WadzPay's Anish Jain On The Start-Up Grind
With blockchain technology, Anish Jain is building a better way to make payments. It's called WadzPay.
Anish Jain has always wanted to travel the world. During his childhood, he watched his father criss-cross the globe as part of his responsibilities for Air France. Naturally, he entered the aviation industry after graduation, working for Air Canada and then Austrian Airlines. From there, he climbed the corporate ladder and eventually moved to Singapore in 2011 as part of the Mastercard leadership team.
The same year, he oversaw Mastercard’s acquisition of Travelex’s prepaid card management business. The experience made him wonder if blockchain technology could ever be incorporated into the prepaid business. In 2018, Anish realised it was possible. He started WadzPay—“an interoperable and agnostic blockchain-based payments technology provider”.
Anish admits that it has been an arduous journey. Since financial regulations weren’t as mature back then, WadzPay couldn’t move forward and was constantly on its toes. Covid-19 exacerbated the downward spiral. Eventually, the first iteration of WadzPay, which focused on B2C, or business to consumer services, had to close.
He worked hard to pay off debts, including those owed to employees. “Then, I took charge of the situation, studied what worked and what could work, and developed WadzPay 2.0, an ecosystem that supports financial institutions with our technology and expertise.”
After being launched in March this year, Anish claims it has been going well. As part of the expansion, he is tackling some regulatory obstacles, but he is “moving forward positively”. It’s a far better experience now compared to the situation in 2018.
Finance and banking will soon be decentralised, according to him. New regulations are already taking effect in the sector, and Anish is working to position WadzPay 2.0 to play a pivotal role in the payments space of the future.
