Donny Zhang

## DJI_20260629160141_0032_D Hello, today we met Donny. Hi Donny, so what are you building? I'm building a fintech firm in Southeast Asia. The name is Yup. So we are the biggest digital bank credit card issuer in Indonesia. Biggest digital bank issuer? Yes, you can trade us as a credit card issuer. So our main business is credit card, credit payment. It's like Nubank. If you know Nubank, the biggest credit card in Brazil. Nubank, that's a similar one. So how many users do you have in Indonesia? How many users? It's close to 2 million cardholders. Wow, 2 million. And you must have very big revenue too. Yeah, the revenue grows very fast. Can you tell us a little bit, like how fast? It's like we enjoy like, at least 150% or 200% net growth year on year. Year on year? Yeah. So basically like double or even triple the revenue. All the key metrics every year. Okay, okay. So that's, you have an idea of how large is that? The revenue? Um, we are aiming to have a hundred million AR by end of this year. Okay, that's big. So what, what bring you to Indonesia and why you want to start this business? Well, that's, um, that's, um, that's, um, that's a long story. So, um, I used to be a venture capitalist like two, uh, 10 years ago. And I spent a lot of time in, uh, you know, you know, just, just met and talk with founders from emerging markets, such as, um, um, Brazil, um, Brazil, Latin America, Southeast Asia. And I got a chance, met with, uh, David, the founder of Nubank in 2069. I spent around two weeks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Brazil, and just try to learn how a FinTech can issue credit cards serving like million, millions customers in emerging market. I think, you know, this is pretty good, this model. And just try to understand if there's any other market, we can do similar things. Yeah. Okay. So that's, uh, a few years ago, three, five years. It's like, yeah, like eight years ago, 80 years ago. Yeah. Okay. And then, uh, then you, uh, give up your venture capital career and go to Indonesia, started all this. Yeah. And you become the number one. So basically like that, I, I started to operate my own business in, uh, middle of 2017. And I, uh, I sold the company to, uh, to Nasdaq leads to FinTech firm. I became their overseas business CEO in 2019. Um, and after two years, um, and after two years, I decided to, um, um, you know, give up all the shares and return them back and, uh, start to build up Yup from scratch at the beginning of 2021. Uh, and you have been, uh, you have raised a few runs before, right? Uh, yes, uh, things incorporated. We have raised a little bit more than 120 million USD, uh, in total, um, six runs. Yeah. Six runs. Um, can you name some of your biggest investor? Yeah. We have, uh, few investors from a U S like the more capital and more capital. Yeah. Which is very big. Like crossover from in, uh, sitting in New York and spice venture. Uh, we also got investment by, um, the Hong Kong government. HKIC. And we got several investors from local Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and also China. Uh, and you're, you must have employees too in Indonesia. Yeah. We have 400 people. 400. Yeah. 400 people. Um, like three office in Indonesia, two in Jakarta, the other one in, um, in, uh, another very big cities. Wow. So that's a long journey and quite successful and smooth. I can say, um, we, um, we are pretty focused. That's the first thing. And second, you know, we don't face very tight competition over the past five years. I think we are the only, like fintech company focused on the credit card, credit payment services. Other than, you know, the cash loan or payday loan. Even though there are a lot of companies trying to give a loan to the customer, charging very high interest. But we don't do that. Okay. You found the, um, market with the last competition and you focus on that. So you basically know everybody in Indonesia with your, everybody. I mean, uh, everyone, I mean, yeah, because you're the number one, so you are already very famous. So you have new connections. Yeah. Yeah. We, um, we went viral since, uh, two years ago until now. So if you search, yeah, um, um, TikTok Indonesia, you found out there are like thousands, thousands new content being generated by our customer. Uh huh. Post on social media, like TikTok, Instagram, and, uh, you know, telling people that they can enjoy benefit from, yeah. With KFC, Hagen-Dazs, my downloads, there's a lot of like, you know. Oh, so customers love you. Yeah. They love us. Oh, what's, what's the structure change behind that? I mean, the Nubank, you, um, the structure changes, um, so, you know, credit card is a pretty standard product. Right. So you don't need to advocate people. What is credit card? Right. So it's pretty easy for, for young people to just want to have a credit card to build out their, their, their, their personal, like credit, credit profile. But it is pretty hard in the emerging market, like Indonesia, that, you know, cause even though there's like hundreds of banks, but they are not like treating credit cards as a main business. Okay. So they are pretty traditional. You have to go there offline. You have to spend around four weeks, even more than months to, to apply the credit card. And, um, the approval rate is pretty low. So a lot of people got rejected. So with the technology change, the information, everything online, make it easier to apply for