The Business Leadership Podcast

Salli: [00:00:00] You're listening to the business leadership podcast with Edwin Frondoso.

Eva Wong: So many people feel stressed about their finances and that impacts people's lives in such a material way, right? It impacts relationships. It impacts families. And so, I think if. Sort of everyone's life was on the way to being financially optimized

For a lot of Canadians, home ownership is one of those ultimate life goals that you need to have good credit and have your finances in order.

And so our vision really is to live in a world where people feel confident about money, where And we're borewell's playing a role in providing the insights and tools to help people make smart money decisions

Edwin: Good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening biz leader. Welcome to another episode of the business leadership podcast. I'm your host, Edwin Frondozo. And today we are featuring a special [00:01:00] episode from our future narrating mini-series recorded live at the collision conference in Toronto, Canada.

In this mini series, we explore the future of leadership, innovation, and storytelling with visionary leaders who are not just designing products. But a creating entire new worlds and markets.

Joining me today is Dr. Paul Newton and together we'll be speaking with Eva Wong. She is the co-founder and COO of BorroWell, a FinTech company dedicated to helping Canadians make great decisions about credit.

In our conversation, Eva will discuss borrow Wells offering, including credit scores, credit building tools in their impactful rent advantage program, which allows tenants to report rent payments to credit bureaus. We'll also explore Burwell's proactive approach to financial management. The benefits of financial literacy and the importance of transparent financial services. So without further ado. Here we go.

[00:02:00] We're now speaking with Eva Wong, co founder and COO of BorroWell. Eva. Nice to see you. How are you doing today?

Eva Wong: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Edwin.

Edwin: no, it's great. It's great to connect with you again. I know we've connected in the past, but I'm just going to jump right in Eva. Can you share what problem that bore well is solving, I guess, within the FinTech or the personal credit and finance, uh, financial space?

Eva Wong: Yeah. I think there are two major problems. there's like a real asymmetry of information when it comes to personal finance, I think. Where. Banks and lenders have like a lot of information and typically consumers don't necessarily. And I think that there's also just a lot of friction, it's really hard to do a lot of things.

It involves a lot of paperwork, sometimes trips in person to the bank. And so I think those two things add up to make personal finance really confusing and for a lot of people actually super, super stressful. [00:03:00] And so our vision really is to live in a world where people feel confident about money, where And we're borewell's playing a role in providing the insights and tools to help people make smart money decisions

Edwin: Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge asking, I guess, personally for me, and I guess my money mindset journey, I remember not even, well, first off. No one ever taught me money. My parents didn't teach me anything about

Eva Wong: I think that's very normal. I think that's super normal. Is that like in a lot of families? It's a taboo subject with friends. You don't really necessarily talk about money and Because people don't talk about it. There often can be Like gap of knowledge, but also sometimes like feelings of shame where you're like, oh I know I'm supposed to be like saving towards retirement or I know I'm probably not supposed to carry a balance on my credit card, but a lot of people do that. And I think that shame and not not talking about it often makes the problem worse.[00:04:00]

Edwin: yeah, I think, I think especially, I mean, like, I'm just talking personally on myself. It's not even worse than that shame. And it's like, it's like no one, because no one taught us, and I have a point to this Eva, because no one taught me. You just make assumptions and maybe they're all from the wrong place, which might be TV. And, um, and I guess for yourselves and what Borwell's doing, and when you say it's more, I guess there's a couple of things in really educating and building this tool. So it's like, where does, where does Borwell come into that journey of. I guess, understanding that, that financial journey. Is it like, what are the questions am I asking?

And this is benefits to myself and those who are listening. It's like, what, what are the key questions people are asking? And they're like, Oh, you know what? That's what borrower answer is like, like worth that part. Yeah.

Eva Wong: Yeah. I think it's quite varied. we have over 3 million Canadians who are members today. their needs, vary from person to person. I can share some of the major ones. I think for a lot of people, they come to [00:05:00] Borwell to get their credit score.

And sometimes it's just because they're curious, or maybe they're renting and their landlord's asking for a credit score and credit report. there's a lot of newcomers as well who are like, I've heard there's this thing called the credit score and it's really important, but I know nothing about it.

