All language subtitles for transcript ep 29 eng srt

Because it means that people who
have been cut off from traditional

banking, they are getting access to
credit that they've never had before.

Albeit is still within
the water cryptocurrency.

That was the original aim of crypto to
help bank the unbanked, to level the

playing field in the world of finance.

Welcome to how to lend money to strangers.

I'm your host, Brendan Legree.

I've been working in consumer lending
for the last 20 years currently

within a startup that's gamifying
access to credits among the unbanked.

Check us out in episode 24, but first
with a major credit card issue in South

Africa, my international adventure
though started in the middle of 2009.

When I moved to Denmark, it was a time
in history that I've always considered as

just before the soccer world cup came up.

But if you're into cryptocurrency,
it's also the year that

Bitcoin went live priced.

In the sense at the time, two years
later, I moved to Asia and Bitcoin passed

the $1 mark for the first time there.

It didn't just pass the $1 mark.

It made it all the way up to $30 before
falling all the way back to below $5.

And that's in a way is a microcosm
of the Bitcoin experience.

At least to my rather uneducated.

Growing demand, rising prices, but also
volatility that said it's 10 years later.

Things are more mature and a whole wallet
full of other cryptocurrencies exist.

Big institutions have got involved.

And there's a question
that keeps getting asked.

Are we ready to lend real world
money with crypto assets as security?

Well, Phillip PLOS
co-founder and CEO at accrue.

Welcome to the.

Today's episode is going to be a bit
different for me, a bit of an education

as you introduce me to the world of crypto
assets, but that's a sort of mindset shift

that I assume you must have made yourself
because I look at your early career.

You also come from a
traditional finance background.

Before we get into the meat
of the discussion for today.

Can you expand a bit on your
background and what in that

inspired you to found a crude?

Yeah, sure.

So my background is, as you
say, very traditional finance.

So asset management
trading, I spent 10 years.

Doing that in the UK and then a
further 16 it's in Switzerland.

And yeah, I sort of touched a lot of
different areas of finance and that

started off with retail investors,
which was fascinating because you really

do get to sort of understand a little
bit more about what drives them, why

they're investing and then move a lot
more institutional spaces where I think

I saw a lot more sort of complexity.

So when I was at, in Switzerland, I
called the client base of the investment

banks and help them manage liquidity
and things like that across the world.

And some fairly complex
derivative products.

I think underlying everything that I've
done has always been this drive to take

really complex topics and simplify them.

And I would say I was probably not
a particularly early adopter of

crypto because I was so heavily
involved in normal finance.

Just started to see these things that
looked a little bit more like, I guess,

traditional finance appearing in print.

The roundabouts with 2015 time.

So you sort of see decentralized
finance, which really started taking

off kind of 20 17, 20 18 onwards, but
in its very earliest days, it, all of a

sudden you sort of had these things that
it wasn't just outright speculation.

It was, oh, there are actually more
stable assets within crypto where

you can generate more consistent
returns without the wild volatility.

That was one of the things that kind of
attracted me to crypto, but then you only

need to scratch the surface and everything
becomes completely in comprehensive.

So it's sort of like the reason
accrue appeared was most people

have no idea that you can earn
interest on the crypto that you hold.

And even if they wanted to generate it,
they'd probably find it too complicated.

So accrue in a nutshell is the
place where people can really

simply buy and sell crypto.

But crucially.

They can enter the market
leading interest rate on it.

So, you know, up to 15% a
year paid instantly, they can

withdraw their money daily.

And in terms of making it more
consumable, easier for everyday people.

You can transfer an existing crypto
portfolio into your account and

start earning interest on that.

Or you just normal money
buyer, a bank transfer.

You just put the money in
that way and then convert it

into crypto and start adding.

So that was always the drive.

It's like, how do we take something that's
really complicated and make it consumable

to the individual, make it safe and
secure because a lot of crypto is still

remains quite difficult in that area.

Yeah.

And we're going to deep dive in the
crew for most of the discussion.

