Taking digital lending across Laos, village by village, with Tim Scheffmann (LTS Ventures)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With 10,000 transactions processed a day across 900+, often remote, villages, LTS Ventures is one of the more impactful operations I've had the pleasure of featuring on this show. But when you build the digital infrastructure needed for core banking, you're also building an ecosystem of trust and technology that other innovators can leverage in the future, so the incredible work already being done is just the start of a financial inclusion explosion in Laos (and beyond).
You can learn more about LTS Ventures and their village banking solutions at https://www.ltsventures.com/
Or reach out to Tim directly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/scheffmann/
I'm on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/
Please also follow, share, and talk about the show using https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/
And if you want to get a sneak peek at some of what I'm working on, my website is currently being refreshed (even as some of the projects it mentions lag behind): https://www.brendanlegrange.com/
Other friends of the show include:
https://www.ogmara.com/ (customised risk management and analytic consulting)
https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs)
https://flatwhiteorfoff.com/ (ask for anything other than a flat white, the answer is in the name)
https://www.joinhumoni.com/ (helping international students find accommodation, work, and financial services on day one)
https://www.haboomoney.com/ (making collections personalised, flexible and intelligent)
https://beetlesense.ai (AI-powered day one pest detection for forestry)
And since you like podcasts, I also co-create HAIghtened Senses with Christo van Zyl, which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology (and this week, flying cars)
Keep well, Brendan
This is an interview I set up while at Money20/20 Asia, but they have shows around the world. If you want to make similar connections, you can get tickets at https://www.money2020.com/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We wanted to create an institution. |
| 0:03.0 | And this institution village bank allows people to speak freely, to have a discussion. |
| 0:09.1 | Often the people have also limited financial understanding. |
| 0:13.0 | So we combine it with financial literacy trainings and so on. |
| 0:17.2 | They have normally the cycle. |
| 0:18.8 | They are farmers. |
| 0:19.6 | They have to invest first. |
| 0:21.8 | So they take a loan. Then they buy seedlings, rice seedlings. They have normally the cycle. They are farmers. They have to invest first. So they take a loan. |
| 0:26.2 | Then they buy seedlings, rice seedlings. They put it out there. They have fertilizer costs, |
| 0:31.3 | manpower costs, and so on. And then at the end, they sell the harvest, the produce. And then they have a huge income for two months. But then they spend everything again because they do not have a bank account |
| 0:39.4 | to put the money on. And this is where these village banks come in and allows them to have |
| 0:44.2 | an vehicle to store money and to store money safely. |
| 0:53.3 | Welcome to Hartlein Money to Strangers with myself, Brendan LaGrange. |
| 0:58.2 | Given the channel we're on, I suppose I should say that yes, data-driven lending strategies are still my first love. |
| 1:05.0 | But some of you will know that I am also building a business in Forest Tech. |
| 1:09.6 | At Beetle sense, we use drone-carried |
| 1:11.5 | multimodal AI to monitor the health of commercial forests and farms to detect the earliest signs |
| 1:17.8 | of pest beetles and other threats. Thanks to our participation in the future Forest Accelerator |
| 1:24.6 | and a project we signed on the back of it. We can now proudly say |
| 1:28.2 | that we have an office in a very small corner of Blankenberg Castle on the northern edge of |
| 1:34.1 | the Haas Mountains. Though the surrounding areas mainly woods and mountains, my guest today |
| 1:39.5 | was born in a tiny village just down the road. A fact I learned while chatting to him |
... |
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