EP 354 – Can Technology Improve Your Money Management Skills? – Monica Millares – BigPay

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

Michael Waitze 0:09
Okay, let’s have some fun. Monica, thank you so much for coming and doing this. I really appreciate your time today. Let’s just jump right into this thing. I want to ask you a big question, big question, can technology really help somebody manage their money better?

Monica Millares 0:28
No,

Michael Waitze 0:31
Good answer. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve been working on this for so long. I remember like, this must be 20 something years ago, maybe 25 years ago, and Quicken came out, and I am terrible at money management, right? Terrible. And Quicken came out, and I’m like, Oh, this is great. I can just input everything I buy into Quicken, then I can know, like, how much money I have, how much money I spend, and I can just be way better at managing my money. And then all the time I would just be like, Oh, what about that other receipt, though, that doesn’t fit into any other category. I’ll figure that out later. Kind of thing. Do you know what I mean? I do you know what I mean? So anyway, tell me, what do you think about this?

Monica Millares 1:05
Yes. Well, first, thank you for having me in the show. My pleasure. I’m really looking forward to this chat. Let me expand on why I said no, of course, I work in FinTech. And the obvious answer that you would expect would be like, obviously, yes, I work in a big FinTech, but no. Technology will not help us with money management. What will help us is the use cases. What will help us is the minds and the hearts of the people building that technology. So technology on its own doesn’t mean anything. We have tons of APIs like, I dislike when people get on a call and it’s like, Oh, tell me what the API does. I’m like, No, API is tech right? Tell me what the customer and not even the customer, what this person needs, and then we’ll see how we use tech.

Michael Waitze 1:55
Okay, so you’re a product person. Do I have this? Right? Yes. So can you just walk this backwards with me, seriously, when you’re sitting down and trying to think about, like, how you do product design, right? How? Because you said something really important, right? And I think even Steve Jobs said this, like, you’re not designing the technology for somebody. You’re talking to somebody and then designing a product that’s going to help them. No, like, tell me, how does this work? Because I don’t know. I’m terrible at that?

Monica Millares 2:21
Yes. So basically, products in any context are here to solve a problem. So it’s always within a certain context, and then for people to use your product, you need to solve the problem in a better way than they are solving the problem now. So for example, coming back to money, I may use a notebook or spreadsheets or my mind, yeah, the app needs to be superior for me to change my behavior, because we all know change is hard, yeah,

Michael Waitze 3:00
but then how do you know if the app is better? This is what I this is what I’m talking about, like, when you’re going through and designing the product, how do you know it’s better? And here’s the thing that I’ve learned over time, is that, like, everybody’s brain works really differently, right? Like you and I could literally have the same job, be in the same situation, make the same amount of money, and our approach to that money could be just like completely upside down from each other, right? So how do we make sure that we’re covering enough people that it actually works for them? Do you know what I mean?

Monica Millares 3:32
Yes, that’s a beautiful question. I think. Well, I always say you may design the perfect product, whichever, whichever it may be, but users will do whatever they want. We’ll use it. They’ll use it in the most unexpected way, right? And that’s because every human, it’s a world on its own. You got that, right? So we as product people, basically, we need to be very clear who is our customer, right? And basically, like, really understand the customer. Don’t start with a product. Don’t start with a solution. It’s like, if I’m going to help small businesses, but currently they are super underserved, so it’s like, I go and I understand businesses. I understand business owners, and all the plethora of business owners, which is, like, huge and then I say, this is the problems. This is the type of business owner that I’m going to help, and this is, these are the problems that they have, and this is the problem that I’m going to solve. Then all the product design comes in. Tell about like the customer first,

Michael Waitze 4:44
yeah, when you look at the region in which we live, right? Because not only are all these businesses different, but let’s be fair, you’re in Malaysia, right? Yes, I’m in Thailand. Vietnam is right around the corner. Cambodia is over there. Are, the Philippines is a little bit further away, but still part of Southeast Asia. I just feel like these countries are just so different, right again, if we were, if I had the same age, same job, same whatever, but I was from the Philippines, my view on money would be completely differently, like one of the problems that I would need to solve, I’m guessing, would be sending money to my mom, like in the countryside, and I spent a ton of time thinking about this, right? Look, just, just gets back to the tech part of this. What do you do? And it’s not a question for you, it’s just a question for fintechs in general. But, like, what do you do when the last mile doesn’t have the tech Do you know what I mean?

Monica Millares 5:43
Beautiful,

Michael Waitze 5:44
yeah, go ahead sorry, because I’m super curious about this.

