Disrupting Fintech And Empowering Digital Nomads Worldwide

Idorenyin Obong, CEO of Grey, discusses his journey from fintech expert to an industry disruptor offering innovative global banking solutions for digital nomads and remote workers.

With over seven years of impactful experience in the fintech industry, Idorenyin Obong has established himself as a key player in driving innovation and excellence. His career includes technical roles at leading companies like Busha, Paystack, and Yellow Card, where he honed his skills in scaling brands, optimizing operations, and enhancing financial performance. Recognizing a gap in the market, Obong, alongside Femi Aghedo, co-founded Grey, a finance app that has quickly become a game-changer for remote workers and digital nomads, offering secure and seamless global banking solutions.

In this exclusive interview, Obong, affectionately known as ‘Idee’ by his inner circle, delves into his journey, sharing insights on his dedication to advancing the African fintech landscape, his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, and the significance of corporate social responsibility in building a platform as impactful as Grey.

Q. Can you share the story behind the founding of Grey in 2020? What inspired you to start this venture specifically for remote workers and digital nomads?

A. Our founding story began in 2019, although the company officially started in 2020. I lived in Lagos, Nigeria, working for international companies like Auth0 and Busha. As a remote worker, I needed to receive international payments in USD, but getting a local USD account was very hard. It took almost three months to complete the process – multiple trips to the bank, filling out forms and finding referees who were current account holders. Afterwards, I also had to figure out the conversion to local currency. The tedious and lengthy process led me to call my co-founder, who faced similar challenges. We realized there was a gap in the market that we could fill. By late 2019, we decided to build a solution, and by 2020, Grey was born.

Q. How did the global pandemic influence the creation and early development of Grey?

A. We started building Grey properly in early 2020, January to be precise, and the pandemic became full-blown a few months later. The pandemic further exposed the inadequacy of the current payment options, especially for people in emerging markets like Nigeria. Apart from exposing those gaps, we also saw that the pandemic created a new market because many companies in the global West were getting more comfortable than ever with hiring people from these regions. The pandemic changed the attitude of employers and created space for our proposed market at the time to actually grow.

Q. Grey’s mission is to make life easier for digital nomads and remote workers. How do you see this mission evolving in the next five years?

A. I like to say that it’s still the early days for us at Grey, as there’s so much we want to do for remote workers and freelancers. When we started the mission, we focused on one or two countries. But in the last few weeks, we have expanded our reach to serve other customers across Latin America and Southeast Asia. So, in the next couple of years, the first thing, mission-wise, is expanding this reach some more. There are still a lot of customers and countries that are emerging markets that we can serve in the coming years. Still, within our mission, payment is very broad, and people say that payment has still not been permanently fixed, especially in places in Africa and the Middle East. We are experiencing that firsthand while trying to build this solution. And I think that something we’re willing to do to achieve this is to build infrastructure in certain markets. Because in our target market, you just realize that there are inadequate infrastructure options for you to serve the market with and that is something that we need to do to actualize our mission.

Q. In what ways does Grey go beyond just facilitating payments to truly make a

difference in the lives of remote workers in developing economies?

A. At Grey, we are not just concerned with receiving and sending payment. We like to see ourselves as part of our customers’ entire journey. From when they get the job to receiving their paycheck, to how they want to spend, budget, save, build wealth, and send money. These are the things that influence the initiatives and product features we are rolling out for customers. So, we aren’t just sticking to sending and receiving payment. For instance, last year, we rolled out an expense tracking feature where our customers can get insight into what they spend and how they spend. Later this year, we intend to roll out a new feature that enables customers to save and earn interest. So, we don’t just want to be part of the first and last phases of our customers’ financial journey. Beyond that, we also try to build partnerships to improve the lives of remote workers and digital nomads outside of payments. We have partnerships we rolled out in the last couple of months that give them access to affordable health and travel insurance because they’re always on the move.

Q. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages of Grey, especially concerning financial regulations in different countries?

A. When you start out with fintechs, there is a huge possibility that you will not be able to acquire everything you need from day one. So, one of our approaches was partnering with licensed entities before we went ahead and applied for certain licenses and money service business registrations across multiple countries. Compliance is a continuous thing, not a one-off. We had to figure out the market and how we would position ourselves, compliance and regulatory-wise, to further expand our services, and so far, so good; that is going well for us.

Q. How does Grey address the specific challenges of currency exchange and transfer fees for remote workers in emerging markets?