It wasn't your only lockdown
project by the looks of it.

So 2020, you also published
the money triangle.

Yeah.

I had a quick look on Amazon,
better reviews of my books.

I gating.

It looks like it's had a good reception.

Do you want to talk a little bit
about the vision, the, the idea

behind the money triangle and what
that is before we go back and talk

crypto for the rest of the show?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I spent four years at a FinTech
and the idea it was getting was a

steam of sort of simplifying things.

In the UK, there's a real issue
with people not being able to

afford or access financial advice.

We, we effectively digitize some of the
more complex financial advisory processes,

getting advice on your pension nearby.

So I'm in a where to best your
eyes to that sort of thing.

But I was really fortunate in that four
years to run around the UK, talking

to in total about 10,000 people.

Yeah.

Out of that came just
some fascinating data.

The majority of people spend way more
than they, on every month they were

slipping more and more into debt.

They didn't care about their
pension, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

I was just trying to do it to help people.

And I've done a lot of blog
articles and things like that.

It took a lot longer than it should
have done because I kind of didn't

get my act together pretty quick.

If you've written books, you
probably know you go through these

periods of procrastination where
you just lose a bit of momentum.

So probably have a couple of years,
but yeah, fascinating process.

I read a book called the
beautiful constraint.

It's all around.

If you have very little to work.

Creativity and innovation comes out.

That was what actually gave me the
impetus to get the book finished.

I, him, he said, well, you know, I
haven't really got the time to do the

final editing and things like that.

So literally just put a post on LinkedIn.

Someone helped me finish my book.

And I had a very, very complex,
sometimes providers pop up

and say, yeah, I'll read it.

I didn't need to tons of work just to,
just to help you get over the line.

And the other thing I would have
done that if I hadn't read that book.

So it was, he was a good, a good little
cake, really just trying to break it

down to how people should just at a very
basic level, be managing their finances.

So.

Just some better behaviors around how
you spend your money, which is sort

of one side of the triangle, better
things around how you invest it.

And then I think where a
lot of people miss out.

So of also about how you earn it.

So is that, is that room for a side hustle
after looking at your career currently?

And I think this is something
that people often do get wrong.

They start a side hustle way before
they're selling it their day job.

That was kind of.

The idea is trying to make it nice
and easy and understandable, and lots

of funny stories and case studies on
people who are extremes in each case.

Yeah.

There was kind of a blog article
that went wrong, I guess, was,

was the reason for the book.

And what I've found with his podcast
is reaching out to folk and some other

ones have been, you won't remember me,
but I was on the same pass as you at a

conference five years ago in Shanghai.

And they're like, yeah, I'll talk to you.

And.

If you put it out there and you get
it going and you reach out a lot of

the time, people say yes and show,
some people will say no, or just not

reply, but if you actually get going
with the project, people will join.

But yeah, let's get back to a crew.

So you started to describe it in
your introduction, but there's a

lot of coin exchanges and Saturday.

You've taken a beyond that it's not
just another place to trade Bitcoin.

You're treating it like an asset
where it can earn an interest assigned

to you and put money in a current
account or in a money market account.

So this is no longer just a speculative
bit of code that sits somewhere and

you hope you can sell it in the future.

You are actually treating it like an asset
that people could invest and put aside.

So.

Can we deep dive into a crew and
what that process looks like,

how do you work with consumers?

Uh, it's a really good question because
if we rewind to kind of 2008, say

it was kind of tech hobbyists, when
Bitcoin came out in order to buy any

Bitcoin, you needed to be incredibly
technically savvy and in the right kind

of chat group, fast forwards, 13 years
think yesterday or day four, as we, as

we were talking was the birthday of.

We've now got a completely
different environment.

There's institutional infrastructure
in place for the custody of

assets, because that was one
of the things in early Bitcoin.

And I think 5 million Bitcoin
or, or about a quarter of their

total supply has been lost.

It's out of, out of second.

So that was one of the
big constraints was habit.

Hey, how do we make this a product
that is safe to actually own?

