Simon Loong, founder and group CEO of WeLab, Hong Kong's homegrown online bank, is on the show this week.

Loong talks about how fintech has been taking off in Southeast Asia, its latest market situation, and how his Hong Kong company can expand and grow the sector.

Check out the full transcript of TVB’s Straight Talk host Dr Eugene Chan’s interview with Simon Loong:

Chan: Good evening. I'm Eugene Chan on Straight Talk and our guest this week is the founder and group CEO of Hong Kong's largest fintech unicorn WeLab, Simon Loong. As we dive into the past, present and future of digital banking and Hong Kong's role in the ASEAN fintech revolution, Loong will share with us how he turned a bold idea in 2013 into one of Asia's most influential digital finance platforms. A Stanford MBA and former Citibank executive, Loong’s work has earned him accolades like “Asia's Most Influential” and recognition as one of the “20 people shaping Hong Kong's future”. Welcome, Simon!

Loong: Thank you, Eugene!

Chan: Simon, digital banking has been one of the major disruptors for the financial industry over the past decade. And in fact, the global market, as I researched, was valued at $143 billion in 2024 and is projected to go over to $3 trillion by 2032. Perhaps you can help our viewers to understand what exactly is a digital bank. As I asked you earlier, we all use banking apps. Is that part of digital banking?

Loong: Digital banking is a pretty new concept in the last five to 10 years. Basically, it is the same banking service, but built completely online, without any physical branches. The benefit of it is where there's no physical branches, plus it's built on the latest tech infrastructure, the cost is lower. We can serve the customers much faster with greater customer experience on your mobile phone, with a lower cost customers’ benefit, ultimately, with lower cost of borrowing and more innovative service and adoption of the latest technology, like AI.

Chan: So, maybe you can give us a sort of bird's eye view of the whole world. Is digital banking as popular as in Hong Kong or is Hong Kong more popular than the other places?

Loong: Digital banking has been picking up very fast across the world. If you look at one of the largest digital banks by market cap, in Brazil, it's like $17 billion, which is as big as the size of the top four banks combined in Thailand. In terms of adoption, there's around eight digital banks in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority was quite forward … it’s one of the first regulators in Asia to issue digital banking licenses, and subsequently Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and other markets also slowly issuing digital banking licenses during the last three to four years. If you look at Hong Kong, Hong Kong has around 2 million digital bank accounts today, which accounts for roughly 40 percent of the 18 to 65 year old population, which is quite a lot. And if you look at the adoption of Hong Kong, most people are actually quite comfortable with using digital banks for all kinds of their banking services today.

Chan: Right, Simon, since you're mentioning such sort of a huge growth, or I would use exponential, what do you think, from your perspective, will be the actual driving force behind it? Is it the changing consumer behavior, even the regulatory system that allows it to happen? Or just pure tech innovation?

Loong: I think there's a couple of areas, right? If you look at today, we, especially after COVID, use everything from ordering food, getting a ride, buying movie tickets completely with the ease of our mobile phones, and hence asking us to use our mobile phone to get banking services. It's just part of daily life with better customer experience. The government has also been pushing for the use of digital banking in Hong Kong as well. For example, recently we changed the name for virtual bank to digital bank in Hong Kong. Hong Kong also increased the deposit protection scheme from HK$500,000 to HK$800,000 to encourage the use of smaller and newer digital banks. So, I think a lot of these are from consumer behavior and also the government push encouraging the use of digital banks across. The same in Southeast Asian markets. Southeast Asian markets … you can see that traditionally, there's a very large underserved segment, if you look at it right. Today, 60 percent of the Southeast Asian customers or population is either under bank or unbanked. Now, under bank means they have access to a bank, but the bank itself, the services are not well catered for their needs; and unbanked means they don't even have a banking account. And for these markets, and most of them are very tech savvy young adults, as we know, digital banking actually can give them better services through complete access, through a mobile phone, instead of visiting a branch.

Chan: Right, just now you said that the banking licenses were issued in 2019 in Hong Kong, and eight licenses being sort of issued. Is Hong Kong kind of more forward in Asia compared to the so-called Western banking system? I mean, are we sort of ahead in Hong Kong?

Loong: Yes, we're definitely ahead of the game. Thankfully, we issued it earlier. Hence we attracted the talent and also people and the capital to build a digital bank. WeLab is one of the beneficiaries of that. We got our WeLab bank, a digital bank that is operated by WeLab in Hong Kong. We are one of the largest and also the only profitable digital bank in Hong Kong in terms of … we focus a lot on personal lending, personal loan with a top three personal loan lender in Hong Kong, around 16 percent market share. That means one in six people who borrow money in personal loan in Hong Kong borrow from us. And that actually allows us to build a lot of our technology know-how, and allows us to with that scale to multiple markets. For example, our second digital bank in Indonesia, Bank Saqu. We're able to build that in a record time of only six months.

