve on its own. This really requires board attention to actually bring together those teams and ensure that there is really cohesion across the organisation.” - Frank Gerhard, Solution Associate Partner and CTO at Risk Dynamics, part of McKinsey & Co.

Gone are the days when senior business leaders could leave the data crunching to propellor-hat-wearing quants in a back room, now there’s a seat at the Boardroom Table for data and analytics, or at least there should be. In this episode, Frank and I speak about the strategic elevation of analytics and how innovations from just a year or two ago are already mere table stakes, but in particular, we talk about all of this in the context of SME lending where lenders are feeling them acutely.

I first found Frank via his co-authorship of this article on “How banks can reimagine lending to small and medium-size enterprises” but we also reference this article on “Designing next-generation credit-decisioning models” which is worth a read, and has more insights we had time to fully explore.

Frank is on LinkedIn and available via email, or for more insights from him and his colleagues, you can head over to https://www.riskdynamicsgroup.com/our-insights or https://www.mckinsey.com/

Frank also mentions Quantam Black, AI by McKinsey’s - their work is at https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/how-we-help-clients

Andrew Ng's thoughts on great data versus big data: https://spectrum.ieee.org/andrew-ng-data-centric-ai

Oh, and if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NFT-backed crypto loans, with Nuno Cortesão (Zharta)

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 06:00:02 GMT

Pawnshops are one of the oldest forms of lending, allowing people to turn assets they’d like to keep for the long-term into cash in the short-term - granny’s broch, those statues great uncle Thomas brought back from Greece, your Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. OK, one of those is not the same as the others, but our definition of ‘asset’ is changing, so where do holders of digital assets go if they want to access quick cash but they don’t want to sell?

Well, maybe to Zharta, “a real-time NFT loan platform for borrowers and lenders”. Zharta allows consumers to get instant loans with their NFTs without losing ownership over them. Join me and Nuno Cortesão, their CEO and co-founder as we talk about NFT-backed lending and where digital assets might go in the future.

Zharta is found at https://www.zharta.io/ Or on LinkedIn and the other social medias (Twitter, Discord, and the ones for kids cooler than me)

Zharta was speaking at Web Summit earlier this month, and I expect they will be back at the event again next year - certainly, I will be. If you would also like to attend, I suggest you jump on this link for the last few 2 for 1 early bird tickets. You'll also hear that Nuno and I will both be at the Rugby World Cup in France, so let me know if you're heading to either event, and maybe we can grab a drink.

We also speak about traditional pawnshops, which were featured on episode 31 of this show with James Constantinou (check it out to see how unique physical assets are evaluated and used as collateral)

For my stuff, visit me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tax credit lending in future industries, with Zach Tarica (The Forest Road Company)

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 06:00:22 GMT

“If you look at the things we do as a company, whether it's in digital assets, renewable energy, or media and entertainment, we are always looking at how to structure financial products to push disruptive industries forward. We are banking on, and betting on the future.”

Let's fund a movie. Truth be told, I don’t watch a lot of movies these days. There was a time I could use long flights to catch up, but even those days are gone for now. Maybe that’s why I’ve never spent much energy thinking about how they’re funded. I guess I always just assumed that they were exclusively funded by a small group of risk-hungry Hollywood types with incredibly deep pockets, winning big on some rolls and losing big on others.

Well, as it turns out, there’s a lending model there. And more than that, it’s a lending model that connects movies to green energy to digital assets. Join me and Zachary Tarica, founder and CEO of The Forest Road Company as he talks me through tax credits and tax credit lending, and how TFRC is putting “money in the hands of people that are pushing transformative industries forward?”

As Zach mentions on the show, you’re free to start a conversation by emailing them at info@forestroadco.com or by reading the extensive content on their homepage www.forestroadco.com

On Twitter they’re @forestroadco and on LinkedIn they’re @theforestroadcompany

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gamifying a route to a long-term credit relationship, with Jorge Enriquez (Credilikeme)

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 06:00:53 GMT

The Mexico lending market is not one I know well. It’s not one I know at all, truth be told.

Luckily, Jorge Enriquez is blessed with an infectious laugh and an easy manner that immediately put me at ease. It’s something I soon learned was part of the DNA of his business: “we understand that asking for a loan is a stressful situation, so we need to create the right environment for our customers to feel 'eh, we got you, you're with Credilikeme, just chill, relax, we're going to take care of you...'”

Credilikeme is a personal loan business built on experimentation and gamification, and built for borrowers - we discuss all of this and more on today's episode.

If you would like to learn more about Credilikeme, head on over to their website: https://credilike.me/

But they're also big on social media. Start with YouTube, where they put out a lot of content https://www.youtube.com/c/CredilikemeOficial or click here for Instagram or Twitter

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More appealing credit card offers (and a trip around the world), with Chris Hutchins (All The Hacks)

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 06:00:37 GMT

The credit card landscape glitters with options for the consumer - different rewards earned at different rates, in different ways, sometimes with an annual fee and sometimes not, all wrapped in countless different brands and colours.

Chances are, there’s a product out there that is perfect for every consumer.

Chances are, it’s bloody hard to find.

That’s where Chris Hutchins comes in. In, All The Hacks, Chris gets deep into the weeds matching consumers to credit card offers with an understanding of the market that can benefit both sides. All The Hacks is not just a great listen, it can save you money and improve your life, so seek it out on any of the major podcast platforms, or listen on its home page here: https://www.allthehacks.com/

You can find my research on first card in wallet over here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/younger-consumers-seeking-out-credit-cards-clear-value-le-grange/ or at https://www.transunion.hk/resources/transunion-hk/doc/insights/Insights-On-Being-First-Card-In-Wallet.pdf

If you want to start your own Laid Off Camp - here’s the wiki to get you going http://wiki.laidoffcamp.com/w/page/14510849/FrontPage (and it’s a great idea for this economy because if I think back to my own MBA thesis, there’s a momentary spike in entrepreneurial activity post layoff but that drops with as unemployment persists, so we really only have a narrow window to make it work).

And, speaking of me, you can pop over to my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU with our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Keep well, Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fueling your business with other people’s money, with Jonathan Fodera (Integrated Business Financing)

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 05:00:20 GMT

“Would I prefer cash through debt, or cash through equity?

I would always choose cash through debt - what happens in partnerships is one person always works harder, and there is always some level of resentment towards the other ones, (and) you could always find a coach, you could always find a consultant or a mentor. And typically, you're going to have a lot fewer challenges.”

There's good debt and bad debt. Essentially, debt is good when it is funding the purchase, today, of an asset that will create value in the future. This is why, in the consumer lending world, mortgage debt is typically good and credit card debt is, well, less commonly so. There are so ways in which we, as consumers, can be tempted into using debt to purchase consumables. But in the business lending world, that ratio skews more towards the good debt side of the equation, because there are so many more value-generating assets to consider - does the business need a new building, or a new machine, or to hire a team to break into a new region.

Unfortunately, the business lending world can also be overwhelmingly confusing for small business owners. Jonathan Fodera, president at Integrated Business Financing, is here today to help me get my head around the options. Jonathan helps businesses of all sizes grow and scale by finding the best financing solution possible, from SBA loans to equipment financing to working capital lines to invoice factoring to startup loans and more.

You can find Jonathan over on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-fodera-391a98a1/ (or using jonathan.fodera on the other platforms)

Integrated Business Financing is there, too, but there home page is over here: https://www.integratedbusinessfinancing.com/ for a more direct route to the info you’re after

They also have a YouTube channel if videos are more your thing https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv9gp1n6t2lmyVicsTXZYeQ

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Using the power of amortisation for good, Jinesh Vohra (Sprive)

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 05:00:14 GMT

I spend a lot of time talking about how to create debt for consumers. I do it because I believe that, when done right, debt can be beneficial to all parties involved, like a mortgage that generates wealth for the middle classes through property ownership. But that doesn’t lessen the fact that debt carries a cost, a cost that is now quickly rising. We know that mortgage rates are on the up, because it’s on every other newspaper headline these days, but what’s harder to ascertain is what we can do about that - other than building a time machine to take us back to when houses were cheaper.

Except, there are other ways.

It’s just not in the interest of lenders to make them obvious. Which is why it sometimes takes an outsider to disrupt the status quo. Enter, Jinesh Vohra and Sprive, the app that helps you overpay your monthly mortgage, turning the power of compounding interest in your favour for once.

“Being mortgage free should be achievable for everyone… it really changes your life”

Jinesh posts regularly on LinkedIn and is open to DMs, so follow his account and do reach out if you have questions

As mentioned in the show, your first port of call if you want to check out the app is your friendly local App Store (Apple) or (Android)

If it is just information you’re after, then Sprive’s home page is where it is likely to be https://sprive.com/ And you don’t take their word for it, it seems like every week there’s a new letter in the press, or update online, from a happy customer (~40% of SpriveApp's active user growth was from customer referrals).

More on annuity curves, can be found here (https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/articles/perfect-paydown-curves) and here (https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/articles/annuity-curves-for-portfolio-management)

While you can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Holding up a mirror to the lending industry, with Elena Botella (Delinquent: Inside America's Debt Machine)

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 05:00:20 GMT

"Fairness in pricing often starts with the idea of competition - if there's healthy competition, that will bring the price down. But, in the United States, if you look from the 1990s to the 2020s, credit card profits have steadily risen, and real interest rates have steadily risen and at the same time, default rates have fallen and it's just less expensive, in some ways to run a credit card company than it used to be - so I think that's the first clue that the pricing isn't fair".