And now we've got that institutional
custody solutions in place.

And, you know, an example of
the one we use is five blocks.

They've got over a trillion
in transfers and they're huge.

There were 70 or banks as custom.

So once you've got that done and
dusted, this is now an asset that's more

secure to hold a note and guess what?

It's also the best performing
asset of the last 10 years.

And it's not something now that's
a tiny little niche market.

There's over $3 trillion
worth of crypto out there.

Then we've got the best performing
asset class and it's safe to hold.

Now this should be a
part of your portfolio.

It's still high risk.

It's very volatile, but it's five, 10%
of a diversified portfolio should be

holding crypto assets because it's the
only place you're seeing huge innovation

and huge growth in, in the world of
finance at the moment, how accrue then

is trying to change that why we're
not just a normal exchange is yeah.

I'll business model is completely dead.

So most companies are most exchanged
that you see that will list hundreds

and hundreds of coins, which, you
know, they're all volatile that

will flying all over the place.

No one has any idea which are
good ones to own for every coin

that goes up a million percent.

You've got another one that's
worthless after two months.

And the way that these exchanges
make money is you buying and selling

and jumping in and out of assets.

And we've seen that before.

There's a lot of regulatory statements
that a lot of sort of traditional

trading platforms have to put on.

And it's usually something like 83,
80 5% of our customers lose money as

because the fear and greed, when it
comes to trading, investing in the

short-term is trying to beat the market.

It's in it's incredibly difficult.

Crypto is no different.

So in terms of our platform, we're only
listing coins that we think are going

to be around in 10, 20 years time.

You're not at the moment.

There is there's only three assets.

Bitcoin Ethereum, what's called USDA
other stable coins, which for 99% of

crypto investors, that's enough Bitcoin.

Most people have heard about.

Ethereum is a, is a fascinating coin.

All of the innovation, all of this
decentralized financial products

that you're seeing that are appearing
in the market that all being built

on Ethereum, pretty much all of the
volume, all of the kind of innovation,

all of the development that's going
into building this crypto investing

ecosystem is within the Ethereum block.

Which is why a lot of analysts in the
space are calling this year to be a

breakout year where it's going to start
really outperforming Bitcoin, who knows

every time someone seems to say that
Bitcoin seems to go up incredibly, but,

um, there's some sort of use cases.

And you can see in terms of the fees that
miners earning, they are 10 times the

fees on the Ethereum blockchain this year.

And they did on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Ethereum is, is the internet.

This is all part of, has it
gotten valued over and above

just being a speculative asset?

A lot of the headlines have
been very breathless headlines.

You know, the news will tell you when
Bitcoin hits 50,000 or when it hits 5,000

and they will talk about a coin that
somebody's pumping up, that's gone up

from 2 cents to 20 cents or something.

And I think that's where in some
ways that the coin terminology.

Is bringing in some confusion where
Bitcoin was essentially an exchange of

value and lack a currency, but you talk
about, yeah, they give theory on that.

Blockchain is far more practical
and it's almost feels like

it's shares in that network.

If all the NFTs are being bought on
their technology, it's not so much

a coin that moves just the same
way that a dollar might move hands.

And that's not just a
speculation, like in, in.

It is more, I don't know.

I suppose gold has some good similarities
where it's also used for industrial

uses, but it's kind of a blend between
understanding or betting on a technology

as well as just, you know, this coin.

And I guess this is where you coming
from the finance background, then you

can say here's the big stable part.

The part that, yeah, it's all going
to go up a thousand percent this

year, but it's also not going to
drop a thousand percent in the next.

And we're going to operate there.

And then the speculation side,
which is the same as, you know,

investments that splitting out
junk bonds from government bonds.

So you can see it for what it is
rather than just everything as crypto.

Yeah.

A crew doesn't want to be the platform,
which has these crazy fluctuations.

Don't get me wrong.

Bitcoin is still volatile.

And I think we're saying, as we're
talking today, it's had a bad day today.

