How to Lend Money to Strangers - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

How to Lend Money to Strangers — Business
How to Lend Money to Strangers

A podcast about lending innovation and lending leadership in all the markets in which it takes place, however diverse those markets may be. In fact, it’s a case of ‘the more diverse the better,’ with guests from New York to New Zealand discussing everything from crypto-backed mortgages to crowd-funded loans for refugees to gamified loan journeys to AI-powered credit scores.

I am the host, Brendan le Grange, and I have spent the last twenty years working in – or alongside – lenders in Africa, Asia, and Europe and I’m using that experience to find and learn from industry insiders in a series of weekly interviews. Sometimes, those interviews discuss the inspiration behind a new start-up, sometimes they look back at a career spent at the lending coal face, and sometimes they explore where the latest technologies might take us. In the end, if it shapes a lending decision, we’ll talk about how. You can join us every Thursday here, or wherever you prefer to find your podcasts.

You can find more at www.HowToLendMoneytoStrangers.show

Or follow my other projects at https://confirmu.com/, https://www.joinhumoni.com/, https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Copyright: © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.

Latest Episodes:

Fixing vendor finance, with Alex Armitage (Nectarine Credit) Feb 03, 2022

Show notes

For the last 20 years, I've been delivering lending projects across the credit life-cycle and around the world, but always focused on the consumer. The only time I've come into contact with small business lending is on the very fringes when we've used a business owners personal credit report to estimate the risk of their new business. Or, in other words, I've only ever seen half of the picture.

I started to address this in Episode 25, with Alek Koenig, but there’s so much more to learn. So today we’re back talking about lending to SMEs, with Alex Armitage. Alex is the founder and CEO of Nectarine Credit, a Canadian fintech that’s built a marketplace that brings together borrowers and lenders in the vendor finance arena, taking a process that used to take weeks down into one that can take only a few hours.

You can learn more about Nectarine Credit on www.nectarinecredit.com or by clicking here

You can find Alex on his LinkedIn page here

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (and while you're there, send me a connection request)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A global career in collections, with Chris Somervell Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

New Zealand might be forgotten from world maps so often that it’s become a meme, but that didn’t stop today’s guest from taking his career truly global. Chris Somervell’s has worked in eight countries while away from home, predominantly managing collections operations.

And that’s what we discuss: lessons learned as technology developed and cultures changed alongside him, and a fundamental reimagining of what it could mean to work in collections.

You can find Chris on his LinkedIn page (or out sailing)

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (and while you're there, send me a connection request)

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is an identity, with Jaime Ramirez (Preventor) Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

In episode 17 of this show, John Cannon said of identity that “when you really sit down and think about it, in the digital world, it is broken."

On the back of that statement, we could hardly leave it to just the one discussion, so in this episode, I’m talking to Jaime Ramirez, founder and CEO of Preventor, a Miami-based fintech that’s building the next generation in ID verification and financial crime risk management. We talk about the challenges of verifying identity in an increasingly online and increasingly global marketplace.

You can learn more about Preventor on their home page

You can contact Jaime directly via his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seamless working capital finance, with Alek Koenig (Settle) Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

A lender will always want to know as much as possible about a business’ health before extending credit. That’s not changed, but until recently the only data that could help in that regard was slow and expensive to produce. And in turn, SME loan application processes were slow and expensive to complete. To make matters worse, these slow and expensively-produced numbers are seldom fit for purpose, even the old faithful financial reports are only a summary of what was actually happening, not a deep dive into the business mechanics.

This is maybe why some entrepreneurs, like Alek Koenig, are solving the problem by circumventing financial reports and going straight to the source.

“But the reality of Settle was, I was using this accounts payable software and I just thought it was the worst product I'd ever used… so I was like, hey, why don't we just build better accounts payable software? So that's when I was thinking about my background in credit and lending, and thinking, well, if we could combine this accounts payable software with lending, then we could actually make the product 10x better and actually help these businesses out.”

In this episode, we talk about consumer lending and SME lending, about creating the data you need to lend against, about removing friction, and about transitioning from traditional credit to start-up and from employee to entrepreneur.

You can learn more about Settle and how to work with them on their homepage

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gamifying credit scores for the unbanked, with Yatir Zaluski, Niharika Bhargava, and Jacobus Eksteen (ConfirmU) Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

I've worked in consumer credit for 20 years, but I think the first time that I heard of anybody trying to use a psychometric-based scorecard for making credit decisions was over a few beers with my friend Sam, who has a psychology degree and works in marketing. And I dismissed that because I figured these aren't my customers. In many ways, though, the fact that they weren’t my customers, as a traditional lender, was the problem.

In this episode, I look at how ConfirmU - the fintech that I have recently joined as Chief Solution Architect - is using elements of psychometrics and gamification to build credit scores for the unbanked, without the need for credit histories, smartphones, or technical literacy.