Monica Millares 5:47
Yes, and that’s, that’s a reality, right? Yeah, that’s what, that’s what we mean with financial inclusion. And I think the key word here, paraphrasing you, is accessibility, yeah. So we need to do two things, ensure that everyone gets access to the product. EG, they have a phone with the internet in this case, yeah, but also the how we design the products is accessible to them, meaning it’s not intimidating, it’s not scary, it’s easy to use. It’s intuitive enough that for us, as people from tech living in big cities, used to phones, it is. But when you sit with them that I’ve had in the past, and they look for me the screen, it’s like basic and you just tap the button right, they look at it, and they are confused. So language, it’s language is so important. So, yeah, it’s about accessibility. But in this case, tech can help. And I think e wallets, especially in the case of Philippines, like G cash, yeah, like, almost everyone uses cash.

Michael Waitze 7:02
Yeah, it’s weird. Almost 100 million people, right? What? Some like 80 million people have a G cash account. Yeah, it’s kind of wild. Yeah, it’s very impressive. Actually, it is impressive. Yeah, and the company had that company’s a ton of resources, but it’s still super impressive. Can I? Can I ask you this, though, we tend to throw around a lot of terminology, like, what does that mean financial inclusion, when it really comes down to it, like, what does it mean to you, more than anything?

Monica Millares 7:30
Yeah, I think it’s two terms, financial well being and financial inclusion, and they are different things, but I’ll answer your question. Yeah, go ahead. So financial inclusion means having exactly, having access to the having access to financial services that are easy to use, but that is not just as simple as I can open an account, right? It’s like, you can see, using the example of the Philippines, there’s like, real examples of people close to me, right? Like, let’s say domestic helpers. Yeah. They are from the Philippines, living in Malaysia, legally. They have a visa, they have a bank account, okay? But they don’t use online banking. Their phone doesn’t support the apps. They don’t know how to log in. Why? Why? Why? They don’t know how to go to internet, but going to cime and login right? Because they they are they just need cash. They go to the ATM, I pay her. I do a bank transfer, right? It goes. In my mind, she has a bank, but it’s she gets paid, and then she goes to the ATM, takes the money out, and then she manages her life with cash.

Michael Waitze 8:59
Wow, but she can’t be that old. Is she?

Monica Millares 9:03
No, maybe late 40s, early 50s,

Michael Waitze 9:07
okay, but that’s still in the context of advanced or emerging technologies. It’s not young, per se, right? So it’s kind of a different it’s kind of a different cohort, right? Like, if she were 25 I would be shocked that she didn’t know how to do this, right? So here’s the other thing, let’s just let people know. Where are you from?

Monica Millares 9:24
I’m from Mexico.

Michael Waitze 9:25
So how old were you when you had your first bank account? Do you remember?

Monica Millares 9:29
I was a kid, but my mom was a responsible parent.

Michael Waitze 9:31
So I remember when I had my first bank account, too, and I was like, five or six years old, and I remember going with my mom, most likely to the bank, and opening up the account, somebody probably had given me, like, $3 or something, or five bucks, and my mother was like, You should put this money in the bank. But, I mean, I’ve had a bank account my entire life. So here’s my other big question for you, does anybody really need a bank account today? Okay, in the same way, do you know? But again, think about it, because you know what I mean, right? Like, I had a bank account. I’ve I had that bank account until I was in my 20s, I think, and then I took all the money out of there and moved it to a bigger bank in New York, because that’s where I was living. In osisi, there was in a very small bank in um, in Massachusetts. But even today, with my own sort of day to day activity, the money that I get paid for work goes into, like, kind of an account in the United States, when I need cash from there, I just have the guy that manages that, like, send it to my account here. But like, what is the difference? And this is a valid question for me, like, what’s the difference between, like, a bank account and an E wallet.

Monica Millares 10:42
Oh, tha’s a good question if you look at it from the eyes of the consumer ,there’s really no difference, right? Like, it’s just a place where I put my money. Do I put to? Do I choose to put it under a traditional bank with a like, I know the listeners come from banks. Offend them. No, I don’t offend anybody.

Michael Waitze 11:08
It’s a real, legitimate question for me, because I think about this a lot. People are like, I just have an E wallet. I’m like, okay, but where is that walleting going? Doesn’t it need to end up at a bank account somehow?

Monica Millares 11:21
Well, no, I guess, like, it’s the construct. I think it’s also a generational thing, right? It’s the construct of, we used to think of a bank as a physical institution, yeah, with safety and you go to the bank 15 years ago, we as an industry, we’re like, fintechs. We’re like, that’s a pain. It’s a pain to take time off to go to the bank and then queue and these, and you have online banking, but you still can do that. And then we’re like, Well, how about you just have, like, a bank on your phone, and that’s just like any wallet, right? Or a NEO bank, as we call them, right? But the construct is the same. You have like, a space where you hold money, but it’s so much simpler. I think that’s the association. Like many people associate bank with, like, I need to go to the bank wallet. It’s just like easy.

