Bridging the trade financing gap for Sri Lankan small businesses, with Lakshan De Silva (iLoan)

Recycling is a good thing, right? Well, in that case, let me recycle this from yesterday’s show notes. Most consumers borrow to manage expenses. It’s different for SMEs, though, who often borrow to drive income. As such, being denied credit is not just about having their lifestyle curtailed, it’s about having the business growth, and sometimes even their business survival, put at risk.“When iloan launched back in 2018, the lending market in Sri Lanka was $5 billion, almost 40% was which was raised from loan sharks and individuals who have very dubious practices of charging excessive interest rates, as well as very unpleasant collection methods”. Lakshan da Silva is a Sri Lankan serial entrepreneur whose goal is to fix this for mom and pop stores around the island. Lakshan is very approachable on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lakshan-de-silva-a9b11328/ Or you can look into his many ventures: iLoan is at https://www.iloan.lk/ HyperGlase is at https://hyperglade.com/ Spectrify is at http://www.spectrifyai.com/ Also, and I really hate to link this, but if you’re interested in the terrible cricket game in question, you can see the drama here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKeOX9AAJXg (I hate-watched it, and was just reminded that poor old Lance Klusener was involved again, that guy deserved better)You can learn more about myself, Brendan le Grange, on my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect), my action-adventure novels are on Amazon, some versions even for free, and my work with ConfirmU and our gamified psychometric scores is at https://confirmu.com/ and on episode 24 of this very show https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-24If you have any feedback, questions, or if you would like to participate in the show, please feel free to reach out to me via the contact page on this site.And finally, if you’re in need of more banking podcasts, you can find related content at https://blog.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/Regards, Brendan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

A podcast about lending in all its forms and in all the markets in which it takes place, however diverse those markets may be. In fact, it’s a case of ‘the more diverse the better’ with guests from New York to New Zealand, talking about everything from crypto-backed mortgages to crowd-funded loans for refugees. I am the host, Brendan le Grange, and I have spent the last twenty years working in - or alongside - lenders across Africa, Asia, and Europe and I’ll be using that experience to find and learn from industry insiders in a series of weekly interviews. Sometimes, those interviews discuss the inspiration behind a new start-up, sometimes they look back at a career spent at the lending coal face, and sometimes they explore where the latest technologies might take us. In the end, if it shapes a lending decision, we’ll talk about how. You can join us every Thursday here, or wherever you prefer to find your podcasts. And you can find written transcripts and more content can be found at www.HowToLendMoneytoStrangers.show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.