So for a lot of people, they come to us for information and education around credit. And increasingly, we're building tools for people to build their credit. we have a credit builder product that enables people to prove their credit worthiness. We're helping tenants report their rent to credit bureaus.

that's a relatively new product in Canada that we pioneered so tenants without needing their landlord's involvement can report their rent to credit bureaus. And the reason that we started this is that we took a look at our data and we found that people who have a mortgage have on average credit scores that are over a hundred points higher.

When someone doesn't have a mortgage while some of that could be selection bias, because you probably need to have decent credit to get [00:06:00] a mortgage. We do think that a lot of it is, it's a really big payment. Maybe you're paying, you know, $2,000 in rent and your neighbor is paying $2,000 in a mortgage.

That mortgage payment is being reported to the credit bureau. And, you know, that builds their credit history and that helps 'em improve their credit score. Meanwhile, you're paying $2,000 in rent, and that doesn't count for anything. that's something we've pioneered that we're really proud of as well.

Edwin: That's actually interesting to me. I mean, in the sense of, so if you are paying rent right now, basically for those who are listening, we go on to borrow well, and is it as simple as that, that it gets reported back to, um,

Eva Wong: so we have a, a product called Rent Advantage that people can sign up for uh oh. We could sort of like get proof of your rent payment in different ways. You can connect to your bank account or you can, you know, upload bank statements. And we've just recently actually launched an add on where you can go [00:07:00] back two years and actually report two years of past rent payments.

And so I think that's really great because with personal finances, so often there's like, Oh, I wish I had started earlier. Right. Or it's like, uh, I know that I should have you have been doing this earlier and this is an opportunity to sort of like make that up. It's like, okay, maybe you wanted to report rent, but it wasn't available.

Now you can actually go back 2 years and report 2 years worth of rent payments, which we feel like pretty confident will make an impact on someone's credit and credit score. So we're actually offering like a money back guarantee on that product where it's like. If it doesn't actually improve your credit, then we'll just give you your money back because we think it should.

Edwin: Yeah, no, that that's really great. I really appreciate that. And, and that shows a lot of leadership in terms of, I guess, Really tapping into those who are using Borrell and what's what really their needs are, because without that credit score, it really, I guess, for those who are not as financial literate. It's really a disadvantage for them purchasing something in the future, whether it's a car or a [00:08:00] mortgage or one, and if they have a lack of a, I guess, a credit score, right?

Eva Wong: Yeah, for sure. And so I've chatted about two aspects of what we do, which is understand credit and build credit. The third is what you're talking about now, which is how do you use your credit? for a lot of people, it's not just a theoretical exercise

People know that if. They want to get a car loan, they need to have good credit. Otherwise they're going to be paying really high interest rates. for people who have Good credit. They want to make sure they're getting rewarded for that. So the other thing we do is help people understand what financial products they qualify for.

We have lots of integrations with our financial partners, so we can sometimes say you're pre qualified. If we don't do that, we'll let you know based on our data. Everyone's likelihood of being approved for every product before they apply. we're also negotiating lots of special offers because of this large member base that we have now.

we want BorrowWell to always be that place where if you get a credit card through us, you should feel confident that you're getting the best signup offer [00:09:00] out there. helping people use their credit is increasingly a big part of the value proposition and why people come to BorrowWell.

Edwin: Yeah. And I'm sure your partners really appreciate that trust you've built with your community and your users because they've been there understanding their credit and then building it and going on that journey.

So that's an amazing part, Which answers my question before is like, where, where do people like really, what are the questions they're asking? And a lot of the questions could be, as you said, just understanding my credit. why am I trying to understand my credit because I want to build some assets Or do things with my life.

Eva Wong: yeah. A lot of it is life goals, right? It's like, it's even beyond financial products. It's that I want to have a home for my family. That's stable that I own, like, for a lot of Canadians, home ownership is one of those ultimate life goals that you need to have good credit and have your finances in order to achieve. But yeah, a lot of it, I think is actually more life goals than just financial products.

Edwin: [00:10:00] Eva, thinking about the FinTech industry, what have you seen that's really helping personal finance or personal credit, management have you seen from your position, the personal finance, health within Canada increasing because of different types of services and tool sets that like Borwell and maybe some other colleagues have out there.