Michael Waitze 12:10
I have a Bangkok bank account. I never go to the bank. I never, I rarely, if ever, even carry cash with me anymore. I just scan QR codes to pay for things. And I’ll never forget this epiphany, because I was having lunch with somebody a few years ago, and he was like, how do you want to split lunch? And I’m like, why don’t you? Why don’t I get this one? You just get the next one. And he was like, now, let’s just split it. Like, okay, but I don’t have any cash on me. He said, no problem. You can just scan my QR code.

Monica Millares 12:39
I guess QR me. I was like,

Michael Waitze 12:41
Oh my god. It wasn’t even like Venmo, which I’ve never used, because I’m not the United States, but he said you could just QR code me. And I was like, my brain almost blew up because I didn’t know that was a thing. Sorry. Go ahead.

Monica Millares 12:52
Yeah, question for you, because sometimes I exactly I meet friends, yep, a little bit older than me, not too much, but older than me. And exactly that same scenario comes in, and I’m like, Oh, don’t worry. Just like QR me or, and that’s the word, like, you are me, yeah, or I’ll QR you, yeah. And then they look at me like, and I’m like, what you don’t know, right? I’m like, the pink QR, and they go like, No. And I’m like, try and they open their app, yeah. And let’s say this is like a big Malaysian bank, right? And they open the app, they cannot find the QR. And I’m like, Oh my God, how could you not know? But this simplify.

Michael Waitze 13:34
The reason why I brought this up, right? Is because I have, like, one of the biggest tech podcasts in the world, around tech. I read about tech every single day, like, if I my point wasn’t, like, I’m too old to know my point was, if I don’t know, I just want to come back to this financial inclusion thing, right? Because I think there’s another thing we need to talk about, and that’s this idea, that’s this idea of financial literacy. Because even if you’re included, even if you have access, if you don’t know what to do, it doesn’t matter. Does it? Does it?

Monica Millares 14:08
Can I ask you the question back. It’s like, do you feel as a mature man, business owner, you know, like a banker? Are you on top of your finances? Like, truthfully, no way. Me neither. Not even close. Like, and I feel so underserved, yeah. And I work in the industry, yeah.

Michael Waitze 14:31
And I wonder, like, what do I need to build, or what needs to get built specifically for someone like I am, so that I can be. It’s not that I don’t want to be like I have in my head. I have a bank account in Japan, I’ve got a bank account in Thailand, and I’ve got a bank account in the States, and I know approximately, like, how much money’s there. But more importantly, because I think this is actually more important than how much money you have, is what are you spending it on? You. I have no idea. Like, in my head again, I think, like, last month, I spent this amount of money on going out to dinner, this amount of money on food that I bought, and I don’t really take taxis everywhere. So, like, I don’t spend any money on that. And the BTS here is really inexpensive, so those aren’t big expenses for me. And every now and then I’ll buy something big, right? Like, it’s very simple, but I still don’t know where the money goes. And I’d like to know, did you budget? So this is another great question. This is gonna sound terrible, but from when I took my first job, I’ll tell you this, I grew up really poor. We don’t talk about this a lot, and nobody ever believes me when I say that, but pretty poor, like I was wearing my sis. I had an older sister, and I would wear her clothes when she was done with them, yeah, which was strange, but that’s just a fact. But once and my parents were horrible managing money, horrible, like, besides the fact that my mom opened a bank account for me, like all I ever heard was, like yelling and screaming about balancing the checkbook. But more importantly, as soon as I graduated from college, and this is really sound bad, but like, I worked my ass off in college, right? And I just started making so much money. And here’s the tricky part, I was expatriated by Morgan Stanley when I was 24 years old, yeah, so I’ve had a non normal life, so that meant, from when I turned, let’s just say 25 Yeah, my rent was paid for, all my expenses was paid for, my travel was paid for. And when I needed to set up a bank account, the HR department from Morgan Stanley would take me downstairs and set up the bank account. I didn’t know how to set up a phone line, because they did that for me. And all of my expenses got paid in a way that never came through me. So I had no expenses and just and was getting paid like too much money, so it didn’t matter. So budgeting, that all changed later in life, but way later in life, right? So budgeting never seemed like it was a thing that mattered to me. Does? Does that make sense? So I’d never really thought about it, because I didn’t have to care if I had if I wanted to do something, I did it. If I wanted to buy something, I bought it. And never changed at all.