It's down about 8%.

But it's not doing the plus or
minus 50% that you're seeing in

some of these smaller cap coins.

I mentioned stable coins before.

This is really what I think drove the
interest the most in founding a crew and

the investment strategies that we look
out for for customers is that stable coins

are effectively cryptocurrency coins.

That's value is pegged to a real world.

Asset.

The most popular is obviously
the U S dollar stable coins.

So the way it works is someone puts a
real world dollar into a bank account.

And then the, the administrator
of the cryptocurrency.

Is notified that there is a real world
dollar sitting in a bank account.

So what it then does is
it mince a crypto dollar.

So it's backed one to one.

And what that means is you've got this
asset, which is no longer have this

really crazy underlying volatility.

Because it's pegged to the dollar.

And if you want to do the reverse,
you would say to the act, the

administrator of the coin, look,
I want to put my dollar back.

You know, they destroy that crypt.

I don't return the real
world dollar to you.

That process is only really done
by institutions and in big size.

But, um, we were all able to benefit
from those stable coins because they

flow around the whole crypto market.

But because they are stable,
they've been a big driver of

lending and borrowing within crypto.

So you can actually earn very, very high
levels of yield on those stable coins.

So for example, on the accrue
platform, we'll pay you 12%, um, on,

on effectively, what is, uh, a dollar
deposit will be at higher risk because

it sits within the crypto ecosystem.

Now coming from the traditional financial
background, why that's something you

become interesting is you've now got
really volatile underlying assets.

But we're paying you a
yield on it with a crew.

What, to me, if I looked at traditional
finance that looks like it's kind of

like a dividend paying stock and then
that kind of stable coin, I mentioned

there is a very fixed underlying asset,
but you're running 12% yield on it.

And that looks a bit more
like a high yielding bond.

So.

When you're really bullish on
where the crypto market is going,

you increase your equity exposure
effectively, or what is your Bitcoin.

And if there an exposure, if you
think the market's coming off, then

you make sure you have a higher
exposure to these, these stable coins.

And it kind of allows you to build
what looks like a traditional

balance bond equity portfolio.

And I'm probably going to see products
that mirror that, that are easy to

use, you know, ETFs, things like that.

Yeah.

Well, you mentioned the seven.

I can index fund fits exactly in
that same mold as a stable coin

where it's not pegged to the dollar,
but it could be pegged to an index

and they say the U S markets.

And I think that's where, where I've
heard had come up in discussions on

those show where I spoken to lenders,
particularly in emerging market.

The consumers might be unable to
really participate in the equity

markets in their home countries,
or perhaps just a local market.

Doesn't have the sort of shares they,
after the is already pretty volatile.

There's a lot more incentive
to have a us dollar type asset,

like a Bitcoin or a stable coin.

And you can buy into these
coins with free small amounts.

So obviously we see like Bitcoin's
$50,000, but you can buy it such

small fractions that compared
to entering the stock mine.

It's a routine you can do
with any money you have.

So there's quite an appeal to these
assets and the lenders are looking

at us and saying, well, I've got
consumers that traditionally, maybe

they would have had some cultural re
they would have put up for security.

Now they've got these
Bitcoins, maybe stable coins.

Can I lend against that as a security,
as an asset class, and for a long time,

it was not a chance as far to validate.

And yeah, it's still all
the tile it's coming down.

And then if you can blend it and say,
well, my crypto portfolio is 50% stable

coin and 50% more volatile coins.

It brings that down to a level
where a lender could say, well,

I'm going to use it as security.

The same way we would do with her
share back loan or gold back loan.

And yeah, this regulatory risk,
you're unlikely to see it.

Start with a big bank,
doing it wide scale.

Yeah.

The other side of seeing it as an asset,
as a deposit is lending against it.

And I apologize the audio isn't great
in this clip, but it certainly why

Praveen seen of pen cap in India
alluded to when he brought up the term.

I also see a lot of possibilities,
how this blockchain technology

in terms of learning.