Eva Wong: Yeah, yeah, I think for sure. Like I described two of the big problems with personal finance to be that asymmetry of information where it's very one sided and also a lot of friction. I think there's a ton of fintech companies that are trying to make things more transparent and also trying to make processes a lot easier.

So I think there's lots of great examples of that. You know, it's like way easier. Now you can open a bank account with a neobank. You can open an investment account without having to go into a bank branch. And I think just the ease with which we can do things like send money abroad or exchange like foreign currency, is way easier.

So yeah, I think there's a ton [00:11:00] that's happening that makes things easier for consumers, cheaper for consumers and puts a lot more control back into their hands.

Edwin: It's really great to see like those innovations where it's making the barrier of access to investments into all these personal tools and stuff. I guess what's really in the back of my mind, Eva, is, is it still sort of that maybe the problems that I had learning about moneys is that still happening today for the younger generations or are they learning now or because we're educating the younger generations?

Eva Wong: I do think that, uh, well, first of all, there is now more financial literacy in schools. I don't know what the outcomes of that are. I think it's a good first step, but I don't know about you. I think there's like a lot of things that they teach in schools that maybe we didn't learn. I think one of the real positive things is there's a lot of information now, even on social media, like TikTok, and I'm sure it's not all like 100 percent accurate, but I think it's helpful that people are at least having the conversation.

And it's become much more [00:12:00] mainstream, and it's, you know, demystifying things. So maybe, you know, like when you and I were growing up, there really wasn't social media. And so if you didn't have a conversation with a real life person, there wasn't really a way that you could get that information unless you were taking a book out of the library or something like that.

So now at least I feel like it's more in the mainstream where people are talking about their own personal journey, tackling debt or achieving some sort of financial goal. And so I think that's really positive that at least the conversation is coming out from behind closed doors.

Edwin: Yeah. And like you said before, where it was taboo on our side is no one talked about it. And it's, I guess it's a fresher breath there where people are discussing it. And just from that discussion, whether you are active in the discussion, it leads you to. Wanting to learn more and go down those routes.

Eva Wong: Yeah, and I think it's in a more accessible way, right? It's not as maybe daunting as having to, like, figure out what book to read and read it, like, through this huge academic [00:13:00] piece of literature, but I think it's much more accessible. And I do think there are some positive signs, at least on things like monitoring credit, that the percentage of Canadians who are monitoring their credit has increased a huge amount in the last 10 years from basically, like, no one did it 10 years ago to now, I think it's like 30 to 40 percent of Canadians get their credit score in some way, shape, or form. And there's also been research that shows if you're monitoring your credit, you're more likely to have better credit as you're like keeping an eye on it.

Edwin: That's interesting. So is that, is there any industry goals where maybe from yourself or where you're sitting or maybe Borwell where, you know what, we'd feel it's a success if 50 percent of Canadians are checking their credit. Like, is that something that's discussed internally?

Eva Wong: Yeah, I think if we look at other markets that are more advanced in terms of credit monitoring than in Canada, like if you look at the U. S. Through one company, almost 50 percent of Americans are monitoring their, their, their credit. So that for us is a personal goal is we want 50 percent of Canadians to [00:14:00] be monitoring their credit through BorrowWell. Not through, you know, anywhere, but, through us.

Edwin: I love that. We talked about where we were in collision and we were doing a lot of interviews when it came to the future and urban AI came up a lot. So I'm wondering, Eva, when it comes to FinTech or maybe Boral, well, you know, it, is there any new or major disruptions that are happening within the industry?

Eva Wong: Yeah, for sure. I think everyone's talking about Gen AI. And for us so far, we've been using Gen AI a lot internally as a productivity tool to enhance our own productivity. So to provide better customer service or to develop code or test code more quickly, we're using it in sort of quality assurance on our member experience side as well look into our responses to make sure that the quality is high. And so there's lots of internal tooling that we're using. And then we're experimenting a lot with the external side of Gen AI as well. But we just want to be fully confident that it's, uh, it's going to make [00:15:00] sense for our members and that it doesn't cause sort of like more confusion.

