YouSaid · the spoken record

Shivani Siroya

lines on the record: 45
first: 2022-11-17
most recent: 2022-11-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Is I mean, if you think about the numbers, we've now served over 7 million with access to credit. So it's about three and a half billion dollars in total at this point that we've dispersed. That's just a drop in the bucket.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is really around again designing that journey and that ecosystem to really cater to each individual in this segment of the population.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have seen traditional banks trying to come downstream, but what I would say is they're still limited by the data side. So again, the kind of data that Tala is using is very different than what a traditional bank is used to. And so in that sense, they can't completely overhaul their entire system because for them, they're still making the majority of their money on the prime customer. And so it still doesn't make a great business case for them to go downstream to where we are. And then in addition to that, it's not just about the data, but it's about the experience that you're providing your customer. And so to serve the underserved customer, you have to really think about what are the different payment options I want to put in place. How do I support this customer so that they have the ability to repay, right? How do I chunk it out? How do I stay top of mind? How do I show them the importance of a repayment and what it could lead to?”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And for us, the way we think about this is it's a lot about retention. So it's really about ensuring that we're not taking a transactional approach to our customers' financial lives. We're trying to create a relationship with them. So we're not trying to make as much money as we can on our first loan. We're really thinking of this as we want them to stay with us. And so over 97% of our customers will come back for a repeat interaction with us.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think of Tala as a financial ecosystem that works globally. And so in that sense, I would say similar to how we think about entertainment. I want to make sure that every customer really has a customized path within their financial lives. And so each one of us has different needs, has different aspirations. And so I want us to be a financial partner that really understands them from that person up and then from there, we're able to create different journeys within the Tala ecosystem. So some may start with credit and some may start with savings or some may start with a credit card. But the point is that there are different paths and ways to stay within this ecosystem.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At this point, I would say that our addressable market, even across these four countries, we're looking at already about 700 million individuals So, you know, for the next, I would say year, we are staying really heads down and really ensuring that we are really moving beyond credit, that we are providing our customers with that full holistic set of financial products that they need and that we are that financial partner to them. From there, once we've really understood how they engage with things like savings and credit and bill payments all together, then we want to bring that entire package to new markets.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say yes, the goal is in markets where there are bureaus, we are already reporting back to them so that we are really creating that trail for them or that credit history for them. I would also say that we've continued to evolve our product. And so in that sense, as our customers grow and their needs grow. So beyond just the, I would say working capital needs, but actually savings, insurance, bill payments, we've continued to evolve our product and also increase the loan sizes as well.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think, again, this is really critical to us and to myself because the point is to show that these customers are consumers just like the rest of us. And so the way we service them and their ability to repay us is actually extremely important to proving that this business model actually works and that these customers are worth focusing on”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. So we've got a woman named Amy who's in the Philippines. She's a single mother and she was dependent on remittances historically to be able to get by on her day-to-day expenses, but then also run her food business on the side. And what was interesting is for her during COVID, she actually saw a huge opportunity to increase that food business because of the lockdowns in her community. And so people weren't able to go outside of the community. And so she wanted to find a way to be able to expand. And her family members were not able to send the remittance. And so that's when she came to Tala. And so as a result of her tala loan, she could expand her business. And now she actually talks about it as she has peace of mind. She's not having to, you know, think about the day-to-day or how she's going to make those bill payments, but she is actually now on to setting up her second location.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A mix, so we've raised our own equity capital that allows us to again continue to expand geographies, expand the product set, so into things beyond credit. And then we've also raised specific debt facilities for each of our markets.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And if we think about this population that are currently operating outside of our traditional financial system, and so if we can give them purchasing power, imagine what it does for these economies.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they may not have a bank account, but many emerging markets now do have mobile wallets. So a market like Kenya has MPesa, the Philippines has G cash, and we are integrated with each of those wallets. So, what we did was in the early days, we said we need to be where our customers are. And so we actually became, I would say at this point, probably the most interoperable lending company that there is where we can work in cash, traditional bank accounts, mobile wallets, and then we have our own wallet infrastructure as well.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are, so they are going into a Bill Payman center or remittance center, a convenience store like you mentioned. Some of them are doing bank transfers, but the majority of them are doing it in person, in cash.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do our own credit scoring, but essentially it's tied to is this a first-time customer? Is it a repeat customer? We've developed something called custom due date, allowing our customers to have the power of choice in their hands. Depending on how long they want to keep out the capital or how much they want to take out, it's really, again, allowing them the flexibility to choose. And so by creating something that is so customized, it's almost creating something as credit that you're paying for in the moment. So it's pay as you go credit as opposed to these kind of fixed terms that we're all used to.