So if you see the challenge
was in terms of actuality and

stability of that currency, but
it seems that it is there to stay.

So if it is there to stay, lending can
also happen in that kind of company.

How far are we away from a world
where it's well understood.

That's stable enough.

It's got a long enough history that you
would expect mainstream lenders would

say, okay, I can use a portfolio held
at someone like a crew as security at

Aldeen to 50% of the value of their
portfolio or whatever the case may be.

There's this kind of.

Two markets to look at the lending
and borrowing market within the

crypto ecosystem is alive and well.

And is billions of dollars
going through that a day?

I think one of the plus points of
crypto is there is no backstop.

No one's going to bail out
any of these protocols.

If someone doesn't prepare a loan.

So it's almost driving very good
behavior in, in kind of the, the

world of decentralized finance,
which is without intermediaries.

There isn't really much
in terms of leverage.

So if you want to borrow against
your, um, the dollar portfolio,

you're never gonna be able to
borrow more than a hundred dollars.

Usually kept it around about 75.

So fully collateralized lender.

There is a bit of uncollateralized
lending out there, but it, by no

means anything like what's out there.

And so traditional finance, and I think
the, the market volatility is kind of

keeping, keeping people pretty honest.

We sort of may this year, so peak to
trough in, in kind of the big crypto

assets like Bitcoin brought about 50%.

There was a lot of people liquidated,
but none of the major protocols suffered.

It was a very orderly liquidation.

It was really good to see, cause
there's a proper test of, of how

the, about the crypto market was.

So, I mean, in terms of the actual
crypto ecosystem itself, this is

something that's tried tested and
this is there and it's happening.

The second question on mainstream lenders,
when will they start looking at this?

That's a tougher question because what we
need to see is much more robust and sort

of far reaching regulation in the space.

A lot of the big regulators
around the world.

So the tier ones you call them,
they've got more sort of registration

regimes in crypto, as opposed
to full on regulatory regimes.

They want to make sure you've got
your, your AML and KYC processes in

place that, you know, fit and proper
people are there, but they're not

really taking a, a hugely active
role in regulating the crypto market.

I think until that happens,
the big banks will never get.

However that being said, I think we're
probably going to see that over the next

18 months, the regulatory environment
sort of improve and become more clear.

We want to see crypto regulated
because it's the only way it

becomes a credible asset class.

The only way consumers have the same
confidence in it as they would any

other financial asset, because they know
there's there's regulators set behind.

Yeah.

You'd want a world where, and I
might be, opt-in sort of regulation

the opportunity to become regulated
and covered like a stock exchange.

We've grown big enough and stable
enough that we pass those 1000% returns.

Yeah, it will slow growth a tiny
bit, but it stops all the problems.

You're listening to, how to lend money
to strangers with Brendan LaGrange.

If you're enjoying it now is a great time
to hit that little plus button to subs.

You talk about borrowing and
lending in the crypto space.

One of the words that I would off the
top of my head associate with the rise

of cryptocurrency would be anonymity.

How does identity work in the space?

How do you know who you're lending to?

Because obviously five, 10 years ago,
when crypto was becoming public and

people moving from that hobbyist who
really knew what they were doing.

To the public getting involved,
there was a little bit of, you

know, exchanges either intentionally
or unintentionally disappearing.

There was a bit of a worry,
you know, how do you keep the

anonymity, the free flow of crypto
and how do you also manage who's?

Who do you know what approaches
are being done there?

Because I think.

That's probably where we could actually
solve a lot of the identity problems

we have in the rest of the world.

Digital identity is a
major issue, I think.

And one that is it's, it's difficult
because the problem you've got with

having identity stored with large sort
of centralized institutions is they

invariably get hacked and I'm not sure
there's any major institution really, that

has that a hundred percent clean records.

So everyone's, everyone's
looking for this.

Oh, it was a non-custodial sharing
of your personal data and it's within

a set format to identify you and
make sure you're, you know, you're

not someone who's like a sanctioned
individual or something like that.