credit card. Yeah. And you see that plenty. So what will AI change? Um, so first thing forward up, we think like, you know, there should be a lot of ways to, to evaluate the company. Right. There's a lot of things we can support for doing the underwriting. For example, um, we are working with a lot of like alternative data stores, such as, um, you know, we collect data from our device. We connected with, uh, your like e-commerce spending data. We have, um, your like social security. We also like have telecom data. Um, and the most important thing is, um, we build up all the model in house. So basically the more data we collect, the more immune, the better understanding of the customer. Yeah. But which is like, you know, you couldn't find from bank from the traditional bank. They are pretty sorely rely on the bureau, but most of the murder market bureau are not matured. So yeah. And that's the reason why the bank couldn't do that a weekend. It changed everything. So yeah. And. Okay. And. So yeah. How are we now? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are we? How are our account? How are we? Yeah. ## DJI_20260629161249_0033_D So, what do you think about AI? Will AI change your industry? I think AI is not only will change the financial services industry, but also the whole tech industry. Right. I mean, it's still in an early stage, right? We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but we do understand, you know, we have to make sure ourselves to adopt AI as soon as possible. Otherwise, we'll be left behind in the future. And something I'm doing now is turning the whole company from, you know, a traditional tech company into AI native means we have to redesign all the working flow for all the functions, like not only like R&D, right? R&D using AI is pretty nature, but I mean, it's more like your product team, your operation, your data team, even your HR, your legal team. So, we want to basically like, you know, build up AI native sort of working flow to cover all the, you know, the non-R&D part of business, of the functions. Like for example? Like, um, okay, so perhaps the, if you want to, like, design a feature, a new feature, right? So you have to start from the business idea, right? Once you have the business idea, you have to turn that into a sort of a BRD, we call it, right? And you have to share the BRD with the product team and they will understand the whole idea and turn that into a PRD, right? So after you have the PRD, then maybe you have a design team, you have a, like, you know, start to build up the demo or UI UX based on that. And you have to share everything to the tech team. Basically, they will start to work on the development based on the whole, like, BRD, PRD, and also the demo or UI UX design. But now, basically, we only need, we only need one thing, which is, uh, first off, we cut a lot of, like, you know, the, the, the, the process in the middle. So now it's like, you know, a business person can simply turn the idea into a demo, right? And once they have the demo, they can, they have more sense than other people to see if the demo is, um, is good or not, right? And once they confirm the demo, they can direct work with our team to start to develop, to turn the demo into a real. So means, uh, you know, perhaps we may, it may take it around two or three weeks to basically, like, you know, go through the whole flow. But now it's just, like, two days, three days, you have everything. Um, so the research and the development team would be much smaller and, uh, to, uh, catch the user demand and the turn into product would be faster. And, uh, does that also apply to your business? Like, um, for example, I, I'm not from the financial background. I, uh, uh, issuing credit card, will there be a lot of also functions need to be developed by the, uh, product manager? I think the AI pushing the, you know, the product function more close to the business side. So if you are a product manager, you couldn't, you don't understand business. I think you couldn't survive in the future, right? Cause, um, literally we don't need a, a sole product guy, right? Any business people can, can have the product part of, uh, capability once they have AI. Um, yeah, so means, uh, pushing, uh, everyone into more business, to having more businesses and basically cut all the, you know, the long flow into a pretty short. Uh, so business, you mean user demand, um, business is about, you, you need to understand the market, you need to have, you need to understand the product, you need to understand the feedbacks, you need to know the trend of the, you know, the, the, the, the demand, right? Uh, and you need to have a sense, once you see the data, you could realize, you know, which part of the product could be better. Uh, so sounds like your RN team was, uh, United, uh, big one, but now it's split into multiple parallel teams. They, they are lead by someone with business sense developing, uh, fastly of what wants to satisfy user. Yeah, what I can say is that the whole, like process has been accelerated. So not only the, um, turn the idea into a product, but also like, you know, receiving the feedback from customer and adjust your, your services. Because now, you know, there's, there's no challenge of, um, deploy a feature because we have AI. So all the deployment will become very faster, right? Um, just like few days, you can turn the idea into a product and then just, um, you