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is so in markets like the Philippines, our customers can pay bills, they can send money to other family members, they can cash out, so they can go to a 7-Eleven and actually withdraw physical cash as well.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a wallet inside the app, or it could be collected in cash at a bill payment center or remittance center, you know, obviously the travel time is what would take them more, but in terms of our delivery, it's under two minutes.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's true. And it's also actually that 85% of them get money in their accounts in under two minutes. And so imagine, you know, you go from the Google Play Store, you answer eight to ten questions, and then right into your mobile wallet, you have money in under two minutes. I don't have access like that.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, again, there are different elements to this, but at this point, we are majority using our own proprietary data and our understanding of their behavior more than transaction data even.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I would say two things. One, we are uploading the front and back of a national ID. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we're asking them to take a selfie because we do want to verify identity. So we do want to make sure that the person answering the questions is the same person whose phone it is. So we are essentially tying together their identity. The other thing is when it comes to verifying the self-reported data, that is one of the things that we understood about these markets is when you pay your phone bill, you are getting a text message back that confirms the receipt of your payment. When you get a remittance, you get a text message that confirms that you received that remittance. And so what we do is with the customer's permission, we actually parse for that transaction data. And so that allows us to really tie together that understanding of is it realistic that what they say they're using their loan for is what they're using it for? Is the income that they're stating the same?”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. There's 2 billion individuals in emerging markets that have Android devices. But it's also, in terms of just the price point, now you can get a smartphone for under $25 in these countries.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So you go through about eight to ten questions within the app, and we're really trying to understand how fast you go through it, what is your behavior, how do you engage with those questions, and also questions like, what are you using your lone for? And then that allows us to then credit score you. And then from there, we provide you with access to capital.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You would go to the Google Play Store, you would download our app, and you would give us access to key pieces of information, things that allow us to really understand what your capacity is. So we are wanting to understand things like consistency of bill payments. We want to understand your deposits. Essentially, how do you make money?”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So the idea was could we start to develop a credit history by using, let's say, the loan repayment data, but for me it was actually, what's the underlying data? So that same data that I saw firsthand in Genei or in all of these countries, that daily life data that I was using to do the underwriting and then lend to them, what I was really after was how do we gather data? And I didn't know what kind of data, but I had this hypothesis that it was this daily life data could actually be turned into credit scores and then we could make lending decisions. And the kind of turn for me was realizing I could only get this data if I was actually willing to give value up front.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was exactly it, yeah. It was to develop a credit score. And what I would say is actually it wasn't to really solve this problem of how do we provide access to small dollar loans. It was really trying to solve the system problem in the sense that what I really wanted was that these individuals could actually just one day walk into a bank that they had a credit score like the rest of us.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so it created a very sticky experience and high repayment rates. But what I saw is one of the gaps was that when one of those individuals, let's say, had more potential to grow her business than the others, she was still not able to go into a traditional institution because she didn't have that identity that she could just stand on her own. And so that lack of data was what I saw as the missing bridge between traditional microfinance and the formal banking system.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was going to be different because what I saw working in traditional microfinance was access to small dollar loans that were helping individuals start to move from that day to day to moving to this place of opportunity. But what I saw was that traditional microfinance was essentially assessing their risk or kind of solving for that risk calculation by putting individuals in a small group. So using social pressure to actually guarantee the loan. So you're in a group of, let's say, six other women, if you default, the five other women are then liable for your loan.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when I was doing this while I still worked at the UN, for me it was, well, we are exchanging value. I am giving you value to grow your business, and so as a result of that, we're partners in this. In terms of kind of the future of the solution, I also knew that I had to create something scalable because, again, I'm one person. My savings was limited. And so at some point, it would run out. And I needed to find a way that others would actually do what I was doing.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And that was also how I started to meet customers in these countries. So the project I was working on required me to get that input data. And so I needed to work with these community organizations to start to interview the customers on their cash flows. And so through that experience, I kept meeting more and more customers and being able to assess or compare, I would say, micro entrepreneurs to each other.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is. I was obviously in their stores, so I was interviewing them about their businesses, their cash flows. And so in every country, I was interviewing, I would say, about 500 people. And so I was actually seeing them very regularly. But the point is actually that I started to actually get help from the community organizations.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It really depended on what I saw as the tenor of the business. I was really trying to assess how fast did I think that they could actually expand that business. But I would say anywhere between 5% up to about 15%.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were expanding their businesses, and something that I still think a lot about is, yes, access to capital is definitely something that is not equitable across the globe at this point. We know the majority of individuals lack access to formal financial services, as we know them, so credit products, savings products. But for me, the thing that I was seeing firsthand was a change in confidence and a change in their own agency. And so the fact that someone was willing to believe in them and that I wasn't just turning them away. That is what I saw actually change their businesses the most.