"I think it's a good strategy. You want to go for the non-consensus play. You can't win if you're doing what everyone else is doing. You have to force a choice. You can't play the comparison game and it's true for startups. It's true for governments and tourism as well. They're forcing a choice. It's not a comparison anymore because it's so binary, one way or the other. If Thailand pushes more in this direction, maybe not specifically decriminalizing more drugs, but just doing things very differently from neighboring countries that are unexpected. I think that's how they win. That's also what we advise our startups when we invest: do something different and play the other game." - Wing Vasiksiri
"The current plan is that they’re trying to ban the recreational use of marijuana by the end of 2024. So by the end of this year, it prohibits recreational marijuana use, but it’ll also allow medical purposes for marijuana. I am very skeptical that this happens because it's very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. There are also a lot of people, a lot of stakeholders who are very clearly benefiting from this all throughout the supply chain, and then with the push to tourism, I think that this is a big thing that's attracting tourists to enter the country and come to Thailand. So, I think I'm quite skeptical that it's going to pass. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next couple of months." - Wing Vasiksir
"If you're just thinking about fintech as a whole, there are a couple of categories that are interesting for consumer fintech: banking, lending, trading, crypto, and insurance. The way I think about FinTech is it comes in waves. The first wave, typically when a technology market emerges, is usually lending. This is usually the most underserved need, like access to a financial infrastructure and markets. The second is payments remittance, and foreign exchanges. Southeast Asia is still very much in this wave as is Thailand. From there, you have insurance and then more like fundamental infrastructure, like open banking. One of the biggest takeaways is that Thailand has a very strong adoption of online payments, ranking fourth globally by transaction value of real-time payments." - Wing Vasiksiri
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on Thailand's Pheu Thai pro-business reform, cannabis, LGBTQ and gaming legislation, and fintech market study optimism with Wing Vasiksiri.
Keywords: Thailand, Pheu Thai Pro-Business Reform, Cannabis LGBTQ Gaming Legislation, Fintech Market Study Optimism, Wing Vasiksiri, Thailand, FinTech, Thought Leadership