Monica Millares 17:15
That is cool,

Michael Waitze 17:18
no, but, but budgeting is really important. But here’s, here’s the other thing too, that, like nobody talks about, life is not a straight line, yeah, it’s just not so you you’re presuming just by the look on your face like, Oh, you must be so rich. But life’s not a straight line. Let’s just say that. And if you’ve ever been broke, it should make you feel like I need to now budget. But remember, if you go broke in your 50s, but you’ve never had the budget before, then what do you do? It’s more difficult, yeah. Anyway, yes,

Monica Millares 17:53
and that, I think it’s like coming back to what you said about like, when did we open a bank account? Yep, even though, let’s say you and I opened a bank account where we were kids, I wish I really learned about money when I was a kid, same and I learned about, like, not only saving, because my mom used to say, like, you have to save, but savings just like, Go,

Michael Waitze 18:18
right, yeah. Like, what does that mean? It’s like, I wish

Monica Millares 18:21
I learned how to properly invest and how to create money when I was 18. Yeah, exactly

Michael Waitze 18:26
13, whatever it is, right? Because Compounding matters. So this gets back to this thing of like, if we include people in the financial system, right, and whether they have a proper bank account or an online bank account or a NEO bank account, right, if there’s no financial literacy and you don’t understand the basics of budgeting, particularly in the markets where we are living, how do you fix that budgeting problem? Do you know what I mean? Like, how do you teach an entire cohort of people? You can actually if it’s even if it’s just $1 budgeting matters. How do you teach that?

Monica Millares 19:03
Yes, it’s difficult. It’s really, really difficult, actually, because we need to change behavior, and people are not interested because you don’t know what you don’t know, right? Yeah, so it’s like, if, if I’ve lived with money struggles throughout my life, right? I’m not aware of this thing called investments. I’m not aware of this thing called insurance, and that the loan, the loan shark, it’s like taking advantage of me like I don’t know that. So that’s one I don’t know what I don’t know. But I think for this cohort, let’s say the E wallets have been amazing because they are easy to use. So now it’s like, oh, I can transfer money just with a tap of a finger. I’m like, Yes, you can, and you save fees, yeah. And it’s like, oh, cool. I’m saving on the grab to going to the place that I need to the FX. Changer, and I’m getting like a cheaper fee, and now I can plan for it from the convenience of my home. So I think the way in which we teach is by making it simple, super, super, super simple and contextual, such that I was very, like, little story, like, I was very, very, very lucky. I joined tandem bank, one of the Challenger banks in the UK, when it was, like, the very, very beginning, so I had exposure to the chairman, right? Wow, Matt, yeah. Like, Matt Cooper, like, big, big guy. And I was like, there’s one thing that I learned from him that he was like, oh, like, what we’re doing? It’s like, we’re building a house, but we’re not inviting people through the door, we’re inviting people through the window, and then we show them the house. And I was like, Oh, my God, that is brilliant. So basically, what does that mean? That means exactly in the terms of financial services. We want to sell you because we want to sell you right? We want to sell you all these products and services, but we we don’t sell you anything. We show you a very specific use case. In this case, let’s say the Filipino worker living abroad. In this case, she doesn’t care about investments nor insurance, nor e wallets, nor payments. She gets curious about, I need to send money home to my kids mother and my kids, yep. And then you bring, that’s the window, got it? Okay? Bring her through that specific use case, and then you show her the rest of the ecosystm on. Unlike you say, Oh, I’m going to show you how to fix your financial life. You should learn all these things about money, yeah, because then

Michael Waitze 21:55
it just sounds like Charlie Brown’s parents talking, or Charlie Brown’s teachers talking. You’ve just made me think about this in a completely different way. I wish I’d met Matt, like, 15 years ago, because that’s the way I learn I’m dead serious about it. I’ll give you a perfect example. I’m looking at you right now through a teleprompter. Okay, and I didn’t know how to use any of it, but today I actually had to do an ad read for something. I’m like, I’ve been using this thing like this for a while, but now that I’m using it, I feel a lot more comfortable with it. Now I know that I’m not going to break it or the software is not going to die. Let me try this other thing that I know it does, and now I know that, and now that I know that inside my brain, 1000 other opportunities are unlocked, and if that’s the way financial literacy works. I get it, yeah, I get it completely the window. Yeah, get them in the windows. Okay, can I ask you this we’re operating if you want to get people in the window, right? What is the impact of that? Do you know what I mean? So now they’re in the house. What’s the impact? And why do you care?