In this episode of HTLMTS, I speak to Elena Botella, a fellow CapitalOne alum who, when she realised how incentives in the modern could become misaligned in the modern lending model, decided to do something about it, something rather inspiring to a wandering soul like me - she took herself on a road trip around America to hear the human story of consumer debt.

"In the credit card industry, you see the transaction, you see what some this credit enables, but you don't always see the harm side of it... I heard from consumers who had followed a similar pattern, and came to feel that credit cards had done them more harm than good".

Delinquent: Inside the American Debt Machine launched this week (11 October 2022) and is now widely available in all bookstores, but the folks over at https://bookshop.org/books/delinquent-inside-america-s-debt-machine/9780520380356 probably appreciate your business more than the bigger names we might gravitate to first (I’m not pointing fingers, I have my own Amazon links down below 😅)

You can find more of Elena’s writing at http://elenabotella.com/about or on Twitter as @elenabotella. While Elena’s work at Omidyar Network starts here: https://omidyar.com/omidyar_team/elena-botella/

The research of mine that looked ta price sensitivity is getting old now, but is over here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/increased-price-transparency-shake-up-hong-kong-loan-market-brendan/

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Oh, and since you like banking podcasts, head on over to https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/ to find related content that you may find interesting.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A more inclusive credit score for lending and securitization, with Toni Hubbs (VantageScore)

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 05:00:30 GMT

Credit scores are near to my heart. I kinda work around them now, but still, I spent a wonderful decade rolling the things out and so I’m getting back to my roots. In today’s episode, Toni Hubbs talks to me about how the team at VantageScore is driving inclusion and transparency in credit scores at scale (a really, really big scale), and about how and why those scores are being used in securitization deals.

Head on over to https://vantagescore.com/ to find all their educational material

You can find The Score, VantageScore's own podcast on their website, https://vantagescore.com/lenders/tools-and-resources/the-score-podcast/ and wherever you're listening to this one.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to lend money to refugees, with Lev Plaves (Kiva)

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 05:00:22 GMT

This is a special interview for me. HTLMTS doesn't pull in huge volumes of listeners, but that's OK, that's not really what I'm after. I want the right listeners, not the most listeners, and so I get excited when a guest tells me they got a business lead after their interview, or when one guest asks to be set up with another for some new project, or when, like today, I get to look inside a company that I've long admired.

Kiva first came into my consciousness in 2006 as an early grad school project. I actually tried to back this up with some old PowerPoints, but although I found an old CD with 'MBA files' scribbled on it, it turns out we don't have a CD reader on any of the computers in this house, so you'll just have to take my word for it 🤣 Anyway, the point is they're a foundational fintech, and one with a social drive to boot.

Today I'm chatting to Lev Plaves about the ways in which Kiva has evolved since my school project, and in particular how he and his team are lending money to refugees. The Kiva Refugee Investment Fund successfully closed with $32.5 million, and they're multiplying that impact by following an open approach, sharing their lending results as they go, so others can take heart from the fact that loan officers now say that "refugees are now the first people they look to, because of what their performance has been and how strong they've been as clients".

Kiva is, of course, at https://www.kiva.org/ but then you'll want to jump straight to the refugee tab - I'm helping Ali put up solar panels and Alaa with her sewing business, for example.

Or find their blog at https://www.kiva.org/blog

You can reach out to Lev and the team by email via refugees@kiva.org

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crypto-backed mortgages, with Phil Blows (ByBrix)

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 05:00:11 GMT

In February, I spoke to Phil Blows about backing traditional loans with digital assets. The crypto markets had a rough time in the months that followed, so I wasn’t expecting much progress on that front, but I was wrong. Bull markets are a great time to build, after all.

So I have Phil back today, talking about ByBrix and their new crypto-backed mortgage offering.

And sure, to crypto outsiders like me, this might feel like a scary time to be building in this space, but as Phil reminds me, “a lot of these people didn't get into crypto to then move back into fiat, they go into crypto because they think they're going to stay there for the rest of their lives. So it's more that they're dabbling in the world of fiat, but living their lives in crypto.”

There’s a significant demographic out there who have built wealth in crypto, and would like to keep as much of their wealth there as possible, even as they look to finance a home.

You can learn more about ByBrix at their home page https://bybrix.io/ (or on their LinkedIn)

While you can find more on AQRU at https://aqru.io/ (plus Phil has been on before, on episode 29, talking about crypto and AQRU)

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The service is the collateral, with Neel Juriasingani (Datacultr)

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 05:00:48 GMT

"It was, at that time, a very crazy idea", Neel Juriasingani tells me. "A lot of people still look at us as those crazy guys. But coming from that tech mindset, we were forced to think about how tech could be built to solve these challenges".

Over the last decade or so, lenders have invested a lot of time and money to turn the smartphone into an optimised account acquisition tool - you want to be where your customer is, after all. But the fact that their smartphones are where your customers are at, means we could be using them for far more than data transfer. And maybe we just needed someone from the Telco industry to open our eyes to that.

Neel and his team at Datacultr have optimised the smartphone as a contact tool, even when they're outside of network range, to create as many opportunities to engage with a customer as possible, and in a language that they understand. They're even able to turn phone service into virtual collateral if that's what's needed to secure a loan for the most underserved and underbanked populations.

More on Datacultr can be found at https://datacultr.com/ (or find their Fintech50 recognition at https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2021-cohort)

If you'd like to learn more about their model, or if you'd like to maximise the risk-reduction potential of your customers' smartphones, Neel can be reached for discussions via neel@datacultr.com.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explainable AI and a new style of credit bureau, with Evan Chrapko (Trust Science)

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 09:55:27 GMT

We eat volatility for breakfast, we make love to volatility!

Which is handy, because we’ve all heard it, most of us have even said it ourselves, the world is very volatile at the moment. So when Evan Chrapko of Trust Science told me how their models embrace volatility, I knew we were onto something interesting. Even more so, because I spent a decade working in the credit bureaus myself, and that’s the industry that Trust Science is disrupting right now with its volatility-eating models.

As mentioned in our chat, your first port of call for further information is https://www.trustscience.com/ (though they are also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/trust-science/)

Or you can jump straight to the news articles about their work https://www.trustscience.com/articles-page (including the Mail and Globe article we spoke about)

Evan was also recently at LendIt USA, and you catch a video clip behind the scenes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34PrP7Ak4aw

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending in frontier segments, with Todd Kleperis (Payzel)

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 05:00:54 GMT

Not all bankers wear suits - some, like Todd Kleperis, are built for frontier markets. It has been a decade since Washington and Colorado legalised the use of cannabis, and 17 States have followed suit, but with federal legalisation not yet on the books, most banks in the United States remain wary of the £33 billion industry. This, in turn, leaves the fast-growing recession-resilient sector starved for credit.

Forged out of frustration with this status quo, Todd and his team built Payzel to fix this, and are offering banking and funding to cannabis businesses, both startup and established. More on Payzel can be found at https://payzel.com/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/river-florida/

And it turns out, cannabis isn't the only industry considered too risky to touch, so Payzel have expanded into other frontier market spaces. The Sea Pods we spoke about have just been launched this week, so head over to https://oceanbuilders.com/ for some modern living design inspiration

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The future of South African banking is open, with Nick Tuttelberg (DirectID)

Tue, 23 Aug 2022 04:00:31 GMT

Open Banking is a proven technology with proven use cases, and in the UK, perhaps its spiritual home, user numbers continue to rocket - there are now more than 6 million active Open Banking customers there.

However, some other markets are looking on and wondering what the fuss is about.

This was surprising to me. And it was surprising to today’s guest, Nick Tuttelberg of DirectID. After all, there’s not a business alive today that wouldn’t want better data, and Open Banking provides some unique ways to generate and leverage data. But it seems the concept is still misunderstood in some sectors, so Nick and I take a step back and look at how a market like South Africa could benefit from encouraging Open Banking.

As we mention in our chat, this is the second time I have interviewed someone from DirectID, so if you’d like to deeper dive into the company and its mission, you can listen to my chat with its founder, James Varga, in episode 36 of this show: https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-36

But you can learn more about DirectID on their (recently redesigned and now looking very lovely) homepage https://www.direct.id/ or via LinkedIn

LinkedIn is also a good place to find Nick if you’d like to start your own Open Banking journey, he’s here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-tuttelberg-87bb0628/

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BNPL in the Middle East, with Ziyaad Ahmed (Spotii)

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 05:00:53 GMT

BNPL is usually spoken about in terms of it being a more convenient payment tool for people in option-rich credit markets, but a revenue model that doesn’t require interest resonates with Middle Eastern customers for even more reasons.

So in this episode I speak to Ziyaad Ahmed, co-founder and COO at Spotii, a Dubai-based BNPL now in the ZipPay stable.

You can learn more about Spotii at https://www.spotii.com/

Their social tag is @spotiime ala https://instagram.com/spotiime?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the HTLMTS.show page

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI driven credit scores, with Sabelo Sibanda (CreditAIs)

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 05:00:18 GMT

More than 200 million formal and informal micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in emerging markets lack adequate financing to thrive and grow; and the majority cite the lack of collateral and credit history and business informality as barriers to that financing. Today's guest, Sabelo Sibanda, has built CreditAis to solve this by providing explainable deep learning models that use alternative data to accurately score small businesses that don't fit the incumbent scoring criteria.

You can learn more about CreditAIs on their website at https://www.creditais.com (or follow them on LinkedIn)

We also mentioned Tuse, an earlier venture by the same pair. If that sounds interesting, learn more at https://tuseapp.com/

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What lenders can learn from borrowers, with Nicole Lapin (Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin)

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 05:00:34 GMT

Nicole Lapin, Host of Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin, is “the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand”.