You can learn more about ConfirmU at their website, or by reaching out directly to Yatir by emailing yatir@confirmu.com or by finding him on his LinkedIn

Niharika is on LinkedIn, too, or you can click to learn more about her stand-alone psychometric business - Psych4u

Matogen Applied Insights have their homepage here, or you can once again find Jacobus on LinkedIn.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Credit scoring in Nigeria, from Jes Freemantle (Stratus Credit Consultancy) Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

In the very first episode of HTLMTS, Raymond Anderson mentioned a consultant who’d served as something of a mentor to him – Jes Freemantle. So it feels fitting that, to wrap up the year and the first season of the show, we have Jes himself on, talking about his current project building bureaus scores in Nigeria, as well as a career spent as a scorecard pioneer.

Jes runs Stratus Credit Consultancy and can be found via LinkedIn

You can learn more about Credit Registry and their SMARTScore at https://www.creditregistry.ng/category/smartscore/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lending against talent, with Joel Frisch (Prodigy Finance) Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

Back of the envelope, according to Poets and Quants, a Harvard MBA will set you back $130,000 per year once you've added in all the extra costs, maybe knocked down to $100,000 if you get yourself a scholarship.

That's already a lot of money if you're an up-and-coming American executive, but it is it even more if you're living and working in the developing world.

One hundred thousand dollars is R1.6 million back in South Africa, which is pretty much what I got earlier this year for selling my two-bed/ two-bath house in the financial district. In India, it's 6 times what a Google search tells me is the average annual salary of a data scientist.

The rewards are worth it, but that level of outlay is simply unattainable for the vast majority of people. This is, of course, where a student loan would normally fit in, but how many Indian lenders are going to give that much money to someone they know is leaving the country? Probably none. How many South African lenders?

Well, actually, at least one, sort of, Prodigy Finance is headquartered in London but with two out of three founders being countrymen of mine, I feel like I can round that one up.

In this episode of HTLMTS I speak to Joel Frisch, Prodigy's Head of Global Acquisition, about investing in talent and lending to international students for world-leading post grad studies.

Because the hardest thing about getting into Harvard should be getting into Harvard, not getting approved for a loan.

You can learn more about Prodigy Finance at https://prodigyfinance.com/

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Expanding the definition of credit bureau data, with Jon Roughley (Experian) Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

It used to be that to speak about credit bureau data, was to speak about defaults. But negative banking data became comprehensive banking data, became comprehensive financial services data, became comprehensive financial services, telco, and insurance data...

...And that expansion continues, as all sorts of new and open data sources are brought into the fold.

Talking to me about the expanding definition of credit bureau data is Jon Roughley, Experian's Global Head of Data Exchange. We talk about Experian's Boost, we talk about Open Banking in general, and we talk about the global innovation exchange.

You can learn more about Experian on their home page

You can learn more about Jon Roughley on his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Russian consumer credit landscape, with Igor Propopenko (Experian) Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

I've always been interested in emerging markets, which early in my career meant the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and, yes, South Africa, but I've always felt we squeezed ourselves a little uncomfortably into that one.

But I digress, my main point is that today it seems that we're hearing from Brazil (with Nubank) and India and China (with a bag full of unicorns each). But Russia, I think after a few fingers got burnt on failed entries earlier in the century, seems to have slipped into the background.

To address this, and just because I've always been fascinated by the country, I speak to Experian Russia's Igor Propopenko. We chat about the current consumer credit landscape, about the growth that has shaped the market as it is today, and about the trends likely to shape its next twenty years.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

You can also find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building better collections processes, with Dylan Jones (IE Hub) Nov 25, 2021

Show notes

Level with me, how often do you really go to the dentist? Is it every 6 months like they tell you to?

Look, I’m not here to judge you, I’ve certainly missed my share of recommended appointments, and it’s not because I don’t believe there’s a benefit to doing so, it’s just that avoiding unpleasant tasks is always an attractive option when the alternative is doing an unpleasant task.

The same bad habit can be seen at play in collections where consumers, fearing an angry phone call, delay making contact, sometimes until it is too late. This is where IE Hub comes into the picture. IE Hub is a UK-based fintech that simplifies the creation of consumer income and expenditure reports - the “I” and the “E” of the name. These reports provide data that guides the entire collections process, and are entirely necessary, but in their current form they can take hours to complete, hours that may have to be repeated over and over as each lender follows their own parallel collections path.

And that’s more than just a discomfort or an inconvenience - though the impact of that on consumer mental health is enough of a reason. Uncomfortable and inconvenienced consumers tend to rush through the process and the accuracy of responses can fall as a result. IE Hub wants to address this by streamlining the first I&E creation and then by making it sharable, so that it can also be the only I&E - and in this episode of HTLMTS, I speak Dylan Jones, CEO of IE Hub to find out ‘how’ and ‘why’.

You can learn more about Dylan Jones on his LinkedIn page

You can learn more about IE Hub via their home page

You can hear related thoughts on customer-centric collections in my interview with Terry Franklin here.

You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page and find my pulpy action-adventure novels in all their formats on Amazon

If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me at brendan@howtolendmoneytostrangers.show

A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Related Podcasts