Monica Millares 23:07
That’s two big questions. Yeah, very big question. That’s my job. What is the impact? Yeah, now I feel like, that’s how it’s like, that’s how people feel when I ask difficult questions and they go like, Oh, my God. Okay. So basically, what’s the impact of bringing people in the in the further window, let’s say, basically giving them access to any financial product that solves a need? I think that is the impact. It’s not just like a product. It has to be a financial product that solves a problem in the real life. So basically, what happens it’s like, oh, especially this cohort. It’s like, oh, now I know how to send money in an easy way, right? A I learned with you. I jumped through all the hoops to learn with you, right? Um, it’s very difficult for me to move to someone else, right? That’s one. But then once, once I know once it’s kind of like the the this concept of the terror barrier, like the fear so once I cross the fear of, uh, I don’t know what to do with my bank, I don’t know what to do with the app. And I look at you like, Am I doing the right thing, right? Once you go through that fear, you’re like, Oh, I know. Like, I learned. They learned very fast. Everyone true me, like everyone, we learn very fast. And apps are designed for you to use them in a simple manner. So you’re like, Oh, I learned how to send the money. Oh, now I know how to QR, oh, now I know how to top up. Oh, I’m like, oh, and see now you can put your money into, like, now your budget in envelopes, like real envelopes. Oh, you can put them in a e envelope. And you can start building all these habits, because you you are showing the ECOSYS. System of products that you may have. So the impact is the ripple effects. We as an industry should measure that impact in a better way. So

Michael Waitze 25:09
that’s, that’s the that’s another thing that I want to ask you. I actually wrote down the word data. So big pay this company you have, you must have tons of data, tons and you must have a lot of very segmented data, right? And in the sense that you know what like 40 year olds in the Philippines are doing, you know what 35 year olds in Vietnam are doing, almost by definition, right? Even if the data is anonymized, do you have some sense of what the products are that really get people in the window, right? Is it like, this common problem? Is it remittance? Is it? But like, what is the thing where people just go, this has been a big problem in my life for so long, and now that you’ve solved it for me, now I get it at least a little bit. Do you have any data on that, or any insights on that?

Monica Millares 25:52
Effects, effects, we offer the best effects? Yeah. So the use case like bigpay, started about seven years ago, okay? And at some point our product market fit was the best travel card in Malaysia. What does that mean? Travel Card because, yeah, because, like, when you travel abroad, all the banks used to charge, like, markups and effects,

Michael Waitze 26:16
unbelievable. But I mean unbelievable markups, yeah, 3% Yeah, exactly, yeah. We

Monica Millares 26:20
live with markups of 3% Yeah. And then people were like, Oh, if I pay with bigpay, I get the real Google rate, right? The real Google rate, exactly, the real Google rate. And then it’s like, oh. And because of that, people started using bigpay. So that’s like, a beautiful example, right? That it’s like, yeah, the FX rate when you travel, it’s the best, the best card can I say.

Michael Waitze 26:45
You don’t have to say this, and you don’t even have to agree with me, but the big bank should be ashamed of themselves for the fees that they charge people for simple transactions that don’t cost them any money. I used to sit on a portfolio trading desk, and when we first started trading portfolios, you could charge one of your clients 3% for a transaction because they didn’t know, like, what it took to do it. And at the end of the day, after just a few years, those prices went down to either zero or basis points. And don’t be fooled by the fact that, like, big banks probably make money off of all of the consolidated effects that they do on any day. Again, you don’t have to agree with me on this, but I sat on a foreign exchange like I’ve done. I once did a $700 million FX trade, okay, so I know how the foreign exchange markets work.

Monica Millares 27:33
Sorry, go ahead, yeah. And I think that is one of the use cases that I haven’t worked in, like, as an FX Trader. But if you look at one of the biggest, biggest fintechs, it’s wise, yeah, yeah. And that’s how it started, right? And I love them, because they were, like, genuinely challenging the banks and saying, Hey, we offer transparency. We don’t do markups. It’s like, we’re very transparent. When I figured

Michael Waitze 28:00
out how wise worked again, it just blew me away. I’m like, this is a killer idea, and this is a place where, like technology had to exist to be able to make this possible, right? Because in the old days, a big bank was the only one. Through Swift or whatever the big money movement platforms there are in the world, only the big banks had access to that. But I think, and again, tell me if I have this wrong, because I’ve never spoken to anybody, it was I’d love to, but I haven’t. But all it all, and I’m simplifying this to make a point, but it seems to me that, like, all they did was open up, like, bank accounts in every country,

Monica Millares 28:34
they have a system. Yeah, they have a super good system,

Michael Waitze 28:37
right? It seems to me like they’ve done this. And again, it explains it to me afterwards, right? Because I don’t know, but it’s like, let’s say, let’s say you had a bank. You had five bank accounts, right? One in London, one in Germany, one in Paris, one in Tokyo and one in New York. Well, that meant that you’re holding euros in three of those accounts. I mean pounds in one of them, yen in one of them, and dollars in one of them. And you need all those currencies, all the major currencies of the world, right? I left the one out because China’s its own market. But it also means that if you keep money in all those accounts, you never, ever have to do an FX trade, right? So if you never have to do an FX trade, and that’s what they do, they get people to give them money in all of these countries. And when I say, Oh, can I move money from my dollar account to my yen account. They never moved the money, the dollars to yen. They just moved the yen from one account to my yen account. So their costs are zero.