So for us, again, we're continually testing and we're excited about where things are going to go in the next little bit.

Edwin: That's great. when it comes to like future narratives, I'm curious, what does a future of financial empowerment for everyday citizens look like in your point of view?

Eva Wong: Yeah, I think there's a few components to it. One is, I think that like consumers should have a lot of choice. Whereas today I feel like they either feel like they don't or maybe because they don't have the credit for it, or it's like, Oh, I don't know where to go. So I just go to my bank. But I feel like the more choice there is, and the more competition there is out there, the better it is for consumers.

And I think with FinTech companies and, you know, banks having to be more competitive, there will be more choice and more products. I think it'd be great if things are done more for people or there's like a more proactive element to it. So that's something that we think a lot about at BorrowWell. We don't want people to have to remember [00:16:00] that in six months their mortgage is renewing and you have to like, Oh, I'm like behind.

I need to like figure this out. Want to be that place where it's like, we're, we're proactive in sort of alerting you to things that are coming up in your life. Oh, your car insurance is coming up for renewal. Do you want us to shop that for you so that we can find you the best rate? We're monitoring your credit.

We're monitoring hopefully in the future with,open banking your cashflow. So we can say, Hey, like we're, this is what we're noticing. Do you want to take this action and making it much more proactive on our part as opposed to reactive.

Edwin: Yeah, I guess proactive, when it comes to empowerment and just speaking in the lens with credit scores and this, I was just thinking about this right now. It just came to mind, for those renters, if the renters and their credit score was going up, it could, Something proactive is just an idea.

And I'm sure you guys thought of that about this was something like, Hey, your credit score keeps going up because you entered the renting score. And there may be a point where like, Hey, you might be able to get into a mortgage. If [00:17:00] this is something that you're thinking about or feeling or, or, aspiring to, right.

Eva Wong: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think sometimes there's this You know, tentativeness where it's like, Oh, I don't know if I'm ready for it, but maybe we can say, Hey, other people who are making your income with your spending profile with your credit profile, they are buying their first home in the next 12 months.

Do you want us to help you along that journey? What does that look like? You know, how much of a down payment might you need? for sure. There's, lots of different journeys that we could go on with our members. Another great use case, if your score is improving is a lot of times that means you can refinance existing debt that you have. you have, credit card and you haven't paid off the balance. you can qualify for a personal loan at a much lower interest rate than carrying a balance on your credit card. So that's the kind of thing we'd want to be really proactive about to say, hey, I'm Do you know what? We noticed you've got like a 10, 000 balance on your credit card.

You're paying 22 percent interest on that, which is a lot. You're pre [00:18:00] qualified for a 10, 000 personal loan with this partner. And it's an 8 percent interest rate or whatever it is. And that helps you save X dollars of interest, helps you get out of debt this many months faster. And yeah, just being really proactive around presenting potential solutions to our members without them having to go out and doing the research on it.

Edwin: Yeah. From my point of view, it seems to me that people may not be doing that research again, because of their uneasiness around their financial status and having that proactive giving me like, Hey, as a trusted email from BorroWells. I was like, Oh, I didn't know this. I got to look into this.

Of course. it's up to me. It's my prerogative to go into it now, but at least this is something I never thought of, or I should be, putting higher on my priority because it does save you X amount per cent each day. it's almost like going that extra mile and say, Oh, by the way, whether you have that insight or not, how much they owe, it's like you could save up to

Eva Wong: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And our goal is to make it super easy. So it doesn't [00:19:00] have to be like a ton of work on your side, right? It's like you log in, we present this option to you. Hopefully you just click a couple of buttons to be like, yes, that's right. Yes. I do want to like apply for this. Okay. That's great.

And ideally in the future, it's even like, okay, let's take that money and pay off your credit card for you. Right. It's like our vision of it is that you just sort of click along that. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do this. Yeah. That makes sense. And it isn't, you know, Something that you have to go and research because that's honestly like it's not gonna happen, right?

It's we live busy lives We've all got these like long checklists of things that we're supposed to do that We don't get to because life gets in the way.

