CEO Spotlight: Reuben Lai, the man leading the push to connect Southeast Asia’s underbanked

Since 2016, Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, has continuously delivered digital payment enhancements to its consumers so they could pay more conveniently and cashlessly for a growing list of services offered. In 2018, Grab launched Grab Financial Group, further connecting the region’s financially underserved to a full suite of financial services ranging from payments to retail wealth management, insurance and lending. Today, GrabPay has become the leading digital wallet in Southeast Asia, as the company continues to expand into new frontiers of growth in digital financial services.

Grab today is focused on the six in ten Southeast Asians currently unbanked or underbanked, aiming to drive regional economic empowerment with a focus on accessible, convenient, and transparent financial services. Reuben Lai, senior managing director of Grab Financial Group, is leading that charge.

In a recent live interview for CEO Spotlight – our series of virtual fireside chats with Asia’s most inspirational business leaders – we spoke with Lai about the future of finance, what financial inclusion looks like in ASEAN, how to scale across multiple markets, leadership advice for the next generation, and growth prospects in a post-pandemic world.

Grab aims to maintain its super app status by providing users with a digital concierge service, providing anything their users need. “From the moment a user wakes up, they order breakfast on the Grab app, take a Grab car ride all the way to work, and then at work, they’re able to buy coffee through a QR code offline payment, and over a lunch break, make an e-commerce transaction in instalments using our PayLater service. In the evening, they’re on the way back from the office, they’re able to pay for the bills, and do a micro-investment so that they can set money aside for a rainy day, or buy micro-insurance to cover their family,” Lai says.

Users spending more time in its superapp ecosystem is the key to Grab’s growth. “With more consumers, we are next able to bring in merchants. And with merchants, they provide a plethora of products and services within the Grab app, which makes life for consumers even more convenient. And that brings more consumers to the platform, hence driving the superapp flywheel,” Lai explains.

Grab Financial Group is the glue that holds the superapp ecosystem together. It does this by embedding financial services across the multiple everyday services offered on Grab, so users get more value from each service. For example, users in Singapore can invest from S$1 with each Grab transaction they make, or buy Ride Cover insurance to protect themselves with personal accident coverage when they book a ride. Financial services brings this platform together and allows the flywheel to spin faster. In addition to that, we’re able to provide more services like micro-insurance or micro-investment to our consumers, which makes it even more convenient and sticky for them. And that enables us to contribute to the flywheel spinning even faster.” Lai wants to provide more of these services through the Grab-Singtel digital bank, or “digi bank”.

ASEAN’s underbanked population gives Grab the opportunity to improve financial inclusion in the region. Lai is focused on how Grab Financial Group can bring people without access to banking services into the financial system. “We know that because many of our drivers, our merchants come to us and tell us that they want to open a bank account, but they’re not able to. They want to access a working capital loan, but they’re not able to. What we want to do at Grab Financial Group is to make financial services more accessible and more convenient in a very simple and intuitive way to as many consumers as possible,” he says. “This is driving financial inclusion all across ASEAN. This is leading to greater shared prosperity as millions and millions of people get included into the formal financial system.”

Grab Financial Group offers micro-services which have a lower cost of entry and cater to the needs of its consumers, merchants, and drivers, while specifically addressing the local nuances in each market. “In Thailand, we’re able to give micro loans to our merchants, and that allows them to get access to loans that they would have been otherwise unable to,” Lai notes. “In Malaysia, we have a pay-as-you-drive insurance made available with multiple insurer providers in the market. And that allows our drivers to get access to insurance in a very affordable and accessible way.” By unlocking financial services to be more accessible, Grab helps people to achieve better livelihoods for themselves and their businesses.

Grab also uses its data to target financial products for consumers when they need them. With siloed data and legacy technology, traditional banks may struggle to gain similar consumer insights. People want the convenience and simplicity that fintech companies can offer, no matter what type of financing they use. Firms in the disrupted banking industry will need to redouble their investments to improve data management and analytics capabilities to compete with Grab and other super apps.

“We have been partnering with more than 60 financial institutions and banks across Southeast Asia,” Lai says. “For us to transform financial services across Southeast Asia, it’s not the job of a single company. We believe we can only do so in partnership with the entire ecosystem. And that’s the way that we run our business.”

Lai is bullish about the future and the next generation of entrepreneurs – as long as they have a purpose. “There’s no better time to start a business than now. And it really has to be around a purpose-driven mission. Having purpose and having a mission allows one to ride through the tough times and the good times,” he says. “I’ve seen that at Grab. I’ve seen how [Grab CEO and co-founder] Anthony [Tan] was laser-focused right from day one. He was here to build a platform for micro-entrepreneurs to grow their businesses on. And he wanted to very much level the playing field for the small folks. The laser focus on that mission allowed him to steer Grab through the tough times, such as what happened last year. In fact, Covid magnified the need for Grab to keep supporting small businesses, as almost 600,000 small businesses signed up to join the Grab platform in 2020.”

In the post-pandemic world, Lai sees three things in Grab Financial Group’s future growth: “The first is we’re going to continue to build products and solutions that our users love, services that bring greater value and convenience to your life. Second, we’re going to invest in operational excellence. What does that mean? We’re going to keep investing in cybersecurity, automation and analytics. And then the third, of course, is to build our digi bank offering, so that we can serve Singaporeans better.”