And sure, you may not need a dictionary to understand lending anymore, but that’s because you work in the industry. I’m going to guess that most of your borrowers don’t. And I’m also going to guess that most of your borrowers don’t want to spend their days reading dictionaries, which is why Nicole is where they are going to learn and to vent about their credit troubles.

As lenders, even with our best intentions we sometimes talk past our borrowers, we describe products in confusing terms or build them in ways that may allow customers to work against their own best interests.

That is why I think it is so important to have a channel to those grassroots experiences. With a new episode out every weekday, a handful of New York Times best-selling books, and her own experience of being in debt and out of control, there is no better channel today than Nicole Lapin - so I was absolutely delighted to have her on my show, talking about how and where consumers are feeling the pinch, and how and where consumers are going astray with their credit products.

You can, and really should, find Nicole’s books, courses, and other insights on https://nicolelapin.com/. You can even follow Nicole on LinkedIn

While Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin can be found wherever fine podcasts are followed, or via its home on iHeart

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Making payday lending redundant, with Caroline van der Merwe and Simon Ellis (Jem)

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 05:00:10 GMT

South Africa has an awkward history with payday lending and payday adjacent lending, so I was a touch concerned when I first heard that a fresh pair of South African entrepreneurs were looking to shake up the industry. Luckily, all my concerns were misplaced, because SmartWage is not looking to rethink payday lending, they're looking to make it redundant.

You can read more about SmartWage, now re-branded as Jem at https://www.jemhr.com/

In today’s episode, we talk about digitising communication between employers and employees, removing trucks’ worth of paperwork, and providing access to earned wages.

Follow Carolyn van der Merwe on LinkedIn for news on SmartWage but also updates from the Yale Africa Startup Review (or just head there directly at https://www.yasr.org/)

Follow Simon Ellis on LinkedIn for news on SmartWage but also his thoughts on leadership and his podcast hot tips - including The Knowledge Project and The Tim Ferris Show which were mentioned.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Empowering entrepreneurial women, with Debbie Watkins (Lucy)

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 05:00:29 GMT

Singapore might not feel like a natural home for a mobile banking app built on a vision to increase access to credit, but the city is not all glass skyscrapers and besuited bankers; and women are the ones most likely to fall through the cracks. That’s why Lucy is here. If you’re an entrepreneur, or a momtrepreneur, or a micropreneur, then it’s like your bank, but better.

In today’s episode, I speak to Lucy’s impressive co-founder, Debbie Watkins, about her globe-spanning career and how a better banking app can empower entrepreneurial women in ways that traditional banks simply can’t.

You can find Lucy at https://welucy.com/ (and while you’re there, check out the Team page with its awesome art, and equally awesome talent https://welucy.com/team-lucy/)

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to stop lending money to strangers and follow your dreams, with Gideon Griebenow (World Turtles)

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 05:00:18 GMT

Stephen Hawking starts A Brief History of Time with an anecdote he attributes to Bertrand Russel who, having just finished a lecture on the heliocentric nature of the planets’ orbits, was challenged by a lady in the audience.

“What you have told us is rubbish.” She said, “The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle."

"If your theory is correct, madam," Russell replied, "then what does this turtle stand on?"

"You're a very clever man, and that's a very good question," she replied, "but the first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."

"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted Russell patiently.

And I think we all know her answer to this, which was of course that “it's turtles all the way down."

Well, because the idea was reflected in Terry Pratchet’s incredibly popular Disc World Series of books, and those inspired today’s guest, Gideon Griebenow, to give up his credit risk career to become a game developer. World Turtles is a wholesome colony builder where you guide a tribe of creatures called Meeps on their mission to save themselves and the world they live on, and it’s gaining interest from players and publishers around the world - wishlist it now on Steam.

But you can also get involved in these final stages via many other routes - the Discord Server is here (https://discord.com/invite/2NEb4HxwhF), Youtube channel is here (https://www.youtube.com/c/RecOgMission) and there is a subreddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram account, too.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Private lending for real estate, with Alex Breshears (Lend2Live)

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 05:00:39 GMT

Early in Dead Poets Society, we’re introduced to Dr J. Evans Prichard’s approach to measuring the greatness of a poem, a dual-axis model which plots ‘perfection’ against ‘importance’ and which is immediately ripped up - because it is excrement. Luckily, I’m not trying to confine something as ethereal as poetry, so bear with me, and imagine a market for loans being described using two axes, with the horizontal axis showing the level of standardisation and the verticle axis showing the average values involved.

The top right corner is where we place standardised loans of relatively large values. Every lender would love to operate here - because it is easy to automate solutions and the rewards for doing so are high. But there’s not going to be enough space for everyone, so lenders will have to spread out: some to provide basic solutions for lower value but highly-standardised loans, and some to build bespoke solutions for customer high-value loans.

But who will provide loans that require significant customisation but offer as a reward, only relatively low values? Well, maybe you can, because this is the space where personal lending can thrive. In today’s episode, I speak to Alex Breshears of Lend2Live Learning, and find out how she provides capital to local real estate developers, and how she and her partner teach others to do the same.

First and foremost, the Lend2Live book launches today, and you can buy it here https://store.biggerpockets.com/pages/coming-soon?fbclid=IwAR1QazmmZp-1_9NTMyYIwjiLIv3fAOFv2SEdHSZpwxVExrxDHdB2v_TPp3o

But you can also head over to the Lend2Live Facebook group here if you’re just looking to dip your toes in for now: https://www.facebook.com/groups/privatelendinglessons/discussion/preview/

And as mentioned, you can also reach out to Alex directly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/investpassively2liveactively/

Finally, if it is me you're after, feel free to connect on my LinkedIn page, my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is discussed at https://confirmu.com/ as well as on episode 24 of this show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The value of self-regulation, with Anna Roughley (LSB)

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 05:00:13 GMT

“Please, sir, may I have some more regulation?”

The Lending Standards Board is the primary self-regulatory body for the banking and lending industry in the UK, driving fair credit outcomes by giving lenders a way to hold themselves to a higher standard. I chat to Anna Roughley, Head of Insights at the LSB, to find out how this drives fairer outcomes for lenders and borrowers alike, and why self-regulation can be a strategic advantage in the modern world.

You can read more about LSB at https://www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk/ (or on their LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-lending-standards-board-limited/) or you can email Anna’s team directly at insights@lstdb.org.uk

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Putting core banking on the cloud, with Antonio Separovic (Oradian)

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 05:00:02 GMT

It’s not often that a bank’s ATMs running out of cash is a sign of its success, but that’s exactly what happened when Cantilan Bank - with its systems on the cloud - was able to get back on its feet after Typhoon Rai, and to dispense much-needed cash to the people, when no one else was able to. In today’s episode, I speak to Antonio Separovic, co-founder of Oradian, the fintech whose cloud-native core banking system made that bounce-back possible.

But, though forged in developing markets, the market for cloud-based core banking systems has continued to expand and so we chat about everything from working around infrastructure gasp to powering cutting-edge fintech.

You can find Oradian on their homepage here - https://oradian.com/

And, if it is me you're after, feel free to connect on my LinkedIn page, my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is discussed at https://confirmu.com/ as well as on episode 24 of this show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The little credit bureau that did, with Paul Randall (Creditinfo)

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 05:00:03 GMT

When I was living in Denmark and working at Experian, my boss’s boss was a rockstar, you would never hear Burak Kilicoglu’s name mentioned without an associated compliment. And I wasn’t the only one to notice, so he was soon snapped up by Creditinfo to be their Director of Global Markets - a perfect sounding guest for this show, right?

Unfortunately, though I tried, I never managed to get Burak on… which is why I was doubly happy to be chatting to today’s guest, Burak’s boss and Creditinfo CEO, Paul Randall 🤣

We talk about disrupting the credit bureau industry, about improving access to credit in developing markets, and about sharing knowledge back-and-forth between developed and developing markets.

You can find more information at https://creditinfo.com/ but if you want to jump straight to their news, that’s over here https://chronicle.creditinfo.com/#, while an example of the cookbook we mentioned is here https://chronicle.creditinfo.com/2020/12/16/creditinfo-cookbook/

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A foot-up onto the property ladder, with Cameron Orcutt (OnLadder)

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 05:00:47 GMT

We all pay a mortgage every month, just sometimes it's our landlord’s mortgage we're paying… I was in London for The Podcast Show in the last week of May and took that opportunity to record another in-person episode of HTLMTS - this time kindly hosted at OnLadder Towers by Cameron Orcutt, half of the exciting entrepreneur pair that’s using deposit loans to help first-time home buyers get on the property ladder faster.

Mortgage down-payments have always been expensive. A 20% downpayment on the average house in the UK 10 years ago, would have been about £30,000 and, at the time, that would have been 13 months of after-tax income for a typical household. So yeah, too expensive for many. But it’s gotten worse, much worse. Right now that same household would need to find 23 months of disposable income, having already paid over £100,000 in rental in the meantime.

You can learn more about OnLadder, and join their mailing list, at https://onladder.co.uk/ or find them on LinkedIn

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The data you need when you need it, with Simon Gregory (Data on Demand)

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 05:00:26 GMT

You may have noticed, but the world is a little unsettled these days. Incomes are variable. We’ve had government support programs come and go. And underlying industries come and go. Prices are rising. Fast. In an episode of this show that I recorded six months ago, I made reference to the price of fuel being £1.50 a litre. That had actually been a slight rounding-up for convenience but already, with fuel touching £2 a litre, it feels like a bargain.

