Startup Beat

Written by Pat Rabbitte

With millions of people around the world remaining unbanked, are any inroads being made to bring about financial inclusion? After last week’s Pioneers conference, 150sec spoke with Geoff Prentice of fintech startup, Oriente to consider the possibilities.  

According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion people remained unbanked in 2017.  By unbanked, we mean people who remain without an account at a financial institution such as a bank or through a mobile money provider.  South East Asia has a population in excess of 650 million people. And yet, a startling 70% of its inhabitants remain unbanked.

Oriente was established in 2017 with some serious pedigree behind it.  Prentice himself was a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at telecoms application specialist, Skype.  Alongside Prentice was Hubert Ti – formerly Chief Technology Officer at Chinese peer to peer lending platform, Lufax.  Longstanding investor Lawrence Chu was also one of the founding trio.

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