News and Insights

Why Are Partnerships the Future for FinTech?

October 13, 2020

Sponsored exclusively by B Capital Group

As the finance industry copes with what the next generation of banks and payment systems will look like, partnerships are a linchpin for riding the wave of change successfully. Financial technology-driven startups (FinTech) continue to surface and scale, and established financial institutions continue to invest significantly in offering the latest digital capabilities.

On Thursday, 5th November 2020 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. SGT, join key investors and leaders from B Capital Group and Boston Consulting Group as they discuss the trend of stakeholders partnering to drive innovation in Financial Services and why it has evolved into a popular industry practice that will impact and shape the finance industry for years to come.

Partnerships are critical to staying ahead in a crowded market: partnering with the best companies specializing in a niche area saves time and resources, improves product time to market, and helps to accelerate the business’ learning curve. Today, no one would have anticipated the extent to which big industry players have invested in and become reliant on partnerships. Large incumbents are inevitably partnering with fintech startups and enterprises which are traditionally regarded as competitors while financial players and retailers are partnering to bring new services to their customers, to extend their business into new customer segments.

Speaker bios

Trang Tran (B Capital Group, Principal), Moderator

Trang is a Principal, based in B Capital Group’s Singapore office. Trang joined B Capital from Temasek where she was part of the global Transportation & Logistics investment team and covered sub-sectors including SEA eCommerce logistics and North America land transport. Prior to that, she spent 4 years at The Abraaj Group focusing on private equity investments across Southeast Asia and led the origination effort in Vietnam for the firm. Trang started her career doing corporate finance and M&A advisory with PwC in Singapore. Trang holds a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honours) degree from Nanyang Business School in Singapore.

Pauline Wray (BCG Expand FinTech Control Tower, Global Lead)

Pauline has deep expertise in financial services, financial regulations, and Digital topics, with 17 years of experience in the financial services industry. She co-heads the FinTech Control tower a JV between Expand and BCG drawing on the skills of the entire BCG ecosystem in this collaborative and multidisciplinary effort. As head of Expand Research Asia, Pauline continues to develop her knowledge of major financial institutions, technology companies, and financial services regulators. Having worked in London and New York, Pauline founded Asia Expand Consulting PTE LTD, before the acquisition by Boston Consulting Group in 2011. Pauline is a member of the Expand/BCG leadership team and FI sector advisory board.

Hendra Kwik (Payfazz, Co-Founder and CEO)

Hendra was the Head of Growth at Kudo (acquired by Grab for 100 million US$), where he engineered the product and growth of the company’s offline-to-online agent network. Hendra holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Institute Teknologi Bandung (ITB), the most prestigious technical universities in Indonesia, where he was granted a full scholarship, awarded the University Best Student, and graduated as a valedictorian in 2012. In the same year, Hendra was also awarded as Indonesian Third National Best Student by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and McKinsey Young Leaders for Indonesia by McKinsey & Company’s YLI initiative. After graduation, Hendra spent three years working as an engineer for Petroleum Information Technology Firm Schlumberger, across Latin America, the United States, and the Middle East. He was one of the very few Indonesian engineers being assigned for international mobility by Schlumberger.

Jungkiu Choi (BCG, Managing Director & Partner)

Jungkiu is a Managing Director & Partner with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Singapore. He is a core member of the firm’s Financial Institutions practice. Jungkiu has 29 years of professional experience as a corporate executive, a global management consultant, and an international bank executive; focusing on strategy, M&A and PMI, transformation and turnaround, business building, and new technology and IT transformation across Asia and North America. His expertise is in banking and digital transformation. His work at BCG focuses on the digital banking and challenger bank build, coalition loyalty, and bank tech and digital transformation.

Company bios

About B Capital Group

B Capital Group is a global firm specializing in equity investing in venture and growth-stage companies that have achieved traction with customers. Through our extensive global network and exclusive partnership with The Boston Consulting Group, B Capital helps high growth startups navigate business challenges, raise capital, and attract talented leadership at key points of their journeys to scale. With offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Singapore, B Capital believes innovation can come from anywhere. Our unique multinational presence and deep industry knowledge have enabled us to build a portfolio of startups in Enterprise application software, Infrastructure, Security and AI/ML, Fintech and Insurtech, and HealthcareTech and Bio-IT that are transforming large traditional industries across borders and geographies.

About Payfazz

PAYFAZZ operates the largest branchless banking agent network in Indonesia to distribute banking services to over 180 million unbanked who live in rural parts of Indonesia. Currently, it manages 250,000 registered agents spread across rural areas in 514 districts in Indonesia, serving more than 10 million monthly active users and processing more than 2 billion US$ of annual Gross Transaction Value in 2020. It provides bill payment, money transfer, merchant payment, lending, and deposit/saving services to the unbanked through platform partnerships with various billers, banks, financial institutions, lending companies, and payment companies. PAYFAZZ’s position as the distribution platform earns it a decent 0.5%-1% commission from its partners.

About BCG Expand FinTech Control Tower

BCG Expand FinTech Control Tower (FCT) is a research-focused unit developed jointly by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Expand Research, the professional benchmarking arm of BCG. The FCT identifies initiatives, technologies, and companies that matter most in today’s FinTech ecosystem, and assesses their impact. This is completed using our internal platform that can ingest data from multiple sources and apply a proprietary taxonomy combined with a rigorous framework, resulting in a highly accurate and globally complete FinTech dataset. We engage directly with financial institutions, regulators, industry stakeholders, and innovators, putting us at the forefront of the latest research and FinTech trends.

About Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation—inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact. To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures—and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.


About B Capital Group

B Capital Group is a global firm specializing in venture and growth capital investments. In addition to investing in a company, B Capital helps its portfolio of startups recruit and train amazing teams via our network of top talent and in-house recruiting and talent experts.  A priority since the firm’s inception, B Capital has achieved gender parity and women hold half of the Director+ roles at the Firm. The Information named B Capital Group one of the top-10 most diverse companies in the Venture Capital industry.

 

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