Chan: Right.

Loong: And that allows us, hence, a lot cheaper as well. And we learn from a lot of the mistakes and the good and the bad, from what we learned in Hong Kong and skilled to Indonesia.

Chan: Right, Simon, I am very happy to have you here today, because we kind of look at a story from a bold idea like 12 years ago, and you turn it into, I mean, founding into in 2013, as I just said, in 12 years, you're now the largest Hong Kong fintech company with sort of footprint over 70 million individual users across Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland and Indonesia. You just mentioned. What is your aspiration for future WeLab growth? Because in 12 years, 70 million customers, it's definitely a very high number. And what is the secret of success as you can see?

Loong: I think capturing the right market opportunity is extremely important. We started off building our technology for online lending, which is purely based on lending. And I think we were one of the first online lending platforms in Hong Kong, where we entered into the mainland business. At the mainland market in 2014, we were one of the first mobile based lenders. And in Hong Kong, we are one of the first digital banks as well. And I think capturing, understanding market capturing opportunities, very, very important. We always joke with our colleagues that if we want to do exactly the same thing, but only start now, we'll never be able to do it. I think that's number one. Number two is when we look at the industry we're in financial services, we ask ourselves, we're in an industry which is historically dominated by capital and scale, and we can't … it's a market, it's industry where we our competitors boasted hundreds and thousands of employees, with more than a century of history. So, when we compete in this market, we need to compete in a way that we can win. And what we find the winning formula is with technology. How do we leverage on technology to leapfrog and innovate the industry so that we can win?

Chan: Right. Just now you mentioned, like 40 percent of the users are sort of from the younger generation, which is more tech savvy compared to the general, sort of more elderly population. So, what is the advantages? I mean, you've talked to us about the advantage of digital banks. For sure, you must have your limitations. I'm sure the viewers are going to ask, what are your limitations?

Loong: I think our limitation is always like the capital to grow faster and time. I think there's a massive opportunity out there, be it in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. With what we've built, we just need the time and more capital to scale it further.

Chan: You said you started like 12 years ago. Say, if I asked you what is something that you can see, that you can do today that was in digital banking as compared to 12 years ago is impossible? Can you give us some examples?

Loong: I think it's a lot of interesting things that we are doing today that we have never imagined we could do 12 years ago. If you use, if you look at the use of artificial intelligence, how we can use AI to do risk underwriting, fraud detection – all the way to predictive, I think those technology was not as readily available in the past. And if you look at more recently, with generative AI, I think that is also an area that is helping us to look at how we serve the customers completely with a computer in a humanistic language.

Chan: Yes, Simon, in a fully digital banking world, I can just sort of imagine yourself looking at, like the tablet I'm looking into right now, it’s through screens. There isn't any handshakes or there isn't any coffee or any lunches at all. That's the traditional way to build trust and loyalty. How are you going to achieve that without all of our usual ways? How do you achieve that?

Loong: I think that's very interesting. I think how we build trust with organizations has changed and evolved over time as well, in the last couple of years. It's no longer with a human handshake or seeing them face to face. It is more by building them a good customer experience, reputable product and credibility. A few years ago, I was chatting with one of the bank's CEOs in Hong Kong. That bank is famous for having branches and serving customers very well. And he said, “Simon, you have no branches. How do you serve your customers well? If they have a question about a product, they don't know who to ask.” I said, this is exactly the difference between a digital bank and a conventional bank. For us, we want to design a product that is so friendly in user experience that they do not have to call me or ask anyone. They should be able to do everything by themselves and self-service. That is what we think is how we build good trust in the future.

Chan: Right, Simon, we all know that when sort of things are happening, with growth, they will always sort of risk coming through, like recently in Hong Kong, we have a lot of deception cases. We will talk more about that after the break, but I'm just going to start to ask you. It's estimated that individual customers in Asia has collectively lost about $700 billion in 2024 in digital scams. So, how do digital banks like yourself going to combat fraud, while keeping the user experience, seamless. We'll come back to this. After the break, and viewers do stay with us. We will be right back.

Chan: Welcome back! We have been exploring the digital banking revolution with Simon Loong, founder and CEO of WeLab, Hong Kong's homegrown fintech giant that is redefining digital banking across Asia. So, Simon, in the first half, you have explained to the viewers what digital banking is, how it has grown so exponentially in the last few years. And my last question to you before the break was how you are going to combat all these potential deception or fraud that is getting so prevalent in Hong Kong as well.

