Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:00:05 · David M. Brear, Matt Wood
[00:00:05] S0: Welcome back to Fintech Inside of Focus in association with Visa. In this show, we take a burning question from the financial financial services industry across the globe and really put it under the microscope with explainers, expert panels, and in-depth interviews, all to bring the global community into focus. Today, I am joined again by my FinTech Insider Focus cohost, Matt Wood, who is the head of digital and FinTech partnerships Asia Pacific for Visa. How are doing today, Matt? [00:00:33] S1: Doing good, David. Very good. How about you?
00:00:33 · Matt Wood, David M. Brear
[00:00:33] S1: Doing good, David. Very good. How about you? [00:00:35] S0: Pretty good. Pretty good. Busy day. Busy day. Busy busy year, I'll be honest with you. '23 has just disappeared, but it's it's all good stuff, and it's all good fun, which is which is nice. But... So in this second part of our focus on the question, can APAC's travel sector spur on its financial services one? Well, if you haven't heard the first part of this conversation, go find it wherever you found this podcast and listen to our panel discussion with U Trip's Cecilia Chew and Matt Baksby from Revolut Australia. We spoke about the travel sector, the financial services industry, and and how those two things are connected in APAC, and the challenges of lockdown, everything that happened with COVID, and how the industry has pivoted really in the face of that really odd periods that we had there. But, Matt, maybe to to recap, I mean, why is the the region so integral for Visa? I mean, it seems obvious to say it's a high growth one and lots and lots of people with lots of opportunities, but it seems like there's just such an amazing amount of things really happening in the area.
00:01:39 · Matt Wood, David M. Brear
[00:01:39] S1: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's high growth, of course. It's also incredibly diverse. And therefore, it's not always an easy region to do business in when you're running business or running enterprise that covers regions, covers markets, covers borders. And so this notion of getting cross border payments, whether that's for travel, money movement, businesses or consumers, getting that absolutely right and as best as it can be is something that we really spend a lot of time focusing We covered a lot of ground in that conversation, didn't we? But if I could get to the number of what I think we sort of drew out was that the main point to restate I think is that making payments across borders, any type of payment, whether I'm there in person or moving money between countries or paying suppliers, whatever it is, making payments across borders is still way more difficult than it needs to be. [00:02:37] S0: 100%. And it is an amazing sort of tapestry of different systems across all of those different geographies, isn't it? And helping organizations navigate those is no small feat, is it, in that way? But, I mean, I was really struck to hear the... Almost the pivots that we saw from both organizations, you know, really in terms of customers' needs changing overnight and them really having to react. It's an amazing thing to see, isn't it?
00:02:37 · David M. Brear, Matt Wood
[00:02:37] S0: 100%. And it is an amazing sort of tapestry of different systems across all of those different geographies, isn't it? And helping organizations navigate those is no small feat, is it, in that way? But, I mean, I was really struck to hear the... Almost the pivots that we saw from both organizations, you know, really in terms of customers' needs changing overnight and them really having to react. It's an amazing thing to see, isn't it? [00:03:02] S1: Yeah, I mean, Matt and Cecilia spoke, you know, they had great stories to tell about how like fundamentally their product roadmap shifted in many cases overnight, but also to turn that into a real positive where they're sort of primary proposition, if you like dried up overnight, They found their customers interacting with their product in an entirely new way. And in fact, in Cecilia's case, has essentially built a whole new business line around supporting a different need of their customer base that they didn't really even know they had.
00:03:02 · Matt Wood, David M. Brear
[00:03:02] S1: Yeah, I mean, Matt and Cecilia spoke, you know, they had great stories to tell about how like fundamentally their product roadmap shifted in many cases overnight, but also to turn that into a real positive where they're sort of primary proposition, if you like dried up overnight, They found their customers interacting with their product in an entirely new way. And in fact, in Cecilia's case, has essentially built a whole new business line around supporting a different need of their customer base that they didn't really even know they had. [00:03:37] S0: Yeah. It's amazing. In signs of adversity, you gotta either panic or pivot. Right? And and they both did that incredibly well. So in this second part of the show, we're sitting down with a founder in APAC to dive into the weeds a little bit more and offer a different perspective. Eleven f s's own David Barton Grimley was lucky enough to grab some time with Pranav Sud, who is the general manager for EMEA at Airwallex for a really, really interesting chat. You'll hear that after a short message from Visa. Don't go anywhere. Visa's fintech fast track program is streamlining the onboarding process for fintechs, enabling them to gain access to Visa's powerful capabilities and network. Visa and their enablement partners help fintechs launch and scale cards, virtual credentials and disbursement programs. To learn more, visit partner.visa.com.
00:03:37 · David M. Brear, David Barton-Grimley, Pranav Sood
[00:03:37] S0: Yeah. It's amazing. In signs of adversity, you gotta either panic or pivot. Right? And and they both did that incredibly well. So in this second part of the show, we're sitting down with a founder in APAC to dive into the weeds a little bit more and offer a different perspective. Eleven f s's own David Barton Grimley was lucky enough to grab some time with Pranav Sud, who is the general manager for EMEA at Airwallex for a really, really interesting chat. You'll hear that after a short message from Visa. Don't go anywhere. Visa's fintech fast track program is streamlining the onboarding process for fintechs, enabling them to gain access to Visa's powerful capabilities and network. Visa and their enablement partners help fintechs launch and scale cards, virtual credentials and disbursement programs. To learn more, visit partner.visa.com. [00:04:39] S2: I'm David Barton Grimley, global strategy director of embedded financial services here at eleven FS, and I'm delighted to talk to so many amazing people from across the industry. As mentioned, it's great to be joined on Fintech Insider Focus by Pranav Sud, GM for EMEA at Airwallex. How are you today? [00:04:56] S3: I am very well, David. Thank you for having me on the show. [00:05:00] S2: Awesome. It's a pleasure. So for our international audience, can you give us a little bit of an overview about yourself and your background?