So your digital identity is something,
a lot of companies are working on,

but it's the, at the moment it's,
every regulator says it it's these

documents you need to provide it's
in this format and they're all dead.

Well, a lot of them are different.

You know, that the core is the same,
but every one of them has a nuance.

So it makes it quite hard to do, to have
like an all encompassing solution there.

But the benefit of anonymity produce this
word decentralized finance few times.

And it's what that is is, is
normal finance, but without any

intermediaries, the intermediary
is effectively computer code.

So if you've got Bitcoin right
now, you can go to one of

these decentralized exchanges.

Logia as collateral and borrow,
you know, whatever you want against

it, pretty much within crypto.

And that whole process is three
or four clicks of a button

and takes under a minute.

From that perspective.

It's great because it means that
people who've been cut off from

traditional banking, albeit still
within the water cryptocurrency.

Yeah.

They are getting access to
credit that they've never had

before, which is incredible.

And that, that was going to
the original aim of, of crypto.

If it was to help bank the
unbanked to level the playing

field in the world of finance.

And so that, that side of things is
great because there's people who are

engaged in crypto just simply would never
be able to pass a Western KYC process.

Then maybe that country doesn't even
have digital identities and they

don't have a fixed address or of
proof of address from utility bill.

That's going to satisfy, you know, Western
lender or even the lender known country.

So.

And that's where the anonymity and being
able to do this digitally is great.

Coming back to that.

Yeah.

They're always collateralized loans.

The risk of not knowing your
customer in that kind of environment

is less, that's a big part.

Yeah.

And so you've got collateral.

So that takes away that risk.

Now we've thrown off and use collateral
in traditional consumer lending because

it's clunky and it's hard to know what
things are worth and people's assets,

or, you know, all sorts of random things,
but that's what the crypto solves.

So you don't have to worry about
somebody has to bring in an old

VARs into the, the bank branch and
somebody has to see what that's, where.

I'm actually going to speak
to a porn dealer soon for

the show who, who does that.

But, you know, for most lenders would
say, well, we'll give up on the collateral

and instead we'll go heavy on the
credit checks and the identity checks.

So we know exactly who you are.

And what we've seen with us landing
is we can do away with some of the

identity checks and some of the credit
checks because we have this asset

and we've got enough faith in the
asset that we're comfortable against.

We've got a lot of people who had
assets, but they weren't the sort

of assets you could easily lend
against top end of the market.

Sure.

You might have like a stock portfolio
on the New York stock exchange,

and then you can get a loan against
that from your private banker.

But yeah, there's not many people are
getting that, but people are building

these digital assets and there's lenders.

They end it because it's so global.

I think it also gets over that where
know you might live in a country.

That's much more risk averse.

It's a small country where there's
not enough people to justify.

It doesn't matter because you just
part of a global, global trade.

And I think that's why I hear
a lot of talk in the lending

world from emerging markets.

And that's not because emerging
market lenders want to do it is

because emerging market customers
are saying, these are my assets.

Why won't you lend to me?

I've got X number of hundreds of
thousands of dollars in this asset.

Yeah.

I think there's a lot of market
incentive too, to get that.

This is a place they have to be looking.

They have to be getting somebody to
understand no more in the FinTech

space, perhaps first, but looking
at how are we going to land?

How are we going to leverage the wealth?

Our customers have to
give them better credit.

I think we need to be very clear
about borrowing against crypto.

Yeah.

As I said, it's already widespread in
crypto, but it's, I would already be

concerned that people are overleveraging
their crypto asset, which has the

potential to drop 50%, which crypto
does in sort of a months time.

We say, we saw you in 87 crash in normals
stocks and shares was kind of similar.

So we know even highly developed
markets can, can drop that much.

So my, my concern is that, you know,
as derivatives appear in crypto,

more and more, it could have anything
destabilize the market because,

um, you know, you've just got that
much more leverage in the system.

It's something that has to happen,
but you know, this is where

regulation is useful because, you
know, ideally you're you're limits.