I belabour the point simply because, the more turbulent the times, the larger the premium we should place on fresh data, and my guest today is out there trying to get the freshest possible data into risk decisions. Data on Demand is a UK-based fintech that provides data and insights to companies to help them better understand and improve engagement with customers - I speak to their Sales Director, Simon Gregory, about where they get that data and the situations in which it is being used for up-to-the-minute decision making.

You can find Simon Gregory on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-gregory-84236114/

Or learn more about Data on Demand via their homepage (https://dataondemand.co.uk/) or via email using hello@dataondemand.co.uk

The Vulnerability Registration Service that was mentioned is here: https://www.vulnerabilityregistrationservice.co.uk/

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Machine learning to power a fintech revolution, with Jeff Keltner (Upstart)

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 05:00:44 GMT

The first really big event that I spoke at during my time in Asia was in Shanghai. I was at Lendit China speaking about the emergence of fintech lending in Hong Kong, following a template my US colleagues had first designed to explain the rise (and rise, and rise) of lending fintech there. So I’ve always been interested in the forces that came together to give fintech lenders their first footholds in the American personal loan space, and then allowed them to power the subsequent growth in that sector.

For a decade, Upstart has been one of the forces powering that growth I’d previously just studied from the outside - which is why I was so happy to get Jeff Keltner onto the show. Jeff has been with Upstart pretty much from the start, so we talk about their philosophy, the emergence of fintech lending, and where innovation is happening today.

And Jeff has his own lending podcast, Leaders in Lending, which you should listen to wherever you’re listening to this one or find its links at https://www.upstart.com/lenders/podcasts/

Then, if you’d like to learn more about Upstart and the work they’re doing, head over to https://www.upstart.com/lenders/

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending innovation in Moldova, with Bogdan Plesuvescu (Victoriabank)

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 05:00:57 GMT

I used to feel a little bit exotic knowing a person born in Moldova, but since he left as a baby, that’s actually all I knew about Moldova. It turns out, I should have been paying attention because it may be a small country, but Moldova is standing on the threshold of significant change: on the one hand, a formal push is now underway to bring them into the EU but on the other, there’s also the still-present threat of Russian aggression.

Moldova was once in the USSR, but arguably its historical and cultural links are stronger with its Western neighbour, Romania. In this episode, we explore those ties - and the broader state of the Moldovan banking landscape - with Bogdan Plesuvescu, CEO of Victoriabank.

If you’d like to start a conversation with Bogdan, you can find him on LinkedIn like I did, and although we didn’t really talk about it, if it his sailing you’re more interested in, which has somehow become a recurring theme among my guests, you might also want to check out his Twitter

You can read more about Victoriabank Moldova at https://www.victoriabank.md/en/ (including their VB24 Pay, Garmin Pay and Apple Pay offerings as mentioned)

Bogdan also spoke about all the help the people of Moldova have been offering to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. I can’t personally vouch for Refugee Support EU, but if you’re interested in helping they seem to be a good place to start your search.

Finally, if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ as well as on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

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P2P Lending is Not Dead, with Mukesh Bubna (Monexo)

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 05:00:18 GMT

I feel a strange affinity with peer to peer lending. I've never done it myself as a lender, borrower or connector but one of the first projects I ever did in my MBA, some 16 years ago now, was on Zopa and the emergence of the P2P model. But more recently, the headlines have been bearish, with Zopa and Funding Circle - two pillars of the form - both shutting down their retail P2P arms.

As a lending model, P2P felt all but dead.

Except that, as the tide pulled back, one or two gems were still lying on the beach: like Monexo, the Chennai-based P2P whose founder and CEO, Mukesh Bubna, joined me for this chat. Mukesh and his team have turned P2P into an alternative inflation-beating investment option for investors, and an affordable path to credit-building for borrowers.

You can read more about Monexo at https://www.monexo.co/in/ (and watch some of those videos Mukesh mentioned while you’re there)

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

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Lending in Thailand and SE Asia, with Marco Chu (TransUnion) and Phadet Charoensivakorn (NCB)

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 03:00:00 GMT

Thailand is one of my favourite markets. My main memories are of the fantastic food, the vibrant streets, and the perfect beaches but I also helped to roll out the first-ever national credit bureau score there and that’s what we’ll be talking about today. Thailand is a young country with a fast-evolving fintech scene, so I have pulled together Khun Phadet Charoensivakorn (COO of the National Credit Bureau) and Marco Chu (Business Development Director for TransUnion in SE Asia).

Together we discuss the state of the Thai market, how it fared during COVID, how it is changing, and the larger regional context as we touch on working with markets with contrasting risk baselines.

Phadet is on LinkedIn, if you have more questions about the Thai credit landscape, or email him at phadet@ncb.co.th (you can also read more at https://www.ncb.co.th/about-us/history-en)

While you can find Marco on LinkedIn, too, and read more about my old colleague's work in the region via https://www.transunion.hk/home

Finally, if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), and my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

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How to Lend Money to Charities, with Holger Westphely (CAF Venturesome)

Thu, 26 May 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Now, here is a topic I didn’t see coming. But why lend money to a charity, isn’t that a bit mean, to ask for your money back if they’re doing work you believe in? I spoke to Holger Westphely, Acting Head of CAF Venturesome, to find out how and why loans are sometimes better than donations.

It's very difficult to raise grant funding for anything that isn't directly related to a charity programme. Anything that has the word 'admin' in it is an anathema to many philanthropists. And that's where we come in, because we believe that a well run organisation needs OpEx, it needs CapEx… Secondly, from a philanthropist point of view, it can help the capital go further

And you can hear more of that on today’s episode. As mentioned, you can learn more about CAF Venturesome at www.venturesome.org and more about the parent organisation at www.cafonline.org

Holger also mentioned two very worthy causes in this chat, and you can learn more about both on each of their homepages - Ubuntu Pathways is at https://ubuntupathways.org/ and the Peaceful Change Initiative is at https://peacefulchange.org/

Or if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), and my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback or questions, if you would like to participate in the show, or if you'd like to find full written transcripts with timestamps head on over to HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Regards,

Brendan

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Building an all-in-one credit platform, with Ash Bhatt (Pillar)

Thu, 19 May 2022 05:02:00 GMT

As a three-time immigrant myself, I’m always going to pay attention when I hear that’s there’s a new fintech in town building credit that moves with you, doubly so when one of the co-founders of that fintech is Ash Bhatt who I first met when he was Head of Lending at Revolut, for the US and UK markets. Ash has used that international experience, and his own experience as an immigrant in London, to build Pillar as an all-in-one credit platform for anyone who finds themselves excluded from the traditional credit marketplace.

As you know, the person who has withdrawn cash on the credit card is deemed high-risk, but when the person is actually withdrawing the cash why wouldn't the credit card company give them a prompt saying, “hey, did you realise if you do this, your score may go down?”

Pillar will help consumers build credit scores, maintain those scores, and access credit all in one place, and you can learn more - and join their waiting list - at https://www.hellopillar.com/

This is also my first in-person recording, and while I need to improve my mic discipline, I hope the more interactive feel outweighs the little patches of poor audio.

If you’re interested in the risk-based pricing study I mentioned, you can read a summary on my LinkedIn page here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/increased-price-transparency-shake-up-hong-kong-loan-market-brendan/

And the full discussion with Misha Esipov of Nova Credit, where we cover related topics, is episode 11 - https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-11

Or if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), and my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Consumer protection in Inclusive Finance, with Jayshree Venkatesan (Center for Financial Inclusion)

Thu, 12 May 2022 05:00:00 GMT

It used to be that developing markets suffered because they didn’t have physical bank branches. And as a result, a lot of innovation sought to find workarounds that the developed markets just didn't need.

But now that none of us have physical branches, the solutions built in the developing markets have the freedom to spread globally. I’ve spoken about this before in the context of fintech, but today we look at how what we learn about responsible lending and safe banking experiences in the developing world, might help us build the same in the developed world. Join me and Jayshree Venkatesan from Center for Financial Inclusion as we chat about her latest research on the topic. You can sign-up to the Responsible Finance Forum mailing list by clicking here and plan for Financial Inclusion Week (October 17 to 20) over at www.financialinclusionweek.org

That 99% Invisible episode on curb cuts can be found here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/

Or if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), and my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Active credit building, with Sho Sugihara (Pave)

Thu, 05 May 2022 05:00:00 GMT

I’ve recently moved and now I have an electric stovetop, the old-fashioned type that stays hot for ages. When I inevitably place a stray hand on a still-hot plate, it’ll take my nerve impulses about 15 milliseconds to reach my brain, add a bit of processing time and allow for the return journey, and in under a fifth of a second, my hand will move away. The process is so fast because the brain wants to give my arm the instructions it needs while it is still useful to do so. Pave takes a similar approach to credit management.

Allow me to quickly repurpose that hotplate scenario: if you take an action today that will unknowingly harm your credit profile, it will take the ‘credit nerve impulses’ two to three months to reach the credit bureau, another month for the impact of that action to be reflected in your credit score for the first time, another couple of months to notice the downward trend, and then more time for you to investigate the true cause - so maybe six months.

That’s not fast enough to be useful, because even if you make a complete u-turn, you’ll have six months of negative impact still in the bank, as it were. So for the next sixth months, you’ll just have to trust that the compromises you’re making are paying off. That takes a lot of discipline. And it is worse than that because most of us have to follow a trial-and-error approach to credit building, so for many they’ll make the right change, see no impact, and try something else.

Sho Sugihara built Pave to try and fix this, providing credit feedback fast enough to influence outcomes, supported by human credit experts that remove the guesswork, and credit products that actively stop you missing a bill payment. Join us to learn more about the hows and whys.

