Financial Services – The Quasiinvestor

DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) and Joining one

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a widely touted use case of blockchain technology (decentralized and autonomous), allowing people to gather in groups (organizations) in a borderless, web-native way. While the internet has allowed for mass coordination, it still has a lot of friction and costs involved in it. Like traditional companies or social clubs, members …

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Enhancing cross-border payments: Ripple vs. Stellar

Cross-border payments is estimated to be a c. $44b market in 2020, according to McKinsey estimates. While this was negatively impacted due to restricted travel regulations as well as international supply chain disruption globally, an increase in the adoption of e-commerce as well as digital payments provided a lift to this sector. However, cross-border payments …

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Crypto Exchanges – Centralized (CEX) and Decentralized (DEX)

Introduction There are 4 main ways to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, each with pros and cons. Centralized exchanges (CEX) process the largest amount of cryptocurrency volumes. According to Coingecko, Decentralized exchanges (DEX) volume is just about 5% of total trading volumes. The largest CEX, Binance, has about $14b of 24-hour volume, while the largest DEX, …

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Oxygen – Manage both your personal life and freelance work

There has been a large influx of challenger / neo- banks, which are technology-led and are aiming to disrupt the monolithic traditional banking business models, innovate and personalize products, and streamline processes. These banks range from traditional banks forking out their own brand of next-generation banks, as well as newcomers that tout disruption through the …

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TrueLayer – The missing puzzle piece in digital banking

More than a decade has passed since the Global Financial Crisis, and many have likened the seemingly decoupling of Wall Street and Main Street of late to the irrational exuberance of the past. Much of the time since then has arguably been focused on cleaning up — making sure that unfounded market optimism will not …

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Acko – Promoting insurance accessibility in India

As the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread globally, it is now commonly viewed to be a financial crisis masquerading as a health crisis and might change the world irrevocably. According to a survey conducted by IPSOS, there is increasing anxiety about personal finance and employment, with little comfort taken from the …

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Aspire – An alternative take on SME banking

Think back to a time when you had to step into a bank branch, only to be greeted either by a sales agent inquiring if you have heard about the newest card on promotion, or by a self-service queuing machine that requires guesswork on which option best fits your objective when all you wanted to …

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Bambu – Growing your wealth

People born in a period of relative calmness and economic prosperity, the generation Ys/millennials, are entering a phase where they are a few years out of college and are beginning to step into major milestones in their lives. They might be thinking of getting into a marriage, save for their first home, think about retirement …

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Ondot – Personalizing the card experience

One of the most exciting products that Apple has introduced of late, in August 2019, is the AppleCard, which boasts to be “a new kind of credit card, created by Apple, not a bank” (although the issuing partner bank is Goldman Sachs), and touts its simplicity (in both usability and design), transparency, and respect for …

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SingX – Remittance that is cheaper, faster and more convenient?

With the Southeast Asia remittance market estimated to be ~$80B in 2018 (from ~$48B in 2012), and intra-SEA to be ~$7B, with multiple pain points, especially in developing countries, that still exist, such as exorbitant, and at times hidden, fees (5-10%), unreasonable exchange rates or lag in fund transfer (typically 1-3 days), it presents a …

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