Monica Millares 29:28
And you know, what’s the as a customer, of course, well, I’m an international customer, so I do use wise, right? Yep, I love them. You know, like talking about, like, how to retain your customer. It’s like, I love them, not because of the user experience, and it’s easy, this, whatever, but once, I send money once a month, like it’s a recurring habit, and I haven’t, I haven’t changed it, and then once in a while, I get an email. We are giving you back money. We’re refunding you some fees. And I’m like, oh. I got, if it’s like, $3 like, whatever I’m like, it doesn’t matter. So cool. It’s like, they give me money back because they they found a way to I still haven’t cracked the code. Is it? Because I’m a loyal customer, and then, basically, they profile me this the other but they give me money back on a frequent basis. So

Michael Waitze 30:19
I’ll tell you what they and I like that, I’ll tell you what I think they do. They probably have a they probably do some FX trading on their own, right, because they see massive money movements, so they get a sense of where things are going. So when they give you a rate, what they do is they go back and see, did we do any foreign exchange trades where we made money that was different from the rate that we gave Monica? Presume you, you’re moving money from here to Mexico. I’m just guessing, right? Yeah, right. And if they, if they made money off of that spread, they’re like, let’s give Monica a little bit of money back, because it’ll just make her happy.

Monica Millares 30:51
That’s what I was going to say, and it keeps me happy. And that’s it. But

Michael Waitze 30:55
can I, can I ask you this, how, because we were talking about impact before, right? How do we have even more impact?

Monica Millares 31:06
We need a radical change of mindset. I think we are too much in the trenches and the day to day. We have a ton of pressure as fintechs or banks and digital transformation, there is just like a ton of pressure to deliver, yep, so we forget to ask a very simple question, which is to me, it’s like, how can we have 10 times more impact now in a very short term, rather than Yeah, 10 times in 10 years time, I’m like, who cares? In 10 years,

Michael Waitze 31:40
we’ll all be dead. Like,

Monica Millares 31:42
I don’t know if I’ll be alive, but it’s like, how can we have like, 10 times more impact? And I asked this question to the team, like, all the time, and they look at me, I, let’s say we said, okay, sorry, whatever goal. And I’m like, 10 times, like, do something ridiculous, and they look at me, like, but that’s impossible. I’m like, that’s exactly what we want, right? Because if we think linear, if we think just like in the trenches, we’ll continue to create what we’re used to. But the moment that I say, Hey, how can you 10 times these you go, like, oh, that’s hard. I’m like, I know. Like, how does that look like? I don’t know. Well, what if you knew? Can you give it a guess? Yeah, and then people start thinking in a different way. So I do think for us to have that impact right now is the time to do it just because of the here’s the tech part, like the intersection with AI, maybe a year, year and a half ago, it was still like a dream. Oh no, but you cannot now we can. AI is insanely powerful. It’s insanely powerful, and it’s becoming more powerful by the day. So it’s ubiquitous. Start coming up with the use cases. Yeah.

Michael Waitze 33:04
So I used to say to people, you know, so many people like, want to get a lot of money, and you’ll see where this fits into this context again, and quit their job and then do this thing that they love, right? And I’m like, Okay, well, if you had unlimited resources, what would that thing be? Why don’t you do it today? It’s the same it’s just the same question in different contexts. So let me ask you this. When you push people to do 10 times, right, and they finally get their head around the fact that it’s not impossible, right? What is the process that they go through then to come to you and say, I’ve had this idea. Do you know what I mean?

Monica Millares 33:42
No, can you paraphrase the question so you’re

Michael Waitze 33:44
encouraging people to do bigger things? Yeah, and it’s, it’s not even scary at first. It’s almost inconceivable, right? It’s hard to conceptualize, like, what that would mean. But once you, like, encourage them enough, like, what are they coming up with to have that impact today? Yeah,

Monica Millares 34:01
I Well, I think it’s when you come up with the idea, yeah, you’ll be like, Oh, but this is not possible, right? Maybe I have this saying, well, not saying. I have this mindset that it’s like, everything is figurative, yeah? And I got that from my time of working in tandem, because we were building a bank from scratch when no one had done this before, right? So we had that mindset of, it’s hard, it’s almost Mission Impossible, but we’re going to do it. There is not a playbook. We’re going to figure this out, and it’s okay if we make mistakes, because no one has done it. Yeah, so we’ll just figure it out. Can I ask you this? Like,