know, publish to the market, let people try and collect more feedback. And then you can basically, um, adjust, you know, some part of that and make it better. So I, I, I feel the, the whole cycle is, is getting like more faster and, um, yeah. So will AI change the whole financial system? I think so. I, I, uh, you know, I even discussed with a friend this morning about, you know, talk about what is, what's going to be the future, like payment services. So my personal doubt is, um, so in the future, first of all, we don't need a smartphone. We don't need a QR code. We don't need the physical card. So, you know, the scenario I can imagine is like, once you work in a store, you want to buy something, you just tell the, you know, the cashier, like, Hey, you want to buy this? That's it. So all the payment will be settled on cloud because you have your aid. They have their agent, the two agent can talk, right? And there is a mechanism behind, like how to do the accounting settlements or things. So basically you don't need any device to physical device to settle the transaction for you. Just, you know, based on the, um, you know, just, just very simple, like, you know, like, like, like sentence or description. Uh, so you feel like, uh, iPhone is not needed. And then I go to a store. I talk. Yes. As long as they have a Mac, right? Or you have a Mac or there's something like there's a device that can basically have you connect with your cloud. Uh, your, your, your, your agent, the Mac or the Mac? Yes. Yeah. That Mac. The, the, the, the Apple Mac. No, I mean like, as long as you have Mac phone, you have a device can support, like basically transfer your, um, like, you know, inquiry, uh, turn that into a request and trigger the agent to settle everything for you from the cloud side, not from the physical like device side. So the UI is not needed. The, I, I, I think it's totally makes sense that we don't need a, like, you know, sort of, uh, old school, uh, product with, uh, with, uh, with, uh, with the UI interface. So we don't need that, uh, think about if you want to buy a cup of water and a cup of coffee, right? In Starbucks, you just say, Hey, I want to buy a Americano, ice Americano, right? And, um, you know, people will just help you settle it. And it will, that, uh, has kind of influence on your business. Um, I think we're going to be part of that flow. Uh-huh. Right. So when you want to buy a ice Americano, then you just tell your agent and we are, we are the agent for you to help you set, settle down all the transactions. Right. Once we got the inquiry, then we just talk with the agent from Starbucks. Right. And then there, there may be an agent from the switching, like visa master. So basically like straight agent will settle the deal for everyone. So from issuing credit card to issuing, um, bank agent for customers. Yeah. I think there will be no credit card in the future. I mean, the physical credit card, you will have your personal credit, but everything will be linked with your agent. Okay. Right. So you have a credit line from, uh, from, yeah, but like Southern dollar, right. And think about this agent will help you to manage all the credit line, settle everything. Okay. So how, how long do you think is that will be the reality? Not sure. Two years, two years, three years, two, three years. So that, that's fast. So there is a new bottle of new, uh, bank agent who sees it, who will be the major player in the future. Maybe some old bank will left behind. Yeah, of course. So, um, you know, everything is pretty innovative. So you have to think about the, the services in a different way. Right. I don't think the traditional banks could cash up. Um, and also maybe Visa Master couldn't cash up, right? Um, because they, their function in the agent area, maybe not that important, or you can do it the other way to bypass them. Yeah, I think there, there's, there's maybe a way to bypass the, um, existing players ecosystem, right? Um, so once everything, you know, happening on agents means you don't need a physical post merchant, you don't need a physical cashier, you don't need a physical card. But you even don't need a, you know, a visa like merchant networks, there may be a new merchant rail. I'm not sure how it looks like, but there may be a new like ecosystem of a payment network to connect all the merchants by using like maybe sort of AI product. And it, it will come, but, uh, we don't know the exact shape and that's what you are working on right now. Uh, it's part of, yeah, it's part of our, yeah, we are trying to like, you know, figure it out how, what exactly it's going to be looks like, then we'll find a place for ourselves. Cool. Um, so, uh, you really stay in Singapore? Jakarta. Jakarta. Jakarta. Okay. That's the capital of Indonesia. Yes. And sometimes in San Francisco. Yeah. I spend, uh, like a few weeks every year in San Francisco, US, like New York, San Francisco to, um, to talk with my investors. Okay. Great. So sounds like, uh, if anyone wants some resources in Indonesia, you are a good connector. Yeah. Welcome. And then, yeah, I should see whether anyone can connect you with more US resources. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We're happy to share. Yeah. Uh, anything else you want to talk about? I think, yeah, so far is, you know, just let me know if you guys have any question. Question. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.