Loong: Yes, online financial crime is a very serious issue across the world, in fact. For us, we have never met any of our customers face-to-face. We have 70 million customers, we have never met them face-to-face. So, developing technology to catch financial crime is extremely important for us. I think we have always had a principle that we should catch a crime before it happens, or if that fails, we should not let the second or the third repeat itself.

Chan: Right.

Loong: And we have developed a lot of interesting technology, what we call “KYC” – know your customers. So, how do we actually know the customers even if we do not meet them face-to-face? Historically, it is relied on Hong Kong ID, looking at your face, matching it. That is one data point. How do we actually collect multiple data points digitally, so that we cross-verify individuals to catch anomalies? I can give you a very interesting example. When you open up a digital bank account, you take a selfie, right? And what we have found is a lot of these frauds happen is because there is a syndicate who recruits innocent people to take selfies and provide information, they will open up a bank account on your behalf. But those usually happened, for example, during COVID, with employment agencies. People don't have a job, right? And when they take a selfie. We discover that there is similarity in the background behind them because they all go to the office of a recruitment agency. So, we developed an AI to catch similarities, not just in the face of individuals, but the background of the selfie you have taken, to catch anomalies and concentration of these data points and IP address, and GPS location. So, there is a lot of interesting things we can do.

Chan: Right. And we often see all these deepfakes and people are saying don't believe what you see anymore. Or even, as you have just said, is the technology keeping up with all these new sort of theft initiatives?

Loong: In fact, I think the fraudsters’ adoption of AI is even faster than banks.

Chan: That is why I am asking this question.

Loong: And yes, it is true. I think the cost to produce deepfakes, and also these fake profiles and IDs have greatly accelerated, and cost has reduced. So, what we are looking at is how we actually make it even more expensive for fraudsters to use these, what we call “mule accounts”, to combat financial crime. Just last week, I was in Bangkok and we signed an MOU with the Royal Thai Police, in terms of how we actually share information to catch financial … these new accounts financial crime scams together.

Chan: Also I have been reading that in Hong Kong, they have issued a new sort of initiative called “Money Safe” function. That means if people can, once they put the money into the bank account, it has been locked and it has been very safe. And you can't really withdraw it unless you actually go to the bank yourself. With the digital bank, do you find that challenging to you because you don't have that facility to meet the customer in person and unlock their deposits? I mean, how do you respond to that?

Loong: I think what we are looking at is we need to keep the customers’ money safe irrespective of whether you see that person face-to-face or not. I think that is very important for the modern day financial services, right? And that comes with a lot of technology and data in terms of verifying customer IDs and even transaction monitoring, whether there are fraudulent transactions going in and out of the bank account. So, we see a lot of these. I think why digital banks are so important in the middle of these catching financial crime is when a financial crime happens, most of the time, actually the money gets wired to a bank account. Hence, it is so important to catch these frauds from a bank account’s perspective.

I see. And since you have been quite familiar with all these possible fraudulent activities, are our regulations keeping up to date enough?

Chan: Because Hong Kong being an international financial center, you being one of the major fintech companies, and people deposit, they have trust in Hong Kong's laws and regulations, is our government or is our authority doing a good enough job to support the expansion of the business?

Loong: I think the authorities are always doing their best, but I think as an industry, we cannot rely on regulatory change in order to combat these issues. I think the market players come together, from regulators, the police force, and the banks, and other participants and stakeholders, come together to combat these crimes in a helpful basis. That is how we see a successful ecosystem of combating these crimes across markets.

Chan: Simon, as you know that Hong Kong now we are sort of facing a lot of challenges, and technology is something that our motherland wants us to concentrate, and being an IFC (international finance center), as I have just said, is a perfect way to, sort of, expand Hong Kong's image, especially among Southeast Asia. And you have now been to Indonesia, I am sure other Asian countries in time to come. I know the Hong Kong IC, the Hong Kong Investment Corporation, has invested into WeLab, and this is… our government is sort of betting on your successes. So, how are you going to lead this sort of credit on your back? How are your plan to expand Hong Kong's financial savviness and also our trustworthiness to the rest of Asia, especially we want to maintain or even better still, even stronger financial center?

