Secrets Of An E-banker

Simon Loong of fintech WeLab: Beware late-night borrowers using ALL CAPS.

- Shu-Ching Jean Chen

Simon Pui Chi Loong may be the only banker on a buzzy office floor in Hong Kong’s Central district— if you ignore an entourage of AI powered machines acting the role. Loong’s dark suit and dress shirt, a dress code cultivated over 15 years in traditional banking, stands out among a sea of T-shirts and pullovers on nearly 100 staffers in front of the computers at his startup, WeLab.

Loong may also soon have the financial hub city’s first fin tech IPO. The company, where the founder is also chairman and CEO, filed a prospectus in July and is applying for a virtual banking license as Hong Kong moves briskly toward the new financial order. (In fact, Loong has added banking execs to complement his tech squad.) A $220 million funding round last November valued WeLab above $1 billion. Loong’s pre-IPO 23% stake has been built on initial capital of $1.9 million just five years ago.

First there was its WeLend brand, now Hong Kong’s leading online-lending platform. Next was Wolaidai (meaning in Mandarin: I come to lend), a mobile lending app in China that blossomed among young professionals looking to put future take-home pay into fancy electronic gadgets. This September brought WeLab to Indonesia, a vibrant mobile market, through a fin tech joint venture called AWDA with a majority partner, conglomerate Astra International.

In China, arguably the most promising market, WeLab competes primarily with entrenched leaders like Ant Financial, Tencent’s WeBank and Kabbage, a small business-oriented fin tech from the U.S. A report by iResearch, commissioned by WeLab for its IPO prospectus, finds Wolaidai ranked in the top few in China by active app users. The company claims over 28 million.