You can learn more about Pave at https://www.paveapp.com/ (you’ll find a link for potential partners there, too, while their quite excellent blog is at https://www.paveapp.com/blog)

Or if you prefer the big social media platforms, they’ll be at LinkedIn / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter

And if you want to speak to Sho directly, you can find him on LinkedIn or email him at sho@paveapp.com

If your heartstrings were tugged, you can learn about The Big Issue here, while if it was your ambition that got all riled up, you can find Entrepreneur First here

Or if it is me you're after, you can find me on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), and my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Financing smart agriculture, with Allan Tollo (MyFugo)

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

I know the voiceover says this is my 38th show, but a quick reshuffle means it is actually the 40th, still, my message remains the same - MyFugo is possibly the best representation I've seen to date of the benefit that credit can bring to previously underserved markets.

I’ve gotten excited about mortgages as a tool for wealth creation, Ivy League student loans as a route to well-paying international careers, and SME loans as a root to economic progress, but MyFugo’s wraparound service for smallholder dairy farmers stands to benefit so many sectors of the Kenyan economy.

Join me and Allan Tollo, founder and CEO, to find out how.

You can find MyFugo on their homepage here - http://myfugo.com/our-team/ - but also, as Allan mentioned, on many of the big social media platforms, including Facebook where they are most active - https://www.facebook.com/myfugoApp/

You can also learn more about ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores at https://confirmu.com/ or on episode 24 of this show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well,

Brendan

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The cards are alright... for now, with Liz Ruddick (FICO)

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

Liz Ruddick is the author of the UK Cards Report, FICO’s go-to resources for anyone working in the UK card industry. This means Liz is perfectly placed to put the latest card trends in perspective, and it’s another case of ‘it could be worse’.

The cost of living is rising around the world, so things may yet turn bad, but for now, consumers are spending relatively well and reigning in their balances. But… “lenders will need to be vigilant to any further increases in missed payments in the coming months and ensure that they are offering support to customers where it’s needed”.

Join us to find out more about these trends – and now covering the US and Canadian markets, too.

You can find Liz Ruddick on LinkedIn and her report on the UK card market in more detail at https://www.fico.com/blogs/uk-cards-trends-good-performance-despite-rising-living-costs

While you can of course learn more about FICO and their product/ services by visiting their home page at https://www.fico.com/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well,

Brendan

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Expanding access to micro-credit and micro-incomes, with Adam Rice (AssetDirect)

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

This is not investment advice, but I’m going to put it out there: Adam Rice is one of the most exciting entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to on this show, with AssetDirect a bold embodiment of his ambitions - providing access to credit to underserved populations in Canada and now around the world. That alone is great, I love an ‘access to credit’ story on this show, but there is another layer to it, by turning existing pillars of their communities into his sales network, Adam is also creating new income streams for corner store owners, rickshaw drivers, and other micro-entrepreneurs.

And he is poised to build “the largest network of financial sales agents the world has ever seen”.

Join us in this episode to get as excited as I am.

To learn more about AssetDirect head on over to https://www.assetdirect.io/ (or to learn more about CreditLinks specifically, https://www.creditlinks.in/

While their crowdfunding campaign is at https://www.frontfundr.com/assetdirect

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well,

Brendan

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Purposeful BNPL in an emerging market, with Mark McChlery (PayJustNow)

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 05:00:00 GMT

My career in consumer credit started in South Africa, a little over twenty years ago, when making access to credit fairer for the lower tiers of the economic pyramid meant investing resources to build better credit scores so that we could bring our rates below the statutory maximum. We were young and idealistic, but still, by starting with a lender’s mindset we figured that the answer lay in an iteration of small improvements that might bring APRs down little by little.

And perhaps, if I was asked then where rates would be today, success would have seen average APRs down from around 60% to maybe 40%, or even 30% if I’d been feeling optimistic. But not 0%.

Of course not, that would’ve been crazy. Except, as it turns out, it wasn’t.

By re-imaging what a budgeting tool could look like, PayJustNow, a South African BNPL with a purpose, have created an interest-free three-month instalment offering for those often overlooked by the big credit ptoviders. In this episode, I speak to Mark McChlery (co-founder Chief Data and Analytics Officer) to hear about the philosophy behind the business, and how they’re building tools for consumers and the communities in which they exist.

You can find out all you need to know about PayJustNow at https://payjustnow.com/

Or to learn more about Weaver FinTech, their holding company, head over to https://www.weaverfintech.com/

And if you’d like to see the FOM x Kolisi shoes mentioned, you can check those out over here: https://freedomofmovement.co.za/product-category/men/mens-footwear/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well,

Brendan

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Open banking is mainstream, with James Varga (DirectID)

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT

No one will give you a job until you have work experience. No one will extend you credit until you have a credit history. Two absurdities that have existed long enough to become absolute cliches, and yet they somehow persist. And more than that, they’re two hurdles that are easier to overcome if you come from money - maybe you’ve got an aunt who could have a word with the bank’s CEO…

Well, that’s actually changing now. We’ve spoken about Open Banking before, quite recently actually, but in today’s discussion with James Varga of DirectID we really zoom into the impact that analysis all financial data - debit, credit, and otherwise - can have on expanding access to credit, and how it can remove the need for the self-sabotaging credit score management tactics of old.

DirectID is leveraging Open Finance and bank statement data to help lenders understand their customers throughout the credit risk lifecycle, and they’re hiring - so if you want to learn more about the product offering, head on over to www.direct.id or if you want to help build those products, it’s www.direct.id/company/careers

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Keep well,

Brendan

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Can the blockchain solve ‘identity’, with Jonathan Camilleri Bowman (Sekuritance)

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 04:30:00 GMT

It’s weird: when I moved house, the world suddenly stopped while everyone waited for me to get a new utility bill, at which point we resumed normal service with me once again a verified real-life person. We've said it on this show before, but there has to be a better way to prove identities than a utility bill, a signature, and an unchangeable government-issued number of some sorts…

And of course, there is, but none of the ones we’ve discussed to date felt complete, which is why I was keen to speak to Jonathan Camilleri Bowman. Having got too-often bumped into issues when trying to verify identities for his earlier business, he founded Sekuritance as a CeFi and DeFi RegTech ecosystem that could provide a one-stop-shop on all compliance needs.

So in this episode we chat about what that means and whether the auditable nature of the blockchain might offer a solution to solving the identity problem.

You can learn more about Sekuritance on their homepage - www.sekuritance.com - and while their academy is not up yet, you can find more details on the Oxford University Blockchain course here

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Open Banking in Greece and beyond, with Dimitris Petrilis (Infin8)

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 05:00:00 GMT

We’ve spoken about Open Banking on this show before, often from the perspective of how to use the data, and often with a UK-centric point-of-view given the early lead we’ve seen the region take in terms of large-scale adoption.

In today’s episode, we’re moving further afield and taking a look under the hood, as it were, with Dimitris Petrilis from Infin8, and also adding a little context of the Greek fintech landscape.

You can learn more about Infin8 and their European Open Banking at www.infin8.eu

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Touch and tech in African consumer loans, with Michiel le Roux (Unifi Credit)

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 06:00:00 GMT

Not every hot new name in consumer lending is some smartphone-native app underpinned by a quiver of machine learning algorithms. But also, not every hot new name in consumer lending is actually making a profit.

This is why Michiel le Roux, Group CEO of Unifi Credit is taking on sub-Saharan Africa with a ‘touch and tech’ approach. A good ol’ fashioned branch network provides a route into the system for consumers, but as data is generated limits grow and transactions can move fully digital - a best of both worlds approach that doesn’t leave the less tech-savvy behind.

In this episode, we chat about growing a continent-wide lending business out of Zambia, and building a scalable business off the back of better data management.

The best place to find out more about Michiel and Unifi Credit is their homepage (www.unifi.credit) - and as mentioned, they’re growing, so if you’re interested in working with them that’s here.

And, hey, if you’re in South Africa and you’re looking for a multi-asset, multi-strategy manager of alternative investment funds and co-investment platforms have a look at www.westbrooke.co.za (and tell Duncan I sent you 🤣)

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Learning from our lending mistakes, with James Lambridis (DebtMD)

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 06:13:00 GMT

Not every loan made to a stranger is a good one, sometimes the lender suffers as a result, almost always the borrower does. On this show, we often talk about how to mitigate the pain felt by lenders, upfront or after the fact, but we’ve also scratched the surface when it comes to taking the customer’s point-of-view - in today’s episode, I want to go a level deeper.

Which is why I’m speaking to James Lambridis of DebtMD. James and his team help consumers that are in tricky debt situations, regain control. In other words, they’re well-placed to be the mouthpiece for the consumer, feeding back to us any lessons that we might be able to gather from miss-made or miss-managed loans. After all, we learn the most from our mistakes.

You can learn more about DebtMD via their website and in particular via their blog

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), while you can find my action-adventure novels on Amazon, some versions even for free.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.

Regards,

Brendan

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Lending against assets, all assets, with James Constantinou (Prestige Pawnbrokers)

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 06:09:00 GMT

Where do you go next when you already have your own show on Channel 4? Well, to HTLMTS apparently 😁

In today’s episode, I speak to the founder of Prestige Pawnbrokers and star of Posh Pawn, James Constantinou. It was a slightly left-field booking for me when the idea was first floated, but then I realised that the much-maligned pawnbroking model can also be a disruptive approach to asset-backed lending. What would you do if you needed funds to start a business?

Mortgage your house?

