The Secret Fintech Giant

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[00:02:44] – [First question] – The origins of Tinkoff Bank

[00:06:18] – How they started and stayed profitable, and lessons learned

[00:08:18] – Bringing Visa to Russia and what he took with him to Tinkoff

[00:10:02] – Credit cards and Tinkoff’s specific business model

[00:12:35] – Running an effective direct mail acquisition campaign

[00:15:45] – Branching off from the original core credit card business into other spaces

[00:18:45] – How he thinks about when to make competing investments

[00:21:00] – Embedding into new businesses and how it goes wrong

[00:24:50] – How they became a large door-to-door business in Russia

[00:27:55] – Why that door-to-door business makes it hard to compete with them

[00:29:38] – Challenges in the payments business 

[00:32:25] – Using content to help them grow their business

[00:35:29] – Competitive frontiers for Tinkoff and how often they shift

[00:38:45] – What the future of Tinkoff might look like and the Russian business environment

[00:41:55] – State of the market in Russia today

[00:45:27] – Recruiting talent and building culture

[00:47:55] – What he enjoys most about his job

[00:49:14] – Failures and lessons from them

[00:52:00] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him