Financial Inclusion and Diversity in Fintech with Nina Mohanty, Co-Founder of Bloom Money

This week, Nina Mohanty, CEO and co-founder of Bloom Money, joins Paul in the studio. Paul and Will first saw Nina on a panel at the SIFTED Summit in 2022 and have been fangirling ever since, so we had to get her on the show.

Nina is the American-born daughter of an Indian father and Taiwanese mother who grew up in Silicon Valley and is now a fintech founder. Paul and Nina bond over their experiences working for Obama (as senator and president, respectively) before jumping into the first article about the $800 billion sent as remittances in 2022.

“There are so many more ways to send money abroad today,” Nina explains, adding that the proliferation of remittance companies is making sending money home more accessible. She points out that rising remittances also reflect the growing numbers of migrant workers, refugees, and asylum seekers that will only continue to grow in the coming years.

The second article is about Bloom’s participation in Tech Nation’s Libra program that supported underrepresented founders in the UK tech sector. Nina laments the demise of Tech Nation; both she and Paul came to the UK on a Tech Nation visa. “It was separate where it needed to be separate and inclusive where it needed to be as well,” says Nina, referring to the balance between safe spaces for underrepresented founders and inclusion in wider Tech Nation events that Libra offered.

Although Nina has mixed feelings about such initiatives, “I will always root for these programs because there’s such a lack of diversity still, and we see really abysmal numbers for VC funding in both the US and UK.”

The third article is about how mobile money services are powering financial inclusion for women. “One thing that has jumped out at me is the state of being time-poor,” Nina says. “For some people, time is literally money.” She explains how Bloom helps people save time so they can do something more productive — or more enjoyable.

The conversation segues into Bloom Money and the concept it was founded on — “a savings club that is popular in the global South” — before the usual lightning round. Tune in to hear what Nina thinks is the evillest application of tech and her predictions for the future.

To learn more about Nina and Bloom Money: