Money 2020 Middle East took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
Now our team was live on the ground at the conference meeting with fintech leaders from across the globe.
We heard from CFTC acting chair Caroline Pham on her agency's coordination.
With the SEC on crypto clarity, and we also spoke to CEOs about the future of digital payments.
Now one of these discussions took place between our contributor and special events host Patricia Wu, who spoke to Glauber Matos, CEO of Revolut Brazil.
Have a listen.
Welcome to the first Money 2020 Middle East.
We're here at the Riyadh exhibition and Convention Center.
Now you know this is where money does business, and our next guest is changing the way you do money.
I'd like to welcome Glauber Mota, the CEO of Revolut Brazil.
Pleasure to be here.
So let's start with the news first.
You guys made an announcement about entering the UAE market.
No, such a coincidence.
The announcement came just a few years ago.
For our expansion here in the region, we have this bold ambition to be in 100 countries.
UUA region, of course, is an important one.
We have a team in place appointed CEO, and it was such a nice coincidence that just before this event in the Middle East, we got this peaceful approval there, so we are excited about the opportunity in the region.
Yes, and speaking of expansion, Brazil was the first expansion market in Latin America, and in 3 short years we've seen so much growth.
Talk to me about that journey and the milestones.
That's the revolutory.
Everything happens so fast.
So, I joined Revolut about 3 years ago.
We established a business on everything needed to put the financial.
Services regulated company in place.
So go through the licensing, prepare scoping for products, prepare the team, hire the team, and then go to market.
We established the launching about 2 years and a half ago, been testing, got prioritization for the rest of the range of products that Revolut has to offer.
I'm happy to deliver that to the market.
So speaking about the range of products, what have you been focusing on, how, what kind of traction have you seen and then what's next?
So Brazil is a very competitive market, as you know, and The average Brazilian have 6 different apps to solve financial services issues.
Yeah, so they, they are relatively young, tech savvy, so they embrace new technologies.
That's the perfect fit for Revolut.
We have implemented solutions that solve everything finances for people worldwide, so we get the best we developed abroad and now deliver it in Brazil.
So. is a great place to test new things, to innovate.
That's together with the local payment infrastructure that very well developed and became a benchmark worldwide.
We do have an instant payment infrastructure called PIS.
That's a huge case of financial inclusion.
People saw things 24/7 instant on their cell phones, and now we just connect this with the best what Revolut can offer and have the best of both like the local products and the global services.
So speaking of like these products, what is next?
Are you focusing on credit? is that what I understand?
Brazil credits many quarters.
People have a cultural habit to use credit cards even though they pay the bill on time most of the time, they used to.
The finances to the credit card bill, so we cannot ignore our behavior and have to adapt ourselves as well, even though we already established with debit card payments, investments, and many other things, it's important to also enter to the credit card businesses.
We already launched actually we are testing in phases and gradually implementing new product offering together with the credit card to establish one of the premium credit card offering in the market.
So this is our next key milestone for this year.
So you know you had mentioned 6 different apps on their phone for financial services, so very competitive.
How do you ensure that customer loyalty and that they're coming to Revolut, that's at the center of their financial lives.
This is the Revolut's secret sauce.
Revolut is a very product driven company.
We don't look much for the segmentation for the competition, of course they're important to take into consideration of their actions, but we're very product driven.
We focus on delivering the best products for the clients, the one who can solve all finances they need in one place in a good safe.
And friendly use space with a relatively low cost added real value to the clients once they test it and they like it, they do recommend and this is the strategy to go to market for Revolut everywhere worldwide, right, the global financial super app like.
