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PODCAST

How to Lend Money to Strangers

Brendan le Grange

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,

business management

All Episodes

35:11

Gamifying credit scores for the unbanked, with Yatir...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2022/01/06

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

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27:56

Credit scoring in Nigeria, from Jes Freemantle...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/12/23

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 LinkedInYou can learn more about Credit Registry and their SMARTScore at

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31:49

Lending against talent, with Joel Frisch (Prodigy...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/12/16

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/

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35:04

Expanding the definition of credit bureau data, with...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/12/09

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

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25:23

The Russian consumer credit landscape, with Igor...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/12/02

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

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29:30

Building better collections processes, with Dylan...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/11/25

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,

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23:27

Accelerating BNPL in Spain, with Jaime Marin Merlo...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/11/18

Is this another BNPL episode? Of course, it is.But what can I say, the world seems to have an unquenchable thirst for the model right now 😁Plus, this one is a little different as I’m now speaking to a BNPL provider, but rather to Jaime Marín Merlo of Fiizy, an Estonian fintech that focuses on bringing lenders and merchants into that BNPL boom.Jaime is the director of business development for Fiizy’s Spanish ambitions, but we touch on the LATAM market too. We talk about the limits of the Spanish

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32:27

Fraud and identity trends, with John Cannon (Oakford...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/11/11

My very first job was building models to catch credit card fraud, at that time we were most concerned with counterfeited cards, then lost/ stolen cards, and in third place at best came identity fraud. It was an emerging threat, and we were hearing word of the likes of Hunter being rolled out in the bigger markets, but we were able to keep a pretty good handle on it with a system my boss had cobbled together in an Access database.Then online channels started to emerge, but they were so insignificant

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33:54

Resilient Canadian consumers are looking forward to...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/11/04

In this week’s episode of HTLMTS, I speak to Matt Fabian, TransUnion Canada's Director for Research and Consulting. Matt spoke to me about the credit resilience he’s seen displayed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the early shoots of growth that have recently become visible.And also about BNPL and whether these new lenders might nip in and gather that growth for themselves before the big players have time to react. Matt has over 20 years of experience in Canadian financial services and access to a

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32:04

Modern lending In India, with Praveen Sinha and Amit...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/10/28

Powered by a growing middle class and a more connected rural population, the Indian consumer credit economy is carrying a lot of momentum, as is the market for MSME loans. And where most fast-growing markets are small, this is obviously not the case with India, where 1.4 billion people and nearly 50 million SMEs live.Add to that, a history of digitalisation and innovation and it’s market you really shouldn’t ignore. Albeit, until now, I largely have, barring a couple of years where I had a passing

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31:53

Consumer credit in the Nordics, with Jakob Færgeman...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/10/21

The Vikings are coming! The Vikings are coming!For a long time, the Nordic financial services market was a geographically contained one, with just 25 million consumers spread across the four major Nordic nations, growth of even the best business models could be capped. But not anymore, with digital channels providing a route to the rest of the world, several Nordics fintechs are following in the wake of Klarna.So to get a better handle on the local forces shaping the Nordic consumer credit

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27:05

A Hong Kong market update with Dr Francis Lau

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/10/14

Hong Kong is a small market, smaller still in the shadow of the Chinese Mainland market which we explored in episode 4 of How to Lend Money to Strangers. That said, its high concentration of low-risk/ high-income consumers make it a useful training ground for lenders looking to target prime and better customers.In this thirteenth episode 13 of HTLMTS I speak to Dr Francis Lau about the strength of the residential housing market post-COVID, about the emergence of virtual banks, and the growing line

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28:47

The exponential growth of digital banking in Ghana,...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/10/07

Poor infrastructure was an insurmountable hurdle for the traditional banking model in many developing markets. Branches were too expensive to install and then often too hard to reach for many. The first waves of digital banking helped to alleviate some of this pain, but only for the lucky few who had access to a stable internet supply - so typically the wealthier folk in the bigger cities.And then came cell phones. Not smartphones, hardy Nokia’s that could take a beating and last a week on a single

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23:17

Making credit histories globally portable, with Misha...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/09/30

I’ve been an international immigrant three times now – into Denmark, into Hong Kong, and into the UK. In each case there was the expected pile of government paperwork to get there, but also then an equally tiresome series of hoops to jump through before you’re considered a full part of the credit economy.Want a phone contract? What’s your credit history?Want a lease? What’s your credit history?Want a credit card? What’s your credit history?The fortunate immigrants might find themselves having to

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39:45

Instant gratification with Michele Tucci, André...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/09/23

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a panel discussion at a virtual event hosted by some of my friends and ex-colleagues at TransUnion in the Philippines. The theme of the day’s talk was on how lenders can meet the ever-growing demand consumers have for instant gratification, and since that include talk of BNPL and alternative data scores among other topics that have been popular here, I decided to record and edit it into an episode.“So imagine I'm on a shopping site, I've added stuff to my

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18:27

Lending money to friends and family, with Craig Smith...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/09/16

I named this podcast How to Lend Money to Strangers because for the last twenty years that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. And although I’ve taken on projects across the credit lifecycle and on three continents, the underlying goal has almost always been to find enough data to turn strangers into customers we can know.But Craig Smith has deftly flipped this on its head.With JustLend, he is seeking not to understand strangers better but to lend better to those we already know. He’s reinventing

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31:51

Big data scoring for thin file and new-to-credit...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/09/09

The traditional credit model is often underpinned by an existing credit history. This makes sense mathematically, after all the best predictor of future delinquency is past delinquency, but it can present a barrier to entry to some customers – if you won’t give me credit today because I haven’t had credit before, then how can I ever get credit?Consumers with thin files - or indeed no files at all - on the credit bureaus found themselves all lumped together and burden with a high-interest rate. In

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34:32

Risk-based collections in the time of COVID-19, with...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/09/02

For a long time, collections teams tended to look a bit like government departments, where customers are assumed to have no alternative but to put up with the process they’re given. And not necessarily by choice. Fifteen years ago I was rolling out a collections training program for a bank in Africa, and we were speaking about the incredible role the function could play in relationship building even then, but the sad fact is that regardless of good intentions, investment often ran out before the

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32:09

The state of the American consumer credit industry,...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/08/05

Few of us will have experienced something as disruptive as COVID-19. The disease, and the lockdowns that followed it, shaped national economies and individual's lifestyle choices in markets around the world.In today's episode, I catch up with Matt Komos - LinkedIn and find out how the American consumer credit industry has held up.As TransUnion's VP for Research and Consulting, Matt is able to combine his apply his industry expertise to one of the richest consumer credit databases in the market, to

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38:21

Scoring for microfinance, with Joffre Toerien (Credit...

How to Lend Money to Strangers ·

2021/07/29

We like to talk about algorithms, and big data, and machine learning, but sometimes we’d do well to take a step back and ask about what the business really needs. This is especially true in developing markets, where consultants can forget to bring the organisation along with them when they implement the latest and greatest scoring tech.In this episode 5 of How to Lend Money to Strangers, I speak to Joffre Toerien of Credit Insight Analytics about the lessons he has learned building scorecards for

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