That’s often your only option, but what if you don’t need that much or you don’t need the money for all that long? Why can’t you leverage your smaller assets? Maybe you have a nice watch or some jewellery, a painting, or a signed first-edition you inherited from your gran. Why can’t you take those into the bank to borrow against? The simple answer is because no bank manager is going to go through the trouble of valuing your stuff… but a pawnbroker will and therein lies the rub.

You can learn more about Prestige Pawnbrokers on their home page, or on their Twitter or Insta

They also have an app for Apple and Android

I watched the show Posh Pawn on YouTube, but it’s probably easiest to find it via their site here

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect while there), and if you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Consumers and their credit data, with Kelli Fielding (TransUnion)

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 06:19:00 GMT

I spent several years creating industry-level research for one of the big credit bureaus, first in Asia and then in Europe. During that time, one of my defining projects was a deep dive into the value generated by consumers monitoring their own credit reports. Prior to my study, I'd only seen this addressed as a single question: do consumers who monitor their own credit data regularly, see improving credit scores?

But that’s not a specific enough question to understand the nuance… sure, if you were only going to pick one metric to track that would be the one but the fact is consumers can monitor their credit for many reasons, and those varying reasons can dilute the observable benefit.

You can read more about what I found here, but the reason I’m calling it out is that even five years ago the interaction between consumers and their own credit data was complex, and it’s only become more complex with the emergence of Open Data. So in today’s episode of HTLMTS I speak to Kelli Fielding, TransUnion UK’s Head of Consumer Interactive, to learn more.

As Kelli mentions in our chat, your best place to start learning more about TransUnion is their homepage

Or you can find Kelli Fielding herself on LinkedIn

And you can also learn more about Monevo, as you’d expect, at monevo.com

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Could we lend against crypto assets, with Phil Blows (AQRU)

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 06:18:00 GMT

We owe this episode to a comment Praveen Sinha made in episode 15. Praveen was talking about the trends to watch in fintech/ lending in India and mentioned cryptocurrency as an asset he'd love to lend against, not least of all for the global scope it could add to his business.

And that stuck in my mind. So when I learned of AQRU and the fact that they were paying actual money interest on crypto deposits, I wondered if we could put two and two together - after all, wouldn't the first step in treating crypto like a real asset look at a lot like that?

But I know so little about crypto that we had to start by taking a few steps back. Join us to learn more about the current state of the crypto market and what it might take to turn it into an asset a lender might consider to be suitable security.

You can learn more about AQRU on their website: www.aqru.io

You can find - and chat to - Phil on LinkedIn

You can find Phil’s own book - The Money Triangle - and the one he mentioned - A Beautiful Constraint - both on Amazon

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fixing vendor finance, with Alex Armitage (Nectarine Credit)

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 06:00:00 GMT

For the last 20 years, I've been delivering lending projects across the credit life-cycle and around the world, but always focused on the consumer. The only time I've come into contact with small business lending is on the very fringes when we've used a business owners personal credit report to estimate the risk of their new business. Or, in other words, I've only ever seen half of the picture.

I started to address this in Episode 25, with Alek Koenig, but there’s so much more to learn. So today we’re back talking about lending to SMEs, with Alex Armitage. Alex is the founder and CEO of Nectarine Credit, a Canadian fintech that’s built a marketplace that brings together borrowers and lenders in the vendor finance arena, taking a process that used to take weeks down into one that can take only a few hours.

You can learn more about Nectarine Credit on www.nectarinecredit.com or by clicking here

You can find Alex on his LinkedIn page here

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (and while you're there, send me a connection request)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A global career in collections, with Chris Somervell

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 04:23:00 GMT

New Zealand might be forgotten from world maps so often that it’s become a meme, but that didn’t stop today’s guest from taking his career truly global. Chris Somervell’s has worked in eight countries while away from home, predominantly managing collections operations.

And that’s what we discuss: lessons learned as technology developed and cultures changed alongside him, and a fundamental reimagining of what it could mean to work in collections.

You can find Chris on his LinkedIn page (or out sailing)

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (and while you're there, send me a connection request)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is an identity, with Jaime Ramirez (Preventor)

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 06:58:00 GMT

In episode 17 of this show, John Cannon said of identity that “when you really sit down and think about it, in the digital world, it is broken."

On the back of that statement, we could hardly leave it to just the one discussion, so in this episode, I’m talking to Jaime Ramirez, founder and CEO of Preventor, a Miami-based fintech that’s building the next generation in ID verification and financial crime risk management. We talk about the challenges of verifying identity in an increasingly online and increasingly global marketplace.

You can learn more about Preventor on their home page

You can contact Jaime directly via his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seamless working capital finance, with Alek Koenig (Settle)

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 06:36:00 GMT

A lender will always want to know as much as possible about a business’ health before extending credit. That’s not changed, but until recently the only data that could help in that regard was slow and expensive to produce. And in turn, SME loan application processes were slow and expensive to complete. To make matters worse, these slow and expensively-produced numbers are seldom fit for purpose, even the old faithful financial reports are only a summary of what was actually happening, not a deep dive into the business mechanics.

This is maybe why some entrepreneurs, like Alek Koenig, are solving the problem by circumventing financial reports and going straight to the source.

“But the reality of Settle was, I was using this accounts payable software and I just thought it was the worst product I'd ever used… so I was like, hey, why don't we just build better accounts payable software? So that's when I was thinking about my background in credit and lending, and thinking, well, if we could combine this accounts payable software with lending, then we could actually make the product 10x better and actually help these businesses out.”

In this episode, we talk about consumer lending and SME lending, about creating the data you need to lend against, about removing friction, and about transitioning from traditional credit to start-up and from employee to entrepreneur.

You can learn more about Settle and how to work with them on their homepage

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gamifying credit scores for the unbanked, with Yatir Zaluski, Niharika Bhargava, and Jacobus Eksteen (ConfirmU)

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 06:34:00 GMT

I've worked in consumer credit for 20 years, but I think the first time that I heard of anybody trying to use a psychometric-based scorecard for making credit decisions was over a few beers with my friend Sam, who has a psychology degree and works in marketing. And I dismissed that because I figured these aren't my customers. In many ways, though, the fact that they weren’t my customers, as a traditional lender, was the problem.

In this episode, I look at how ConfirmU - the fintech that I have recently joined as Chief Solution Architect - is using elements of psychometrics and gamification to build credit scores for the unbanked, without the need for credit histories, smartphones, or technical literacy.

You can learn more about ConfirmU at their website, or by reaching out directly to Yatir by emailing yatir@confirmu.com or by finding him on his LinkedIn

Niharika is on LinkedIn, too, or you can click to learn more about her stand-alone psychometric business - Psych4u

Matogen Applied Insights have their homepage here, or you can once again find Jacobus on LinkedIn.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Credit scoring in Nigeria, from Jes Freemantle (Stratus Credit Consultancy)

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 05:53:00 GMT

In the very first episode of HTLMTS, Raymond Anderson mentioned a consultant who’d served as something of a mentor to him – Jes Freemantle. So it feels fitting that, to wrap up the year and the first season of the show, we have Jes himself on, talking about his current project building bureaus scores in Nigeria, as well as a career spent as a scorecard pioneer.

Jes runs Stratus Credit Consultancy and can be found via LinkedIn

You can learn more about Credit Registry and their SMARTScore at https://www.creditregistry.ng/category/smartscore/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending against talent, with Joel Frisch (Prodigy Finance)

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 06:21:00 GMT

Back of the envelope, according to Poets and Quants, a Harvard MBA will set you back $130,000 per year once you've added in all the extra costs, maybe knocked down to $100,000 if you get yourself a scholarship.

That's already a lot of money if you're an up-and-coming American executive, but it is it even more if you're living and working in the developing world.

One hundred thousand dollars is R1.6 million back in South Africa, which is pretty much what I got earlier this year for selling my two-bed/ two-bath house in the financial district. In India, it's 6 times what a Google search tells me is the average annual salary of a data scientist.

The rewards are worth it, but that level of outlay is simply unattainable for the vast majority of people. This is, of course, where a student loan would normally fit in, but how many Indian lenders are going to give that much money to someone they know is leaving the country? Probably none. How many South African lenders?

Well, actually, at least one, sort of, Prodigy Finance is headquartered in London but with two out of three founders being countrymen of mine, I feel like I can round that one up.

In this episode of HTLMTS I speak to Joel Frisch, Prodigy's Head of Global Acquisition, about investing in talent and lending to international students for world-leading post grad studies.

Because the hardest thing about getting into Harvard should be getting into Harvard, not getting approved for a loan.

You can learn more about Prodigy Finance at https://prodigyfinance.com/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Expanding the definition of credit bureau data, with Jon Roughley (Experian)

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 06:38:00 GMT

It used to be that to speak about credit bureau data, was to speak about defaults. But negative banking data became comprehensive banking data, became comprehensive financial services data, became comprehensive financial services, telco, and insurance data...

...And that expansion continues, as all sorts of new and open data sources are brought into the fold.

Talking to me about the expanding definition of credit bureau data is Jon Roughley, Experian's Global Head of Data Exchange. We talk about Experian's Boost, we talk about Open Banking in general, and we talk about the global innovation exchange.

You can learn more about Experian on their home page

You can learn more about Jon Roughley on his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Russian consumer credit landscape, with Igor Propopenko (Experian)

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 06:17:00 GMT

I've always been interested in emerging markets, which early in my career meant the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and, yes, South Africa, but I've always felt we squeezed ourselves a little uncomfortably into that one.

