Blog

“I don’t debate the poor on Twitter”  – Do Kwon, Creator of Terra My Twitter feed has been chirping with TerraUSD’s (UST) death spiral and its (arguably failed) revival plans. If it weren’t for Twitter, or the many thousands who burnt their fingers (uhm, savings) investing in UST, I probably wouldn’t have tracked UST. IRead more

“Lending is a feature. Not a product. Almost all and any distribution platforms with unique and rich datasets can unlock lending and win big.” Kunal Shah, on Twitter A fintech entrepreneur walks into a bar. “Hey, what can I get you today?” asks the bartender. The entrepreneur smiles, “I’ll have my usual – a Dataquiri.”Read more

“Where there’s tea there’s hope.” – Arthur Wing Pinero UPI is the poster child for what fintech can achieve in India. It made headlines again last month for crossing $1 trillion transaction value in FY21-22. NPCI’s COO attributed this feat to the collective efforts of banks, fintechs and users. But what is UPI’s recipe for success? InRead more

“I need ammunition, not a ride.” – Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky Ammunition, turns out, comes in many shapes and sizes. There’s missiles, tanks, Molotov cocktails and threats from Ukrainian grandmothers. And then there’s payments infrastructure. Governments and corporates across the world are fighting back against Russia’s (or Putin’s) war by cutting off their access toRead more

“Cryptos have no underlying assets, not even a tulip.” –Shaktikanta Das Ouch. That’s the RBI Governor, not mincing his words. Like everyone else, we’ve been poring over the Budget announcements on crypto-assets. The euphoria in the crypto-verse was short-lived. Crypto-assets haven’t been outlawed; but that’s about it. The proposed tax-rates and structure aren’t – toRead more

We’re witnessing the creative destruction of financial services, rearranging itself around the consumer. Whoever does this in the most relevant, exciting way using data and digital, wins!– Arvind Sankaran Do you recall the last time you spoke to your bank? I can’t. I think it’s because there is little to differentiate one bank’s services fromRead more

Finance is the lifeblood of an economy and technology is its carrier. It is time to convert fintech initiatives into a fintech revolution. – Prime Minister Narendra Modi Kudos to PM Modi for recognizing the importance of fintech in India’s growth story. We hope his call-to-action motivates regulators to build an enabling legal framework whichRead more

‘You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve.’ Elon Musk   SpaceX recently became the first private company to send an exclusively civilian crew to space on a privately funded mission. This is a part of Elon Musk’s grand vision to build a self-sustaining human colony on Mars. But even if colonisation of Mars seems far-fetched, SpaceX has already disruptedRead more

“One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”    - Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens   When Barclays opened the world’s first ATM in 1967, it was  marketed as a revolutionary robot-cashier. It was a luxury available to a few. Now it’s a necessity. Especially in India which only has 14.72 bank branches per 1,00,000 adults – making ATMs the only way to access cash for many Indians.   Fintech services like buy-now-pay-laterRead more

You cannot have your cake and eat it too This proverb always confused me. Why, I thought, if I have the cake can’t I eat it? I imagine it’s a perfectly nice cake – chocolate, pecan, carrot (the possibilities are endless) – what stops me then. Turns out the proverb isn’t as idiotic as IRead more