Telum recently interviewed Zennon Kapron, Founder & Director at Kapronasia as he shared more about how Kapronasia works with financial services companies and PR agencies and their involvement in the UNCDF Pacific Islands FinTech innovations challenge

Tell us about Kapronasia how did you start and what do you focus on?
Kapronasia is a strategic consulting firm focused on the Asian financial services industry. Through our offices across the region, we work with clients to help them better understand and take advantage of opportunities across the payments, digital banking, cryptocurrency, and capital markets. Our clients include some of the industry’s best-known brands including Mastercard, Visa, Facebook, Ripple, HSBC, as well as many other regional and global industry players.

What are some of the big themes that you’re focused on at the moment?
Digital, digital, and more digital. The pandemic accelerated a trend that was already well underway as consumers and businesses continue to do more online. The first wave of this digitization was fairly straightforward, insofar that it was more about being able to handle the digital demand that happened as a result of the shift. The second wave, which we’re in now, is all about businesses better understanding how to service both SME and retail customers online as competition increases, which comes down to being able to hyper-personalise products and services to be able to provide the right product, at the right time to the right person. Singapore’s digital banks, which will launch in June, will only add fuel to the fire.

How does Kapronasia work with financial services companies and PR agencies?
The work we do is diverse and varies across different projects. In essence, we help companies understand the impact of business, technology and regulatory issues on the banking, payments, and capital markets.
Financial services companies approach us with problems related to financial technology, and we would provide insights to help them achieve their respective goals.

We have a list of case studies on our website that highlight what we do, but as an example, we recently we worked with the corporate venture capital arm of a large multinational technology company which approached us to help with their investment decisions. They were looking to invest in a Financial Services Technology company to expand their scope of business, however, they needed a better understanding of the market demand as well as the competitive positioning of the target.

We also do a significant amount of work in the development space with organisations like the United Nations, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, Better Than Cash Alliance and other international development organisations. We typically specialise in how fintech and digital can help move the needle on financial inclusion and address the challenges around providing financial services to the underserved. 

You’re involved in the UNCDF Pacific Islands FinTech innovations challenge. Can you tell us more about it, and why did you get involved?
The UNCDF Pacific Islands Fintech Innovation Challenge aims to attract global FinTechs with market-ready solutions to help address the problems faced by the Pacific Islands countries (PICs) surrounding low financial inclusion rates.  We have worked with UNCDF for several projects prior to this, thus when approached to be a part of this Challenge we were more than happy to take it up.

Unlike the usual research and consulting projects, Kapronasia will be involved as a partner and assist with the overall event organization and execution which is a great opportunity to drive impactful results and connect with the greater fintech community. We also have the support of many partners including Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Market Development Facility (MDF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The event will help strengthen cross-sector collaboration by bringing together the financial ecosystem in PICs to support innovation and financial inclusion.

What are your plans for the rest of the year and beyond?
We’re looking forward to restrictions loosening and the market once again opening up to physical events. The innovation challenge will be one of our key focuses that will keep us busy through the middle of the year along with several reports covering everything from the latest in digital payments to the latest issues surrounding CBDCs and financial inclusion.