/financial inclusion

Discussion
It isn’t AI that’s biassed — it’s banks and VCs
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  In his latest monthly newsletter, David Barrett, Founder CEO of Expensify, stated that Expensify is the only company that has succeeded with expense management software for SMEs. He was referring to the latest pivot to enterprises by Brex. Maybe SMEs ARE risky, expensive and difficult to serve? Looking left and right while crossing the road is a safety best practice or bias?? I've always wondered if skew is in the dataset and the analyst is merely surfacing the reality and not ating with any personal bias. I'm becoming more convined about that take after reading that SME lending has not changed in 30 years. If the bias was with banks, by now, alternatives to banks should have come up and grabbed the opportunity? Why has Brex pivoted away from SME??
An open finance model for the world
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  Given that the key impetus to Open Finance in USA has been provided by Plaid, Finicity, Yodlee, et al, I'd think the US approach to Open Finance is also Platform-driven? Open Banking: EU v. USA Ditto India e.g. NPCI (UPI for P2P and P2M Payments, BBPS for Bill Pay), Anon (AA for account aggregation).
As ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ starts to impact credit scores, financial literacy is a must-have
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  Any idea if delaying / defaulting on a £5 BNPL repayment would have as much adverse impact on credit score as delaying / defaulting on a £500 BNPL repayment?
Fintechs don’t have to rely on VCs to raise money…
Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan

  I'm a Founder. I'm also a member of one of those angel investing networks in India that you've mentioned. I separate my expertise from investments. Where I invest, I offer only money, and leave it to the founder to seek out and pay for my expertise if they're interested in it. This has worked very well for me so far.  In most cases, founders really want just money but act as though they're also looking for expertise and investors really just want multibagger returns but act as though they're not in it for money alone. As a result, both parties engage in too much expertise gesturing and the sideshow dominates the engagement.    If both sides cut to the chase and focus exclusively on what brought them together, much of this expertise gesturing will get nipped in the bud.