A. So, on average, banks charge you 3% to 5% for currency exchange. Then, if you look at international payments as a whole, including transfer fees, that might rack up to over 6%; in places like Africa, it’s about over 7%. So, we took an approach that made us very fundamentally different from banks. We provide offshore accounts, so if you are trying to receive payment from the US, we are giving you a US bank account, and doing that means that the sender is paying you via their local payment scheme, ACH, for instance. So, if it’s paid from ACH to ACH, the fees are not as high as if you were to receive payments in a local account in Africa. That’s one of the things we do to ensure we reduce the cost of sending and receiving money. So, we’re optimizing for payment schemes across these regions. Also, if our users want to send money across borders, since we’ve partnered with different local payment players in different regions, we are able to offer this service at a good speed and an affordable cost. Through these partnerships, we’ve been able to drive down the cost on average from previously over 6% to somewhere around less than 2%.

Q. Are there any upcoming technological innovations or features that Grey plans to introduce to further support remote workers and digital nomads?

A. Yes, we want to roll out a couple of features in the next few months. One of them is savings, which I mentioned earlier. We are trying to enable our customers to earn an interest on their money. This has been one of the major requests from the customers for over a year now. Something customers have also requested a lot is physical cards for transactions. These are some of several features we plan to roll out soon.

Q. How important are partnerships for Grey’s growth, and can you highlight any key collaborations that have significantly contributed to your success?

A. Partnerships are crucial to Grey’s growth. Initially, we collaborated with parent businesses to launch, and since then, we’ve teamed up with like-minded companies. For example, partnering with Cellulant accelerated our entry into East Africa. We also worked with Moringa School to provide tech education to future remote workers, aligning with our mission and allowing us to grow quickly and effectively.

Q. What qualities do you look for in potential partners, and how do these partnerships align with Grey’s mission and goals?

A. The major thing we look for in partnerships is an alignment of goals. Case in point: Cellulant. They aim to provide payment solutions, which align with our goal of making it easy for remote workers and digital nomads to live and work in the modern world. One of the core requirements for that is payment.

Look at Moringa School and Insured Nomads as case studies. These examples show that we are all on the same mission. Connecting with them felt like an absolute no-brainer because we are aligned. So, the major thing here is alignment.

Q. What opportunities do you see for Grey to expand its services or enter new markets in the coming years?

A. When we started this company, we were focused on just a few countries, and now, we have opened up to 10 countries. So definitely, we are looking to expand the number of countries we will be able to serve and deepen our market penetration in these countries, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. These are the core markets we want to serve. In the next couple of years, apart from just expanding to more countries within this region, we want to cover a lot of markets here.

Q. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to start a fintech company focused on financial inclusion and serving emerging markets?

A. Well, I think there are still many opportunities in fintech. It isn’t just about what we are building here. So, for upcoming entrepreneurs, if you are convinced about what you are doing and there is a market for it, then go for it! Build an MVP, launch as soon as possible, try to get partnerships to propel your growth, and move fast! So, I’m saying… just launch!

Q. How do you stay motivated and inspired as a leader in the fintech industry, and what keeps you passionate about Grey’s mission?

A. If you asked me before 2020 or 2019 if I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I would have definitely said no. But now, because I am solving a personal pain point, my motivation may differ from what you would typically see with other startup founders. So, this alone gives me a natural motivation every morning when I wake up because this is personal to me, and I’m focused on this segment of customers in the market. Also, seeing the success of it so far is very motivating. When we hear people talk about our products, services, and how good they have been, it also fuels the desire to continue. You could walk on the road and stumble on people speaking about Grey, and it is really pleasant.

Q. How has your background and personal journey influenced your approach to

leading?

A. I had the opportunity to work at three different fintech startups before founding Grey: Busha Digital Limited, Yellow Card, and Paystack. These experiences spanned various stages of startup development, providing valuable insights. At Busha, I was the first engineer and was involved in the intense early stages, working closely with the founders. Yellow Card, which I joined at the seed stage, had a product but no mobile app, and I led the development of the app, which served over 10 countries. Paystack, on the other hand, was more mature when I joined, giving me exposure to a more developed startup environment. Each experience offered unique leadership lessons tailored to the startup’s life cycle, which has been instrumental in building and positioning Grey. My diverse background across these stages has thoroughly prepared me for this role.

Q. What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned as the CEO of Grey, and how have they shaped your leadership style?

A. I think the most important lesson, and this is for all startups, is ‘speed’. One advantage a startup has over other incumbents they want to ‘disrupt’ is speed because if you are doing things at the same pace as the incumbents, then how are you really different? How are you going to disrupt them? What works for them also most likely would not work out for you, so you have to be able to find different unique ways of getting things out. And so, I think startups should continually optimize for speed, and I think that has influenced my leadership style. Nonetheless, sometimes you need to put the brakes on because, with financial services, it’s a lot more tricky because of regulations. But generally, I think people should optimize for speed, and that’s what we do over here.