How to Lend Money to Strangers Brendan le Grange

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.

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 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

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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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

"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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

"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

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 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.