Frontier Fintech Podcast Nat Wittayatanaseth

Josh Fraser, the Co-Founder of Origin Protocol, founded the company in 2017 to bring NFTs and DeFi to the masses. Josh started coding at the age of 10. Prior to Origin, he co-founded 3 other venture-backed companies: EventVue, Torbit (acquired by Walmart Labs) & Forage.

Today, Origin Story has powered multiple record-breaking NFT sales for top creators. Origin Dollar (OUSD) is the first stablecoin that earns competitive DeFi yields while sitting in your wallet.

We covered all about NFTs and Stablecoins at #FrontierFintech Podcast:
*The difference between building Web2 vs Web3 startups
*Building NFT launchpad (Origin Story) for artists and getting 3LAU and Paris Hilton as advisors
*How OriginDollar is an innovative take on stablecoin

Tayo Koonprasert and Tansaya Kunaratskul are Senior Specialists at the Central Bank Digital Currencies team at the Bank of Thailand.

Both of them have been instrumental in creating the Central Bank Digital Currency. We’ll cover all about the use cases for CBDC, different models of CBDC and it will be used in the future at #FrontierFintech Podcast.

Disclaimer: This interview was conducted in September 2021 and may not reflect the current status of the Bank of Thailand’s CBDC projects.

“History Rhymes But Never Repeats”

Yoshi Yokokawa is the CEO & Co-founder of Alpaca, a company that powers more than 100 fintech applications around the world. When Robinhood came out in 2013, Yoshi, in Japan at the time, couldn’t download the app or invest in U.S. stocks. Ten years later, nothing’s changed.

Alpaca is based on the idea that every single person on the earth should have access to financial markets like Americans do. Today, Alpaca has raised series B from notable investors to offer equities and crypto trading software via API.

We covered all about “why investing in U.S. stocks is so hard for non-Americans” at #FrontierFintech Podcast.

Sherry Jiang is the Co-Founder & CEO of Bluejay Finance, a protocol that creates stablecoins pegged to Asian currencies. By providing local currency stablecoins, Bluejay is laying the infrastructure to support the next billion users to use Web3 products.

Sherry has always been passionate about building products for people in emerging markets. She has founded a social impact company, Code for Community, to provide non-profit organizations with technical help. Fascinated by how technology is bringing financial access to people in ways that financial institutions cannot do, she joined Google Pay and brought payment innovations to India. Today, she’s building Bluejay to provide a seamless way for people in Southeast Asia to use Web3.

We talked about Local Currency Stablecoins and more at #FrontierFintechPodcast:
*Why do we need local currency stablecoins
*What are the challenges for local stablecoins to take off
*What is Bluejay doing differently than others
*How does Bluejay solve the liquidity issue?
*What will be the catalysts for local stablecoin adoption
*When will the market be ready for this

Amrita Vir is the Head of Driver Lending at Grab. She manages over 20 financial programs, including cash loans, BNPL, and fuel financing, for Grab drivers across 6 markets in Southeast Asia. She’s also the host of The Greenroom, a SEA fintech podcast.

Amrita found her passion for fintech from a young age. She founded a non-profit microfinance company in college to help the low-income access financial services in the U.S. where she grew up. It was her mission to improve financial inclusion and her roles at various fintech companies took her from LATAM, Africa, Middle East, to SEA.

We talked all about “financial access and inclusion” and more at #FrontierFintech Podcast:
*Challenges of microfinance in SEA vs US
*Data availability and collection infrastructure as prerequisites for digital lending
*The missing pieces of digital lending in SEA
*How to improve financial health, not just financial access

"Foreign exchange will always be here to stay"

Jason Tay, the Regional Director of Business Development at M-DAQ, talks to us about how M-DAQ uses data and algorithms to allow merchants around the world to sell goods in foreign currencies and not lose out when the FX rate changes.

M-DAQ is creating the world without currency borders. The 11-year old fintech company is the first startup to be funded by Affinity Equity Partners who joined other notable investors, including Ant Group and Samsung.

M-DAQ is the FX solution that powers leading e-commerce platforms and stock markets around the world. With increasing cross-border e-commerce trades, sellers are forced to quote prices in foreign currency. The problem is you don’t know when the product will sell, hence, the FX risk falls on the sellers. Sellers markup a lot more than usual and the ultimate losers are the consumers.

Wouldn’t it be better if the platform takes care of that and ensures sellers’ bottom line is fixed? That is what M-DAQ does. It gives power back to consumers by giving power to sellers.

We talked all about foreign exchange amidst the cross-border world and more at #frontierfintechpodcast:
*How M-DAQ helps sellers sell goods in foreign currency
*How buyers can get refunds at the same rate after 3 months of purchase
*How M-DAQ does this at ⅙ of the banks with 3 months’ guarantee
*The role of FX and e-commerce