Michael Waitze 34:41
what other stuff did you learn when you were doing were doing this? Particularly, like you seem to be, you seem to have kind of jumped into the beginning of this FinTech revolution, yes, and let’s be fair, there weren’t a lot of ladies doing this when you were doing it, right? No, not really. So one like, how did you get in? And then. And from your perspective, like, what did you learn? Are there any, like, really big lessons from this? Yeah,

Monica Millares 35:06
I think, well, I got in. I always say, because, one, I was lucky. Two, I got the courage to say yes. Three, I was prepared. What was the courage to say yes about so I used to work in Barclays, right? Okay, Big Bang, yep, yep. And then I met these guys, Ricky Knox and Nick like, the founders of tandem, yep. They were a startup when Fintech is non existent, right? So I remember when I left Barclays, they were like, so where are you going

Michael Waitze 35:40
to say, like, Morgan Stanley or something,

Monica Millares 35:45
yeah. And this is, like, many, many years ago. So this is like, super young Monica, and I say, like, Oh, I’m going to a new bank. Look at me, like, you’re going to a new bank. Oh, they were like, what’s the name? I’m like, Oh, it doesn’t have a name. They were like, banking license. Oh, no, not yet. They haven’t submitted it yet. And they were like, Are you sure this is not a scam, right?

Michael Waitze 36:08
Exactly.

Monica Millares 36:08
I was like,

Michael Waitze 36:09
Well, Mom and Dad, no.

Monica Millares 36:13
I said, well, they look like, you know, like the real deal. Like, yeah. He’s like, they are experienced people in the in the banking and entrepreneurial world. So I’m like, I’ll just take a risk. Yeah, that’s what I mean, with the courage and people were like, Well, you’re a bit crazy to just go and

Michael Waitze 36:32
yeah, maybe you are,

Monica Millares 36:35
because I did the same when I moved to Malaysia, right? So, yeah,

Michael Waitze 36:38
yeah. But I mean, once here’s the thing, I want to find out what the because there was one more thing that you said you were prepared. I want to get to the prepared thing in a second. So don’t let me forget. And then I want, then I’ll, then I’ll let you go. I went on vacation to Hawaii when I was 23 years old, and I went with a bunch of wise guys, a bunch of, well, actually, I want my girlfriend, but we’ve stayed with a bunch of guys, and those guys ended up being jerks, but one of the things that they did was they were like, Let’s go jump off a cliff. A cliff into the into the ocean. And I’m like, I don’t think I want to do that. And it was high, like, I don’t know. I think people underestimate, like, how high 10 meters is? I don’t know how high this cliff was. It wasn’t like 100 meters, but it wasn’t like three meters. It was high. Yeah, it’s high. And I remember just standing there going, you know what you’re here. You know how to swim, you know how to breathe. Just jump. You’re not gonna die. But once you do that, once, and I would submit, like, once you’re in the air, you’re like, it’s not bad. They all the next thing you do is you get right back up there. Like, that was so awesome. I have to jump again. So the idea that, like, you didn’t die when you moved to a bank with no name, no license, and it wasn’t a scam. When the next opportunity came up, you’re just like, sure, like, the move to Malaysia, to me, is not shocking at any level at all, because you’ve already jumped off the cliff. Yeah, yes,

Monica Millares 37:57
this was a bigger cliff

Michael Waitze 38:00
that I don’t know why was the cliff bigger?

Monica Millares 38:02
Because, like, context wise, like, I’m from Mexico, right? So I’ve moved to the UK to study my masters, and then I’ve been living in the UK for almost nine years. I’m kind of like, ready to get my citizenship. Therefore that means I can get a mortgage. And I’m like, in my mind, I’m ready to settle in the UK. Tandem went for a fundraising crisis. So that’s also context, right? Because then we were like, in a, in a, in a unstable, basically, territory, fun, fun. I just got a phone call and it’s like, hey, this job in Malaysia. And I’m like, No, thank you. And a month later, they called me again, and it’s like, no, but they really want to meet you, like, the founders are in the UK. Like, nothing to lose. I was like, and I met the founders, and I was like, Oh, these are kids. Like, these are my these guys are my age, right? Like, since the others were, like, 10 years older than me, they know what they’re doing. So basically, I moved to the other side of the world, to a country that I’ve never been to, culture shock. It’s quite big. It’s like Malaysia and the UK and Mexico are quite different. Yeah, very different. Living on my own, like, to build a startup, like, from scratch, again, without I didn’t know anyone, like, no one, right? It was insane. But, uh, again, exactly. And then the one of two things made me well. Three things take me, made me make the jump. One, I was like, given that tandem was going through fundraising crisis, I was interviewing, right? Because we were all put at risk. So I was interviewing, and I was struggling. I was struggling to find what is the next thing that you do after you help build a bank from scratch? And then when this opportunity came up, I was like, Oh, my God, it’s perfect. Like, you just move to Asia and you do it all the way again. But instead of being part of the team, you’re part of the leadership team. Yeah, that’s amazing. So that was number one. Number two that I tell many, many ladies who I mentor, I always say I had so many doubts I didn’t want to move. I cried at some before making the decision. But one day, I was in the office, and there were, like, these two guys, of course, British consultants. And I looked at them and I was like, what would he say? It’s like, of course, dude, I’ll just go to Bali every weekend. And what did the other say? I’m like, yeah, just go for it. Kind of like I put myself in the shoes of a guy, yeah. And what would they say, which

