Varun Mittal, “Fintech Nation”, DigFin VOX Ep. 1

Varun Mittal is co-author of “Singapore: The Fintech Nation”, and brings his experience to bear on this conversation about fintech’s direction in Southeast Asia. He is also a partner at EY, with previously roles at Ant Group, Samsung and Singtel.

He speaks speaks with DigFin about fintech’s prominence in Singapore and Southeast Asia, challenges to scale, what would be the ideal fintech to start today, and his next book project.

• Show notes:
• 0:00 – Varun Mittal, author of “Singapore: The Fintech Nation”
• 1:23 – The idea behind “Singapore: The Fintech Nation”
• 6:40 – What’s Singapore’s value in fintech?
• 10:30 -What’s Singapore’s great innovation?
• 11:50 – Cross-border business in ASEAN
• 13:20 – Fintechs trying to go cross-border
• 14:45 – Scaling: fintechs v banks
• 16:30 – Can ASEAN fintechs become unicorns?
• 19:40 – Venture capital and institutional investors
• 22:35 – What fintech would you launch today?
• 28:30 – Can big US payment fintechs win in Asia?
• 31:10 – Varun Mittal’s next book project