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How to Lend Money to Strangers

Pioneering mobile fintech services, with Seymur Mammadov (Simbrella)

How to Lend Money to Strangers

Brendan le Grange

Credit, Fintech, Management, Lending, Banking, Business, Careers

52.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"Living without a bank account is not only a hindrance to everyday life, but also stunts the financial growth of families and communities. Seymur Mammadov, Founder and CEO of Simbrella, wants to improve the quality of life for unbanked populations through access to financial instruments and microloans." I don't usually quote a different source for these, but when your guest wins the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™, you feel like you have to aim the spotlight that way!



Today the show is taking you to Azerbaijan, an unexpected home to one of mobile fintech's pioneers: Simbrella. Simbrella have now served 220 million customers via 25 companies in 20 countries worldwide, many of whom would otherwise have no access to credit. You can learn more about SImbrella and their services here: https://www.simbrella.com/



They're also on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/simbrella/



You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24



If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.



Regards, Brendan




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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If your balance goes to the zero at the night, the operator just observed you.

0:06.0

That's why his service was offered to the market on time.

0:15.0

It was in a letter to Robert Huck in 1675 that Sir Isaac Newton made his famous statement.

0:22.0

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

0:27.0

But sometimes, like with the Easter Island Moai, the shoulders of those giants are themselves sitting upon something unexpected.

0:36.0

The first company in the world to launch mobile phantastic services has now touched 200 million end users by 25 companies in 20 countries around the world.

0:46.0

It's a feat to be proud of and we'll get into the how, but before we do, where would you guess they grew from?

0:53.0

Not Silicon Valley, not shins in, not even Nairobi, where my mind immediately goes, when the topic of discussion turns to those earliest waves of mobile banking.

1:04.0

But from Baku as a bajan, a central Asian country of just over 10 million people that has never come onto my fintech radar before.

1:12.0

So in this episode, we will discuss AI and ML derived credit scores and how they are facilitating end-to-end lending solutions in developing markets.

1:21.0

But we'll also find out what it is like to take on the world from uncommon foundations. Welcome to How to Lin-Money to Strangers with Brendan Lagrange.

1:31.0

Sameal Mamadov, co-founder and CEO of St Breller. Welcome to the show.

1:50.0

Thank you. I'm really glad to participate.

1:54.0

Now I'm looking forward to it. Sameal your background is more technical than many of the fintech founders I speak to and hear.

2:01.0

But then again, St Breller also has more of a telco flavor than many fintechs that I cover on the show.

2:06.0

So what is the foundation of your career? What did your early career look like?

2:10.0

We are the children of Soviet Union and our education and culture. It was different. We are growth under the propaganda.

2:20.0

And that's why when we are starting working in free market, we learn everything on the fly.

2:27.0

And that's why I have a background of the technical engineer and then I'm working for the trading company.

2:35.0

Then I'm working for the company which was the distributor for mobile phones in Azerbaijan.

2:43.0

I had a really nice knowledge in computers and it was my love. I was responsible for all computer things in our company.

2:51.0

We had a nice relationship with mobile network operators. But we were the distributors of mobile phones, nothing technical.

...

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