Michael Waitze 40:39
would have been like, can I tell you one more story? And then I want to get to the prepared part. But when my boss came to me, when I was at Goldman Sachs, he literally came to me on a Monday afternoon, and he was like, we may need you to go to Hong Kong for a short period of time. I was living in Tokyo, and I just turned around and I looked him and I was like, I’m already packed. That’s what I said to him. That was my response to that question. It’s not the same level of risk. But the funny part was, he came to my desk on Thursday and said, You’re leaving tomorrow.

Monica Millares 41:11
Oh, wow,

Michael Waitze 41:12
but I get it, I get it, I get it. But can I see But you just said something really weird, actually. You said I tried to do what a guy would do,

Monica Millares 41:21
yes,

Michael Waitze 41:23
that’s fascinating to me. Yes, do you think men and women really look at this really differently? Yes, okay, yeah,

Monica Millares 41:33
I genuinely do. I think this is like my personal bias opinion coming from a Mexican society. Go ahead and living in Asia for many years, and that’s also why I do the work that I do outside of work, which is, I think as of today, yeah, many women 2728 they come to me and I’m like, Oh my God, but I’m still not married, yeah. And they are just 27 and and I went through that as well. I went through that crisis. I think guys don’t have that in their mind at 27 or 28 at 30 at 35 Nobody.

Michael Waitze 42:10
Nobody says a word to you,

Monica Millares 42:12
no. And therefore the mindset is different, sure, and that’s why we need to to exactly take the risk, like, champion them, like, put the opportunity in front of her fair enough so that this changes. So I do think men and women measure risk in a different manner. Yeah, that’s

Michael Waitze 42:32
for sure. Okay, got it. So one more thing, and I let you go. You said there were three things. The last one was I was lucky, or fortunate, I’ll say I had the courage to do it, and I was prepared. What’s the prepared part?

Monica Millares 42:52
I’ve always been a bit of a nerd, a bit I am a nerd. No, I’m not a nerd. I’m a nerd and a high achiever, right? I’m both. I’m both. So since I’m six, six years old, I could always get the diploma throughout all the way till you need all the way to my masters. I start in the corporate world, and you have all these awards same end of the year I get the awards, right? Yeah, not so I think it’s, I think it’s the I always felt, and this is probably my upbringing from my mother and whatever, I always felt that I had to deliver in school. So that didn’t change when I started working. I always had to deliver and be the best, because that’s when my mother expected, right? So that that trained behavior is very ingrained in me. So basically, when you tell me, Hey, we need to go and build a bank, well, when they hired me, right? We were going to build a credit card that was our first product. Attend them, yeah, the credit card and I built credit cards from scratch with my counterpart in OPS, David, both of us, we were kids, we were very young, right? And we built everything from scratch. But it was like I had worked in Barclays, Barclaycard, to be more specific, right? Where I knew how cards worked. I had worked in multiple departments, so I knew the end to end. And let’s say when, when I met one of the founders, Nick, I was like, So what’s my role? And he was like, Oh, you’re the expert in credit cards. And I laughed, because I was like, I come from a company that it’s like 1000s of people, and no one is an expert in credit card Well, here you are, oh, it’s like, Oh, my God. Now, what do I do? So, yeah, exactly. But then it’s the Yeah, you’re prepared. Like, always be prepared.

Michael Waitze 44:54
I agree. I um, I’ll leave you with this, and then I’ll let you go. I remember reading something. It in the Wall Street Journal that I literally cut out of an article and put on my monitor for every job that I had after that. I read this like in the mid 90s, I think, or early 90s, and it said, the guy who’s most prepared always wins, yes, and that’s kind of the way I look at it. I was never afraid of anybody being smarter than I was, or bigger than I was, or stronger than I was, or faster than I was, I was just afraid of them being more prepared. It’s the only differentiator anyway. Monica, it was great to have you here. How do i pronounce your last name again properly? Miares, milares, miares, Monica. Miares, sorry. Principal product risk of working at big pay. I knew it was going to be awesome. It was thank you so much amazing.

Monica Millares 45:43
Thank you, Mike.