We’re trying to change Malaysia via a personal finance app

Hey I'm Izzy, ex-Bank Negara. New account to separate from personal. Doxxing myself here to try do something good

I left BNM a few months ago. From what I saw, the players in the banking and insurance industry do a lot of dirty things to squeeze money out of regular people like me and you.

• rewarding bad insurance/unit trust agents, who keep on selling despite deceptive practices
• loans approved for people who clearly cant afford, just because salesman and loan officer both get commission
• making billions in profit a year, yet only a taik hidung amount goes back to society. csr contributions for the sake of it
• price of products and services that keep rising to satisfy shareholders while the product remains equally shit

I want to try to change this. Not via politics, NGO or policies, but via technology and a pretty sick plan. Politics is just a losing battle, NGO unsustainable, policies will remain laughable for as long as we lack enforcement. Technology is much more accessible and faster.

Over the past 1.5 years I've been working quietly to lay the foundations – building a feasible strategy, building up my network, and spreading my reach to individuals spanning various companies and industry players.

Today I've built up an informal network of 30+ people, who want to see change. Economists, researchers, analysts, and others, all domain experts in their own fields.

What I'm building:

1. In the short term, the first thing I'm building is a fintech startup (Duitlah). A company to help the little guys. We want to combine all the collective experiences our network has and democratising it to everyone for free (all the subject matter expertise, institutional experiences, common malpractices etc). Our app takes this, and takes your finances into account (current investments, current insurances, debts, goals, retirement, savings). Then our AI will guide you to not fall prey to common tactics, while helping you understand your options before you make big decisions and even discover the parts you missed out on. Eg: should you buy the car you wanted, are you overpaying insurance without realising, how do you invest properly given your risk profile, etc
2. In the long term, if our user base grows, we can start to make big changes. Using the collective userbase and our deep understanding of the industry, we can strategically apply pressure and make demands against industry players – to innovate, to reduce prices, and to improve services. We won't shout and scream on social media, we’ll do it with documented facts and the proper channels. All we want is fairer treatment of consumers, so that people get the quality of financial products/services they pay for. There is another thing we plan to do, which is what will really flip the industry upside down if we pull off. This was what got us 100% success rate in getting everyone onboard. I will not share it publicly, but I am sharing this to tell you we have a real plan, a real shot at making a change. You might need to put some trust in this stranger.

I’m not doing this alone. We're a small team of AI engineers, developers, an AI product manager, a UI/UX designer and a data scientist, plus people with industry experience who are helping in the background. Most of us are volunteering. Only I am working full time. This avoids us having to fork out huge amounts for salary, and avoids us slipping into a desperate position to make money.

"How do we sustain and make money?"

We plan to make the base app free to use, and our knowledge will be shared for free. But we’re not a charity. To reach the scale where we can make real change, we need income to sustain long enough. But our principle is we do not over-profiteer. We’ll introduce other things with a price tag eg auto-scan receipts, AI guidance, etc.

"Why would I trust your app?"

Money tracking app isn't a new thing. So if you've been using them, same thing here. If you're still worried, we are adopting the same anonymity principle as Reddit. We dont ask for your name, phone number, or any bank logins. You only input what you want to input, nothing is mandatory. Basically, we will have no idea who you are. You will be just a random 16 digit id in our app

My ask for today: Tell me whether this resonates with you. And if it does, who'd like to contribute, whether with stories, expertise, testing, or ideas.

• If stories or ideas, share them below. Could be about your bad experience with banks, insurance agents, car workshops, claims.
• If it's expertise, DM me. We need to validate first, we intend on keeping our knowledgebase pristine. I'll share the deets how this plays out and you can choose whether to proceed
• If testing, we’re launching by end of this year. Comment 'beta' if you want to join beta testing and I’ll DM you

I’ll read every reply, answer what I can, and share updates here as we build.