Kredivo ramps up consumer lending push

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In focus

• ​​BNPL provider Kredivo Group makes a big move in Vietnam
• ​​An OpenAI engineer shares tips for breaking into AI systems engineering
• A look back at our map of digital banks in Southeast Asia

Hello reader,

For a Filipino like me, traveling to neighboring Southeast Asian countries a decade ago would mean having to exchange money. Last January, however, I spent three days in Bangkok, Thailand, without spending any paper bills.

I did it out of need and as a form of personal experiment: Could I survive the city without any cash? I was on a media trip, so some food and transportation needs were covered. Beyond that, I managed to go to malls on my own, relying mostly on Grab, which allows cashless transactions. Whenever I needed to take the metro, I paid for my ticket through Alipay+ with my GCash account.

Fintech has definitely changed consumer payment behavior in Southeast Asia. More changes are expected to come as consumer lending drives the next phase of development for fintech companies in the region. This means these firms want us to borrow more from their platforms, not just spend.

Our first top story points to this shift.

Buy now, pay later giant Kredivo Group has acquired Vietnamese digital bank Timo, as the Indonesian company looks to deepen its push into broader banking services in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia. The move is set to intensify Kredivo’s competition with MoMo, another homegrown fintech giant.

We take a closer look at the people building the tech behind today’s chatbots, too.

The second story features a conversation with one of the systems engineers at OpenAI back when the company was still building GPT-3. While model engineers focus on making sure ChatGPT comes up with the right answers, systems engineers ensure that it runs efficiently at scale. Our source even shares how she landed the coveted role.

Elyssa Lopez, journalist

Top Stories

1️⃣ Kredivo targets Vietnam banking with Timo deal

Photo credit: Timo

This acquisition would be Kredivo Group’s second M&A play in the past year, after it snagged earned wage access startup GajiGesa in 2025. With the Timo acquisition, however, the BNPL giant could extend a lot more offerings, thanks to the digital bank’s expansive ecosystem.

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