kuala-lumpur
(14)
WH Soo and the distance between a desk and a customer
Soo Wai Har’s career has taken her through AIG, AXA and Generali to the top job at Berjaya Sompo. Her first months in 2026 included visits to every branch, bringing decades of work in risk, technical operations and broker relationships onto the office floor.
Azran Osman-Rani and the trouble with a five-year plan
From a stock exchange to AirAsia X and iflix, Azran Osman-Rani kept changing industries. The Naluri co-founder’s answer to uncertainty is a working life measured in 30-day experiments and 30-year questions.
Petrina Goh and the business of being needed
A frustrating wedding search sent Petrina Goh into business. Building Nuren Group taught her why the conversation before a purchase can matter as much as the sale.
Lennise Ng and the Business of Making Luck
A lucky introduction helped her grandfather build a livelihood. Lennise Ng co-founded Borong to make useful connections easier for the next small shop - and kept following that idea into technology, trade and capital.
Gerardo Salandra and the question that refused to become an email
From a multilingual childhood in El Salvador to a business built in Asia, Gerardo Salandra kept returning to a simple frustration: customers wanted to talk, and companies kept sending them elsewhere.
Rajnish Kumar and the distance between payday and home
A drive to a palm oil mill put Rajnish Kumar’s financial inclusion work in human terms. The Instapay co-founder is building salary accounts and remittance services around workers whose money has further to travel than most.
Nurbek Jusupov and the question that became a company
A family’s university search helped set EasyUni in motion. For co-founder Nurbek Jusupov, the next opening came from listening to the institutions on the other side of the screen.
Yuen Tuck Siew and the trouble after the click
He came home from London with a simple expectation: financial services should work online. The gap between choosing a product and actually getting it became the business of his life.
Yen Ming Lee and the trouble with a comfortable job
A banking director took the long way into entrepreneurship. At PolicyStreet, Yen Ming Lee has spent the years since learning how to put insurance where people already are.
Emma Butler and the business of keeping a promise
After a decade inside the business, Emma Butler has become bolttech’s CEO for Asia-Pacific. Her route to the role runs through the shops, repair services and partnerships that make device protection work.
Hata
Hata is a Malaysian dual-licensed digital asset exchange that lets people buy, sell, store and stake cryptocurrencies using local fiat. Founded in 2023 and launched in May of that year, it holds licences from both the Securities Commission Malaysia and the Labuan Financial Services Authority - a rare dual-regulated footprint that keeps customer assets custodied inside the country. Led by ex-Luno APAC general manager David Low, Hata grew to more than 209,000 registered users by the end of 2025 and closed an US$8 million Series A led by Bybit in April 2026.
Instapay Technologies Sdn Bhd
Instapay Technologies is a Kuala Lumpur-based fintech that gives migrant and foreign workers in Malaysia a regulated digital salary account. Through a mobile e-wallet paired with a prepaid Mastercard, workers receive their pay, send money home to 30+ countries, pay bills, top up mobile plans, shop and withdraw cash at ATMs. Licensed by Bank Negara Malaysia as an e-money issuer and money services business, Instapay also runs payroll disbursement for hundreds of corporate employers, bringing an underbanked workforce into the formal digital economy.
Jirnexu
Jirnexu is a Kuala Lumpur-based fintech company that runs RinggitPlus, Malaysia's largest financial-product comparison platform, and builds XpressApply, a digital application and CRM stack that banks and insurers use to acquire and onboard customers online. It pairs a consumer-facing comparison site with white-label technology, positioning itself as a full-stack customer-acquisition and lifecycle-management provider for financial institutions across Southeast Asia.
MoneyMatch
MoneyMatch is a Kuala Lumpur-based fintech founded in 2015 that moves money across borders faster and cheaper than traditional banks. Starting as a peer-to-peer currency exchange, it grew into a licensed money services business serving individuals, SMEs and financial institutions across Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. It uses digital eKYC, machine learning treasury tools and blockchain rails - including Ripple - to settle payments in dozens of currencies, and is now an equity partner in Malaysia's KAF-led Islamic digital bank.