We're hoping that as part of a regular,
you know, robust regulatory regime, there

will be some of these kinds of lending
limits that will appear on these assets.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Which has risking introducing
a whole lot of more confusion.

If we're saying it's all these complex
financial programs with two relatives

and short selling and margin calls
without going into it too deeply.

This, this is another area where
blockchain is really useful.

I mean, the whole concept of a
blockchain is every single transaction

between every wallet is recorded
and is available to anyone to sell.

What that means is that you can,
you can see where the risk is

setting somewhat, you know, which
wallets is anonymized at the moment.

You know, it's what it is.

We don't know which individual it is or
which institution, but I think, you know,

there's something called the travel rule.

That's appearing whereby you're
sending between anonymous wallets.

You're going to have to identify
the person, sending out, identify

the person who's receiving.

There's companies like
elliptic and chain and RCS.

Who will begin piecing these
together and making it public.

So you'll be able to see who's doing
what, which, um, we haven't worked in

OTC derivatives for investment banks.

You see there, it's very opaque
and it's, you know, it's highly

leveraged and it's, it's very risky.

So.

Being able to have transparency of
the whole trading or transactional

record within crypto is going to be
very interesting or it's got allow

regulators or at least risk managers,
hopefully to have a much, a much clearer

picture of exactly what's going on.

Yeah.

It ended up that there really
is a lot of momentum in this.

It's not just excited headlines in the
news that Bitcoin's not going up again.

Autonomy.

So much is happening in the background.

It's so much more developed and mature.

This has all ecosystem now at a crew.

I see one of the key points you pride
yourself on is being a human team.

That's open to talking to consumers,
to help them get through this

fear of the unknown and get
involved in the crypto space.

If anyone listening is interested
in opening an account with a crew is

interested in crypto as an asset class.

What's the best way
for them to learn more?

Where should they go to look
or to start a conversation?

I mean, one thing we've invested
heavily into sort of ahead of some

of our customer growth to make
sure we don't have a bottleneck.

There is, is our customer service team.

We've got a really, really talented
customer service team that are there to

answer and educate and ask questions.

Educate customers.

I may make the whole experience.

Hopefully something open above where
you expect elsewhere because customer

service is, is been historically very
poor in, in crypto with people waiting

months to get responses because the growth
has been so crazy that the exchanges

haven't been able to scale their teams.

So in terms of what people just
need to do, accrue AQR, you don't

IO, go there or go on the app
store or Android, download the app.

We've got Intercom.

That's baked into the product.

The team have that 24 7
to answer any questions.

So just put them in the chat.

There'll be, there'll be prompting you and
saying, look, we're here if you need us.

And then yeah, I mean, I I'm, I'm always
trying to speak to people as well.

I think staying close to the customer
is, is incredibly important and we've

never stopped doing that as a business.

We want to speak to as many
customers as we can just yeah.

Just get in touch.

You know, we, we make
it as easy as possible.

We're not hiding behind anything
and you can find me on LinkedIn,

ask me any questions there as well,
more than happy to help myself.

I can.

Great.

Well, thank you very much, Phillip.

It's been great having you on the show.

As I said, it's opened my eyes to the
amount of change, amount of growth

that's happening in the background.

Really interesting for me and really,
I think interesting for the audience as

well, who I feel like many of them will
be in a position I am where we, maybe

we do less than we thought we'd had.

So certainly a field I'm going
to have a new look at, um, yeah.

Been a pleasure having you on the show.

Thanks so much, really appreciate it.

And thank you all for listening.

If you haven't done so already, like
share and subscribe to the show.

Hard to lend money to strangers is
written, hosted, and edited by myself.

Brendan LaGrange, the theme
tune and show music is by.

And you can find show notes, written
transcripts, more in depth articles and

details on how to book me for speaking
engagements@wwwdotarttolendmoneytostrangers.show.

I'll see you again.

Next Thursday.

it's me again, just in case you've
had your full of lending talk.

Did you know that I've also
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And butterfly hill are both available
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