Edwin: that's great. And that's definitely a time saver for sure, which optimizes people's lives. As we're thinking about future narratives and something that we getting passionate about when it comes to business leaders who are out there and speaking and building and inspiring. I'm curious, Eva, if you could share the vision of the future that you're building today.

Eva Wong: I feel like I've talked about it a little bit which is this world where [00:20:00] We give people lots of choice. We're offering proactive insights and we make it really easy for people to action those. And our vision is for people to feel confident about money because we're providing the insights and tools to help them make smart money decisions.

So yeah, I think it's not like everyone's actually optimized on a continual basis because you know, we're proactively providing insights and actionable things for them to do, if it makes sense.

Edwin: that's great. I guess where I want to get, challenge you more Eva is when BorrowWell or your vision of Getting people to that, What does the world look like when everyone has this and everything's proactive? They're not stressed and they're able to do this. Like, what does that world look like?

Eva Wong: it's probably like a bit of a ways off for everyone to be there. But I think, today, so many people feel stressed about their finances and that impacts people's lives in such a material way, right? It impacts relationships. It impacts families. [00:21:00] And so, yeah, I think if. Sort of everyone's life was on the way to being financially optimized.

I think that people would feel a lot more confident. relationships would be better. I do think the world would be a better place if, everyone was always like making good money decisions because they're unable to. yeah, I guess, I guess that's a bit of the vision.

Edwin: I appreciate it. as we talk about it, even, obviously this is just, you know, having discussion, it's like, if I could think of the people that are close to me and Don't have the money worries. Maybe they're, you know, this is just to share. This is not your vision, but it could be, but this, you know, they're living their best lives, living their passions and doing things, being fit, and like you said, in the good relationships. I guessoverall, that's an amazing vision, right?

Because as you said, finances, money is, uh, is not the root of all evil, but it's the root of a lot of stress.

I guess that's pretty good on my end. I'd love it if you could share Eva for those who are listening, any final [00:22:00] thoughts, recommendations, or any advice for those, whether they're co founders, business leaders, executives who are listening in today.

Edwin: And It could be any, the first thing that comes to mind, it could be around leadership. It could be founding. It could be finance, whatever first comes to mind.

Eva Wong: Yeah. Well, I think for other founders and entrepreneurs, I want to acknowledge how hard it is, on podcasts like this, I can make it seem easy and fun but it is a hard journey. And 99 percent of the time, no one like you was interested in what's happening.

so I think the first thing to acknowledge is that if you're finding it hard, that's a hundred percent normal. another piece of advice would be every so often to focus on the difference that you are making. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and founders are very focused on problems.

They're worried about their future and we don't necessarily take the time to look back and think about the success that we've had already and the impact that we've had already. I think that's important both personally, but also for the team. So this is something that we try to do at BorroWell every three months or so we [00:23:00] invite one of our members to our weekly all hands meeting and we just interviewed them and we learn about them and their life story and how BorroWell has had an impact on their lives.

And it's just a great reminder We're all basically just typing things into a computer most of the day. But it's helpful to know that it's actually having an impact on people's lives. And so that would be my piece of advice pause take the time to reflect and pat yourself on the back a little bit.

Edwin: I love that. Eva, I do appreciate you. I'm rooting for you to get to 50 percent credit. However, I could help on my end. You definitely let us know, but thank you for joining us on the business leadership podcast.

Eva Wong: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Edwin: That's it biz leader. Thank you for joining me on this special episode of the business leadership podcast, part of the future narrate and miniseries recorded at the collision conference.

This was a very enlightening conversation with Eva exploring how borewell is addressing critical issues in the FinTech and personal finance space.

For [00:24:00] links to all the resources we discuss. To connect with Eva and to learn more about this future, narrate a project, please slide into the show notes in the app that you're listening to right now. And if you're interested in reading more about Eva, And the other business leaders that we profiled at collision, please do join the waitlist for an upcoming book.

If you found value in this episode, please subscribe, rate and share it to the first person who comes to mind that could benefit from hearing about BorroWell and would be absolutely grateful from hearing from you. Your support helps us grow and empowers us to create more great content for you.

Thanks again for tuning in and being a part of this business leadership community until next time. Have a 100 X day.