AIP News RoundUp – Episode 24 – Rahul Mathur and Theresa Blissing – Doubling Down On an Opportunity

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Michael Waitze worked in Global Finance for more than 20 years, employed by firms like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, primarily in Tokyo.  Michael lived and worked in Tokyo from February 1990 until December 2011.  Michael always maintained a particular focus on how technology could be used to make businesses more efficient and to drive P/L growth. Michael is a leader in the digital media space, building one of the biggest and fastest-growing podcast listener bases in the region.  His AsiaTechPodcast.com show has listeners in more than 170 countries and his company, Michael Waitze Media produces some of Asia’s most popular podcasts.

Theresa is the founder of the Asia InsurTech Podcast and a Thought Leader on innovation in insurance in Asia. She has worked for ten years for leading multinational insurers in Europe and Asia before turning to management consulting and venture building with the goal of transforming the insurance industry and helping shape its future in the region.

Guest
Rahul Mathur

Rahul is the Startup lead at Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab in London. Prior to joining Accenture, he was an Insurance Product Manager at Laka Insurance, a London headquartered early stage InsurTech start-up which recently won at the British Insurance Awards 2019.  Rahul holds a master’s degree in Statistics from the University of Warwick. He is an Ambassador at the Asia InsurTech podcast.

Host

The month started again with investment news from Indian unicorn PolicyBazaar. In July, Softbank invested USD 150 million and PolicyBazaar CEO called it a “mistake”. This month, Google is looking to do the same as part of the company’s India investment strategy. Meanwhile, Tesla has set up its first overseas insurance brokerage in mainland China. Only a month after Elon Musk announced his plans to build a “major insurance company”. 

While US companies are entering Asia, Chinese PingAn group keeps pushing into the European market. PingAn’s technology arm, OneConnect has partnered with Swiss Re to co-develop a digital end-to-end solution for motor claims handling for the European market. While OneConnect brings strong artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics capabilities to the table, Swiss Re has the data and the network to quickly enter the European market. 

In Singapore, the Monetary Authority (MAS) is continuing support for fintech and has committed an additional $250 million to invest under the enhanced Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme. It is promising to see that even during the current crises, Singapore keeps pushing innovation forward and establishing itself as a fintech hub in the region. 


Singaporean Grab rolls out micro-investments and consumer loans to its users base and is shortlisted for the digital banking license in Singapore. And in Indonesia, Grab’s payment partner OVO claims to be the largest fintech ecosystem in Indonesia. The Lippo-backed startup offers a range of financial services, including peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, investment, insurance, credit scoring, and multi finance.

Other companies mentioned in this episode:
Cover Genius, Igloo, Sightcall, Joonko, Finleap, ByMiles

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