But I digress, my main point is that today it seems that we're hearing from Brazil (with Nubank) and India and China (with a bag full of unicorns each). But Russia, I think after a few fingers got burnt on failed entries earlier in the century, seems to have slipped into the background.

To address this, and just because I've always been fascinated by the country, I speak to Experian Russia's Igor Propopenko. We chat about the current consumer credit landscape, about the growth that has shaped the market as it is today, and about the trends likely to shape its next twenty years.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building better collections processes, with Dylan Jones (IE Hub)

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 05:39:00 GMT

Level with me, how often do you really go to the dentist? Is it every 6 months like they tell you to?

Look, I’m not here to judge you, I’ve certainly missed my share of recommended appointments, and it’s not because I don’t believe there’s a benefit to doing so, it’s just that avoiding unpleasant tasks is always an attractive option when the alternative is doing an unpleasant task.

The same bad habit can be seen at play in collections where consumers, fearing an angry phone call, delay making contact, sometimes until it is too late. This is where IE Hub comes into the picture. IE Hub is a UK-based fintech that simplifies the creation of consumer income and expenditure reports - the “I” and the “E” of the name. These reports provide data that guides the entire collections process, and are entirely necessary, but in their current form they can take hours to complete, hours that may have to be repeated over and over as each lender follows their own parallel collections path.

And that’s more than just a discomfort or an inconvenience - though the impact of that on consumer mental health is enough of a reason. Uncomfortable and inconvenienced consumers tend to rush through the process and the accuracy of responses can fall as a result. IE Hub wants to address this by streamlining the first I&E creation and then by making it sharable, so that it can also be the only I&E - and in this episode of HTLMTS, I speak Dylan Jones, CEO of IE Hub to find out ‘how’ and ‘why’.

You can learn more about Dylan Jones on his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about IE Hub via their home page

You can hear related thoughts on customer-centric collections in my interview with Terry Franklin here.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page and find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Accelerating BNPL in Spain, with Jaime Marin Merlo (Fiizy)

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 05:40:00 GMT

Is this another BNPL episode? Of course, it is.

But what can I say, the world seems to have an unquenchable thirst for the model right now 😁

Plus, this one is a little different as I’m now speaking to a BNPL provider, but rather to Jaime Marín Merlo of Fiizy, an Estonian fintech that focuses on bringing lenders and merchants into that BNPL boom.

Jaime is the director of business development for Fiizy’s Spanish ambitions, but we touch on the LATAM market too. We talk about the limits of the Spanish data environment; we talk about the new customer niches BNPL is opening up; and we talk about the win-win-win situation that can arise for lenders, consumers, and merchants alike when the model is well-implemented; but we also talk about what can go wrong if it isn't.

You can learn more about Fiizy at their website

You can contact Jaime via his LinkedIn page or by emailing him at jaime.marin.merlo@fiizy.com

You can find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fraud and identity trends, with John Cannon (Oakford Consulting)

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 05:51:00 GMT

My very first job was building models to catch credit card fraud, at that time we were most concerned with counterfeited cards, then lost/ stolen cards, and in third place at best came identity fraud. It was an emerging threat, and we were hearing word of the likes of Hunter being rolled out in the bigger markets, but we were able to keep a pretty good handle on it with a system my boss had cobbled together in an Access database.

Then online channels started to emerge, but they were so insignificant early on that we could throw countless extra checks at those, not worrying if - and indeed hoping that - applicants would get fed up and apply via traditional channels instead. And that was only twenty years ago. Today, though, the fraud landscape is very, very different. Chip and PIN has got a grip on counterfeit fraud, and identity fraud has become far more complicated.

“And I've said this many, many times: when you really sit down and think about it, identity in the digital world... it is broken in many ways”

In this episode of HTLMTS I speak to John Cannon of Oakford Consulting about the changes that have occurred in fraud prevention over the last few decades, and about what it takes to defend an organisation against fraud today.

You can contact John Cannon via his LinkedIn page or by emailing him at john.cannon@oakfordconsulting.co.uk

You can find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Resilient Canadian consumers are looking forward to growth, with Matt Fabian (TransUnion)

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 05:02:00 GMT

In this week’s episode of HTLMTS, I speak to Matt Fabian, TransUnion Canada's Director for Research and Consulting. Matt spoke to me about the credit resilience he’s seen displayed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the early shoots of growth that have recently become visible.

And also about BNPL and whether these new lenders might nip in and gather that growth for themselves before the big players have time to react. Matt has over 20 years of experience in Canadian financial services and access to a treasure trove of data, so he’s perfectly placed to fill us all in.

You can find more of Matt's work at https://www.transunion.ca/business and more on the Pulse studies he mentioned at https://www.transunion.ca/consumer-pulse-study

You can hear more about lending to immigrants on episode 11 of this show

You can find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern lending In India, with Praveen Sinha and Amit Pandey (Pincap)

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 05:33:00 GMT

Powered by a growing middle class and a more connected rural population, the Indian consumer credit economy is carrying a lot of momentum, as is the market for MSME loans. And where most fast-growing markets are small, this is obviously not the case with India, where 1.4 billion people and nearly 50 million SMEs live.

Add to that, a history of digitalisation and innovation and it’s market you really shouldn’t ignore. Albeit, until now, I largely have, barring a couple of years where I had a passing oversight of some loan portfolios there.

So, to get me up to speed, I speak to Praveen Sinha, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of PinCap, and Amit Pandey, CEO of PinCap.

We spoke broadly about fintech in India, about alternative data for consumer and MSME loans, and about super-charged growth segments.

You can also find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Consumer credit in the Nordics, with Jakob Færgeman (Experian)

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 05:05:00 GMT

The Vikings are coming! The Vikings are coming!

For a long time, the Nordic financial services market was a geographically contained one, with just 25 million consumers spread across the four major Nordic nations, growth of even the best business models could be capped. But not anymore, with digital channels providing a route to the rest of the world, several Nordics fintechs are following in the wake of Klarna.

So to get a better handle on the local forces shaping the Nordic consumer credit landscape, I spoke to Jakob Faergeman of Experian. We spoke about BNPL, Open Banking, and fintech in general; we spoke about the impact of COVID-19, and we spoke about regulation.

You can also find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Hong Kong market update with Dr Francis Lau

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 05:30:00 GMT

Hong Kong is a small market, smaller still in the shadow of the Chinese Mainland market which we explored in episode 4 of How to Lend Money to Strangers. That said, its high concentration of low-risk/ high-income consumers make it a useful training ground for lenders looking to target prime and better customers.

In this thirteenth episode 13 of HTLMTS I speak to Dr Francis Lau about the strength of the residential housing market post-COVID, about the emergence of virtual banks, and the growing line of competitors for credit card issuers.

The KPMG report on Hong Kong banking which Francis referenced can be downloaded here, while the HKMA’s mortgage numbers can be found here and their payment card numbers can be found here.

You can also find out more about me on my LinkedIn page, here

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The exponential growth of digital banking in Ghana, with Felix Duku (Duku Consulting)

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 05:04:00 GMT

Poor infrastructure was an insurmountable hurdle for the traditional banking model in many developing markets. Branches were too expensive to install and then often too hard to reach for many. The first waves of digital banking helped to alleviate some of this pain, but only for the lucky few who had access to a stable internet supply - so typically the wealthier folk in the bigger cities.

And then came cell phones. Not smartphones, hardy Nokia’s that could take a beating and last a week on a single charge. Safaricom and M-Pesa were probably the biggest name in this game, using SMS technology to provide basic banking on the cheap, initially in East Africa but then through large parts of the continent.

This was a godsend, but the global applicability was limited since much of the value came in its ability to work around bad infrastructure. In the developed world, where this was not a problem, consumers were looking for a customer experience that could not be delivered by SMS.

That’s what makes the latest wave of African fintech much more interesting, built as they are on smartphone apps that cater to digital consumers just as discerning as those in the rest of the world. So, by leapfrogging internet banking, African digital banking is now a hotbed of mobile banking innovation.

To put this fast-tracked growth in context, I speak to Felix Duku, one of the drivers of digital banking in Ghana over the last thirty years. Using his own career as a backdrop, we talk about the stable goal of delivering a great customer experience and how he looked to deliver this through consecutive waves of technological innovation.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Making credit histories globally portable, with Misha Esipov (Nova Credit)

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 06:00:00 GMT

I’ve been an international immigrant three times now – into Denmark, into Hong Kong, and into the UK. In each case there was the expected pile of government paperwork to get there, but also then an equally tiresome series of hoops to jump through before you’re considered a full part of the credit economy.

Want a phone contract? What’s your credit history?

Want a lease? What’s your credit history?

Want a credit card? What’s your credit history?

The fortunate immigrants might find themselves having to stump up a year’s expenses upfront, the less fortunate will be borrowing from very expensive informal sources. Until Nova Credit stepped in.

In today’s episode of How to Lend Money to Strangers I speak to Misha Esipov about making credit histories globally portable, and the data that shows international scores to be predictive of credit performance in the United States.

Find out more about Misha and Nova Credit

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-11

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Instant gratification with Michele Tucci, André Marques, and Anit Antony

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 06:55:00 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a panel discussion at a virtual event hosted by some of my friends and ex-colleagues at TransUnion in the Philippines. The theme of the day’s talk was on how lenders can meet the ever-growing demand consumers have for instant gratification, and since that include talk of BNPL and alternative data scores among other topics that have been popular here, I decided to record and edit it into an episode.