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's true, while I worked at the UN, I was traveling market to market, so I was in a new country every four to five months, and I was lending to people when I was there. And so at that point, I think I was probably about $5,000, $10,000 in. And I started to have some aha moments or realizations and kind of open my eyes to what I was actually doing to do the underwriting.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did, so I decided to become the lender. I lent to SEMA. I started lending to hundreds of other people as well in the community and essentially came up with what I thought the risk calculation would be based on that firsthand or in-person data that I was seeing.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So for her, she was turned away by traditional lenders in Chennai. She was turned away for those small dollar loans. And it was one, because she didn't have the necessary paperwork, but the other aspect of it was that a lot of times the loan officers would actually just turn to me and say, Shvani, Sima is not creditworthy. We can't lend to someone like this. This is not our customer. And I kept hearing that phrase, this is not our customer.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A kiln, exactly, and she was then hand painting them. And what was kind of entrepreneurial about SEMA, though, was that not only did she run her tile business, but she had a side jewelry business. She would sell bangles and accessories and bindis, and the reason for that was she was also someone in the community that helped organize weddings. And so I felt like she was pretty entrepreneurial. She's got the side hustle in addition to her business. I also saw the fact that firsthand she was saving money for her son to take a vocational training course. And so she was also saving money consistently. I saw that she paid her bills consistently. And then I also saw that she really understood where to buy inventory, what price she was buying it at, and what time of the month she was actually buying that inventory. And so I saw all of these behavioral characteristics of someone that would be likely to repay. And I also saw that she had the capacity to repay this small dollar loan.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the example that always comes to mind for me is a woman that I lent to directly, her name was Seema, and she lived in Chennai in India. And the thing about Sima that was so fascinating was that, you know, she was like many other women in her community or even on the same block in that community. They were running tile businesses.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are, there are banking systems, but when we think about how those systems have been built, they've been built in such a way that it's really focused on, I would say, the formal customer, the customer that has a credit history. They have paperwork they can bring in. They have national IDs. And the point is that when you look at these individuals that are underestimated, they're really thin filed. And in some cases, no filed. And so there are no paper receipts, there's no database that shows how they have spent their money or how much they're earning.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I saw that potential and I knew that I had savings and I trusted them. And so in that sense, I kind of started the solution of Tala. Before realizing, oh, this is a much more systemic issue. But by doing this across nine countries, I was presented with the fact that this is a global problem. And for me, it really stemmed from, well, I just need to prove the potential and what's missing really was identity and the ability to prove that potential in a form of data the same way that you and I have credit scores. That is what I saw was missing in these markets.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started going to their homes in the morning. I would go to work with them. I would sit in the back of their stores and I would firsthand see how much money they made that day, how many products did they sell, how many services did they provide. I would then go to the marketplace with them and understand what they did with that money. What decisions did they decide to make with it? And by walking alongside them, I saw one that they were making really concrete decisions. They knew how to make decisions. I also saw that they were very capable of running their businesses, but I also saw that they felt stuck. They didn't have a lot of confidence in their ability to grow those businesses or to really plan for the future of their families. And so I started to lend to them myself.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For me, it really stemmed from the time that I worked in emerging markets at the UN Population Fund. I had the opportunity to really firsthand see money moving through the system. So what I was studying was the effectiveness of microcredit, so small dollar loans for the underserved and really trying to understand, you know, by providing these loans are we actually seeing an improvement in quality of life? And I saw firsthand that there's no macro database that I can go to. And so for me, I had to essentially kind of create a QuickBooks. I became that QuickBooks.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And I think that's our perception, but at the end of the day, they're pursuing a venture, right? They're taking the risk.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I mean, in countries like Ghana, I did a lot of food stalls, so women that were preparing cassava on the side of the road, I saw a lot of people doing fabric work, so Bogolan and Mali, in India. It was, you know, as I said, lots of tiles, jewelry. We saw a lot of fancy stores, which was just a collection of everything. So like a convenience store in some ways.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. It's that these micro entrepreneurs, they had tremendous potential. They were running great businesses, but they couldn't get access to formal loans to be able to expand their businesses or otherwise to even be able to create assets or kind of future opportunity for their families.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was in Malawi, I was in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, I was in Kenya, and then I also had the opportunity to do the same research in India as well.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was working at the UN Populations Fund and I was working across West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. And what I was doing was conducting microfinance research. So I was trying to understand how individuals in these nine different countries in the region were using their money. And I wanted to understand whether they were starting to improve their quality of life as a result of getting access to microcredit.”
2022-11-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · HIBT Lab! Tala: Shivani Siroya · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT