Financial Inclusion Drives Chynge

 The first prime minister of Singapore, the late Lee Kuan Yew, published a book titled “From Third World to First: The Singapore Story — 1965–2000”. Lee described the journey to transform Singapore from an island in poverty to a global metropolis within a single generation.There were many factors working against the success of Singapore including absolutely no natural resources and a poorly-educated workforce with a high birth rate. Clawing out of poverty requires discipline and making difficult choices but the success is worth the sacrifices.I grew up in Singapore during this period and experienced third world living conditions. We did not have indoor plumbing and I vividly remember night-soil toilets. We would do our business into night-soil buckets which were then collected usually in the middle of the night, hence its name. Looking back, I can’t remember how many times I fell into the night-soil bucket as a little boy and my mom would have to pull me out and bathe me…twice…ugh…my face still contorts at those thoughts to this very day. 

 My family moved out of the squatter villages into Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) flats which then evolved into the current Housing Development Board (HDB). The Singapore economy, with discipline, grew at a rapid pace, and today, Singapore boasts the world’s best airport, best airline, best in doing business, best passport, among others, and stands among the richest nations in the world. Following Lee’s book, we have come a long way from night-soil toilets to Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport in a relatively short thirty-five years. 

 Singapore has a population of 5.6M of which one quarter, or 1.4M, are foreign workers. Many of these foreign workers have little education and low skills. They risk leaving their homes, their families, and their countries to go into the unknown to make for a better life. These workers hail from our neighboring countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 

 They work hard, spend little and send almost all of their wages back home. Unbeknownst to them, the banks take a large part of their earnings in the form of money transfer fees. The banks are able to get away with these exorbitant fees because these workers with their low education do not know any better. A large proportion (40%) of ASEAN are unbanked or underbanked and these workers then send their money via informal channels known as hawala or hundi. However, these unregulated money transfer activities run the high risk of losing these workers’ hard earned wages.

  I empathize with the foreign workers in Singapore and the other countries where Chynge operates such as Hong Kong, Brunei, Abu Dhabi, and the United Kingdom, and the immeasurable sacrifices these workers such as Wati and Zakir endure for their families. I have personally experienced and witnessed the growth of Singapore from illegal squatters with night-soil toilets to modern-day HDB skyscrapers.Thus, I made a decision early in life to help others out of poverty and one of the ways is financial inclusion. Chynge is the only thing I know to do. Financial inclusion has been cathartic to let go the fear and frustration I had in my life from my growing years in Singapore. New financial services using blockchain, biometrics, big data, mobile and cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and returning money back to families and the communities of these foreign workers excite me to get out of bed each morning. Chynge has come a long way as a FinTech but there’s still plenty of work left to be done.