Loong: I agree. With the backdrop of the increasing global trade tension, I think we are looking at how we build closer ties with our neighbors. For example, the ASEAN countries, they have fantastic opportunity with tech-savvy young adults and a booming economy. And as a Hong Kong-based company, I feel that going in with a financial services digital bank – that is our best proposition because that is what we are well known for. And we actually feel exactly the same when we go and meet with local partners and regulators as well. As a regulated digital bank in Hong Kong, going to meet with partners, regulators, and also customers, right? People feel that we can bring in a lot of our know-how. We are very grateful for the government’s support. Recently, with the Hong Kong IC's investment, to further our Southeast Asia expansion, and adoption of AI into banking, I think these will greatly increase the speed of our adoption. Right now, we own … we are operating a bank in Hong Kong, a second in Indonesia, and also we are looking at the third license in Thailand, and we are also looking at other Southeast Asian markets like Vietnam, the Philippines. I think these have great potential for us to build the first Asia, pan-Asia digital bank out of Hong Kong.

Chan: Well, I think it is indeed very encouraging to see the government partnering with the private sector, moving into, especially into the region, and making Hong Kong even more important. You know, being somebody who is going to a new place, no matter how good you are, you have to face local challenges. What niche do we have as compared to those local digital partners, as I would call them?

Loong: I think what we are looking at is a partnership model in any market that we enter into. For example, Indonesia, we partner with one of the largest local conglomerates, Astra. In Thailand as well. In every market we are looking at the partners. What we look at is how do we bring in the best of both worlds, right? I think for us, we can bring in a very strong track record of running and building digital banks. We are one of the first digital banks to break even in Hong Kong. Indonesia, we are one of the fastest scaling digital banks in Indonesia with 2.5 million customers in just over a year’s time. When we go to the next market, we look at how we actually transfer a lot of local, historical know-how, technology, the mistakes we made, the good things we did, into different markets. And combine with the local partners, local network, access to local currency, existing customer base, I think we can find very interesting and rewarding chemistry.

Chan: Simon, I am sure the viewers from Straight Talk, we know that geopolitics is one thing that we talk about all the time and is making the world a brand new place. Do you see this geopolitics actually assisting your work or actually hindering your work? Because it is more than just business now, it is all politics. How do you see that?

Loong: I think it is very interesting. As the scale of WeLab increases over time, we also feel the impact of geopolitics affecting our business. I think what we are seeing a couple of effects, right? There is the pros and the cons. The pros, as I shared earlier, during this period, I think we are all trying to build closer ties with our neighbors, we are trying to do more business with them. But of course, the cons is with the increasing geopolitics, the tariff, what is impacting is economy, local economy over trade. And these actually impact the credit performance of the local borrowers. And hence we are always a little bit cautious when we enter into the loan business in different markets.

Chan: Right, just something out of the mind, out of the blue, I am just thinking that since you are sort of tapping, as you called, the unbanked or underbanked customers in the ASEAN countries, how can you sort of be a bridge between them and other businesses from Hong Kong? Because you already have the identities, and how are you going to bridge them together?

Loong: I think there is a lot of interesting things we can do, like, for example, remittance. We look at how we do cross-border remittance at a much lower cost. We are looking at financial inclusion, where we can help them to provide very low cost, efficient financial services. And with that, they can learn how to manage, build, and grow their wealth over time. Many young people across Asia, they are looking at how to … we need to educate them how to build their wealth. Most of them, unfortunately, during COVID time, they learn how to invest through social media and it is not exactly the best source of information. But we need to tell them how do they spend time in the market and also diversify their investment, so that they can save and grow their hard-earned salary.

Chan: Simon, you have painted a sort of bold vision for Hong Kong as an ASEAN fintech bridge. How do you see the future of money? I mean, do we still need traditional banks?

Loong: I think in the future there will be a combination of it. Traditional banks still play a very important part as a foundation, and also there are people who still need branches to be served, right? I think digital bank will play a second part of it, which is for tax-savvy young people, or for example, people who work in a gig economy, they have multiple jobs in their life. They may be a driver during the day, they may deliver food at night, and then operate an e-commerce shop, right? They have a very different financial needs versus someone who take a 9-to-5 salary. We have built financial products like that to cater for their needs in Indonesia that works very, very well.

Chan: Right. Simon, you know Hong Kong fintech world is getting more and more competitive. If I am going to ask you to give a word of advice to our potential upcomers in fintech, what would you tell them?

Loong: I would tell them to try new things. I mean, I think one of the best advice I have received when I started the business is to get out of my comfort zone. I have always remembered the words “get as uncomfortable as you are comfortable with”. Through doing new things, going to new markets, we have seen how we can expand into new heights and new markets.

Chan: Right. Thank you, Simon, for helping us to understand more about the digital banking world. It is not just changing finance, it is also reshaping Hong Kong's role in Asia's economic future. As an international financial center, our city is ideally placed and ready to partner with ASEAN nations in shaping their digital banking and fintech future.

Until next time, I am Eugene Chan and thank you for watching Straight Talk.