Unbankable, making a movie about lending

How to Lend Money to Strangers

Brendan le Grange

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

5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Luke Willms is an award-winning writer, director, and producer... and he's interested in lending. Unabnkable is the culmination of a seven-year, seven-country journey to unravel whether Africa's rich tapestry of tradition, innovation and experimentation to find out if it holds the key to Western economic revitalisation.

Find all the details at https://unbankablemovie.com/ (or watch it on https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/unbankable/umc.cmc.2b51h3w0b2lbdrvt0af8vklx2 or https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbankable-Luke-Willms/dp/B0F4767PNF

Follow Luke on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-willms-87250049/

I am on LinkedIn, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/ as is the show https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers

You can support the show by buying one of my guests via the affiliate links on my site (it doesn't cost you anything extra): https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/recommended-reads

Commercial partners include (when you click one of these affiliate links, I earn a small commission but you won't pay a cent more)

ProtonVPN Browse privately with a community-owned secure VPN that safeguards your privacy. https://go.getproton.me/aff_c?offer_id=26&aff_id=12767

Ogma Risk & Analytics: Customized risk management and analytic consulting for you https://www.ogmara.com/?utm_source=HTLMTS&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=OGMA+intro&utm_id=2501

Friends of the show include: https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs), https://www.joinhumoni.com, and https://chaos-out-of-order.com/

And since you like podcasts, I'm also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology

Keep well, Brendan

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We need money to move. The initial target of the film was to show how technology was supercharging microfinance.
0:07.6	And it was during COVID that I started asking the question, can Africa save the West?
0:12.2	My dad will always say that lending money to people is a very delicate dance.
0:18.2	And I think we need to go back to these organic lending models that coincide
0:23.9	with tech. And so I thought there was like a germ of a story there. I want to make a film about
0:30.2	community trust builds on the Ubuntu philosophy and thread the needle between technology
0:36.0	and community in that aspect and make a film that I don't
0:39.6	think other people would make. That was sort of the start of unbankable. Yeah, it's a movie kind of
0:46.3	about finance and kind of about lending, but really money does make the world go around still.
0:51.6	People need it to survive on a daily basis. And the only way to
0:54.6	get it into the hands of people is to lend it. And the only way to lend it is through a way that's
1:00.1	built on years of research and fostering the repayment back into the hands of the people who are
1:07.6	lending it.
1:13.0	Welcome back to How to Lend Money to Strangers with myself, Brendan LaGrange.
1:18.8	It's still quite early in the summer holidays, but I'm already back from Turkey where I spent
1:24.3	a lovely week enjoying the sun and watching the kids go crazy in the
1:28.5	swimming pools. But let's get to the main heart of today's episode. I'm speaking to Luke Wilms,
1:34.6	the filmmaker behind Unbankable, an important and interesting movie about financial services
1:41.9	today and what the West can maybe learn from Africa's recent
1:46.1	FinTech Innovation. I first spoke to Luke while he was still interviewing guests for the movie
1:51.7	and it's been a delight and an inspiration to see him go from that point to winning awards
1:58.4	at some pretty impressive film festivals around the world.
	...

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