“So imagine I'm on a shopping site, I've added stuff to my cart, then I get a message that says if you have a certain card you'll get 10% cashback. But I don't have that card. I'd like to get that 10% cashback, after all, I've made a substantial purchase, right? But then it flashes at you and it says, ‘apply now’. So I click on that, go through the credit approval process in a few minutes, get back the card number, the CVV number, expiry date, and use that to complete the transaction get that 10% cashback. That’s instant gratification. And if I'm going for lunch today, can I get that card approved, the plastic embossed, and in my hand before I call my friends and take them out for lunch. That’s instant gratification”.

I was joined by Michele Tucci of CredoLab, Andre Marques of Provenir, and Anit Antony from TransUnion

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-10

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending money to friends and family, with Craig Smith (JustLend)

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 05:56:00 GMT

I named this podcast How to Lend Money to Strangers because for the last twenty years that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. And although I’ve taken on projects across the credit lifecycle and on three continents, the underlying goal has almost always been to find enough data to turn strangers into customers we can know.

But Craig Smith has deftly flipped this on its head.

With JustLend, he is seeking not to understand strangers better but to lend better to those we already know. He’s reinventing the bank of mum and dad. And it’s easy to see the appeal in that, after all, property ownership remains a key tool for wealth generation but few young buyers have parents who can afford to help all on their own.

In this episode, we talk about lending to connections, the pros and cons, and the steps they’ve taken to optimise the experience.

You can learn more about JustLend at their website, or on Twitter or Instagram

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me by email at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big data scoring for thin file and new-to-credit customers, with Oscar Koster (Big Data Scoring)

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 08:24:53 GMT

The traditional credit model is often underpinned by an existing credit history. This makes sense mathematically, after all the best predictor of future delinquency is past delinquency, but it can present a barrier to entry to some customers – if you won’t give me credit today because I haven’t had credit before, then how can I ever get credit?

Consumers with thin files - or indeed no files at all - on the credit bureaus found themselves all lumped together and burden with a high-interest rate. In the big developed markets, this might be a small population and resolved by one or two lenders taking a risk. However, in developing markets many lenders don’t fall within the bureaus’ catchment areas and so even borrowers with a good history with credit may not have a bureau file that reflects that.

This is much harder to resolve. Or at least it used to be.

In today’s episode, I speak to Oscar Koster of BigDataScoring.com about the ways in which they are using alternative data to create predictive credit scores in developing markets. From social media connections to satellite photos of nighttime light production, the modern world is a rich source of data if you just know how to use it. You can reach out to Oscar by email

You can reach out to me by email

This is also the first cross-over with my other, temporarily paused, podcast – so if you’d like to listen to Oscar’s thoughts on mountain biking for mental health, head on over to https://www.themostfunyoucanhaveonabike.com/episodes-1/oscarkosterandthepostridebeer

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Risk-based collections in the time of COVID-19, with Terry Franklin (Qualco)

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 05:56:00 GMT

For a long time, collections teams tended to look a bit like government departments, where customers are assumed to have no alternative but to put up with the process they’re given. And not necessarily by choice. Fifteen years ago I was rolling out a collections training program for a bank in Africa, and we were speaking about the incredible role the function could play in relationship building even then, but the sad fact is that regardless of good intentions, investment often ran out before the collections department got to cash its cheques.

In today’s episode of How to Lend Money to Strangers I speak to Qualco’s Global Business Development Director, and twenty-year collections veteran, Terry Franklin, about how COVID-19 might just have been the bump many lenders needed to invest in making collections interfaces more interactive and more customer-friendly.

Joining our conversation to hear how the experts are shaping their collections teams, and leveraging the latest technology, to meet the challenges of delinquent debt in the time of COVID-19.

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-07

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The state of the American consumer credit industry, with Matt Komos (TransUnion)

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 10:33:47 GMT

Few of us will have experienced something as disruptive as COVID-19. The disease, and the lockdowns that followed it, shaped national economies and individual's lifestyle choices in markets around the world.

In today's episode, I catch up with Matt Komos - LinkedIn and find out how the American consumer credit industry has held up.

As TransUnion's VP for Research and Consulting, Matt is able to combine his apply his industry expertise to one of the richest consumer credit databases in the market, to give us a true bird's eye view of the situation as we begin discussions of a post-COVID recovery.

You can find ore of Matt's work at https://www.transunion.com/research

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Scoring for microfinance, with Joffre Toerien (Credit Insight Analytics)

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 12:47:12 GMT

We like to talk about algorithms, and big data, and machine learning, but sometimes we’d do well to take a step back and ask about what the business really needs. This is especially true in developing markets, where consultants can forget to bring the organisation along with them when they implement the latest and greatest scoring tech.

In this episode 5 of How to Lend Money to Strangers, I speak to Joffre Toerien of Credit Insight Analytics about the lessons he has learned building scorecards for microfinance lenders in Africa and Europe, how he manages the balances between scorecard predictiveness and organisational inertia, and a little bit about lending in Georgia, a country of 4 million nestled between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

You can find a full written transcript of the show, plus articles and more at www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes

You can learn more about Joffre and his work at https://www.credit-insight.com/

You can learn more about FINCA at https://www.fincaimpact.com/

You can learn more about Cardano at https://africa.cardano.org/

You can reach me with questions, or to participate on the show by emailing brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

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An insider‘s view of the Chinese consumer credit landscape, with Zhong Liu and Ruifeng Liu

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:06:00 GMT

When Dr Ruifeng Liu was transferred to China, it was to help the Postal Savings Bank of China roll out consumer banking for the first time through their 40,000 branches. A decade later, even banks of this size are at risk of being sidelined by a pair of young upstarts.

In episode 4 of How to Lend Money to Strangers, I speak to Dr Zhong Liu and Dr Ruifeng Liu - both of whom have extensive credit careers spanning the West and the East - about the consumer credit landscape in China, what factors enabled the astronomic growth of AliPay and WeChat Pay, and the complications have arisen alongside it.

You can find a full written transcript of the show at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-04

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Leveraging BNPL to expand access to credit, with Georg Steiger (BillEase)

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 06:00:00 GMT

The Philippines is home to one of Asia’s best-performing economies, but many of its 60 million adults may be missing out on the party thanks to their limited access to credit. In traditional lending models with manual processes, smaller loans were often simply too expensive to issue, but a new wave of entrepreneurs is looking to set that right.

Georg Steiger is one such entrepreneur. With BillEase, Georg and his team are leveraging cutting-edge data tools and a buy-now-pay-later business model to issue small value loans automatically and safely.

I speak to him about what first drew him to the Philippine market, and how they’re re-thinking data and data modelling.

You can learn more about BillEase here https://billease.ph/

You can find a full written transcript of the show at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-03

And you can read more about profit models for champion/ challenger here https://w.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/articles/an-introduction-to-champion-challenger

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Turning scorecards into revenue, with Graham Whitley (Quid Pro Consulting)

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 20:30:43 GMT

Last week, we set the scene, and in doing so we allowed ourselves to keep the conversation high-level and somewhat academic in nature. In the corporate world, we’re seldom afforded such a luxury, however.

Instead, if questions of lending strategy are to be given their due attention from the Board, they need to be shown to be delivering quantifiable value. In episode two of How to Lend Money to Strangers, I address this with Graham Whitley of Quid Pro Consulting.

Graham has been building scorecards and scorecard-driven lending strategies for over twenty years in developed and developing economies. Crucially, though, he is also willing to stand behind the revenue-generating power of those strategies by linking his consulting fees to measured improvements.

I speak to him about what he looks for when he builds a new lending strategy, how scorecards and business strategy interact, how he adapts when working in less-than-ideal data environments, and because it was so important to our shared experience, we also spend some time speaking about how to effectively implement and leverage champion/ challenger strategies.

You can find a full written transcript of the show at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-02

And you can read more about profit models for retail lending here https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/articles/what-does-a-lender-look-like-on-the-inside

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A History of Risk Assessment, with Raymond Anderson (Rayan Analytics)

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 20:30:31 GMT

Raymond Anderson wrote the textbook on credit risk modelling, two of them in fact, and so when I was looking for someone to help me lay the foundation for How to Lend Money to Strangers, his name was top of my list.

How to Lend Money to Strangers will be a far-ranging show, in time hearing from lenders big and small, and in markets across the developed and developing world, but first, before we embark on that adventure,

I wanted to learn more about the forces that shaped the industry we know today. Raymond walks us through that journey, from spies in royal courts to FICO scores to machine learning, before I turn the spotlight on him to find out about some of the projects that have kept him interested in credit scoring for so long.

You can find out more about Raymond’s books at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-credit-scoring-toolkit-9780199226405?cc=gb&lang=en&

You can find a full written transcript of the show at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-01

And you can read my basic overview of scorecard building at https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/articles/the-very-basics-of-scorecards

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How to Lend Money to Strangers

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 08:37:00 GMT

How to Lend Money to Strangers is a podcast about lending in all its forms and in all the markets in which it takes place, however diverse those markets may be. In fact, it’s a case of ‘the more diverse the better’ in this show, which has hosted guests from Manila to Moscow, from Mumbai to Madrid, from Shenzen to Chicago, from Swansea to Singapore...

I am your host, Brendan le Grange, and I have spent the last twenty years working in - or alongside - lenders across Africa, Asia, and Europe and I’ll be using that experience to find and learn from industry insiders in a series of weekly interviews.

Sometimes, those interviews discuss the inspiration behind a new start-up, sometimes they look back at a career spent at the lending coal face, and sometimes they explore where the latest technologies might take us. In the end, if it shapes a lending decision, we’ll talk about how.

You can join us every Thursday here, or wherever you prefer to find your podcasts. And you can find written transcripts and more content can be found at www.HowToLendMoneytoStrangers.show

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