Xendit is a leading payment gateway for Indonesia, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. With a single integration, you can enable your business to accept payments in Indonesia and the Philippines. You can use credit and debit cards, e-Wallets, bank transfers, and more. This article talks about The Woman behind Xendit.
What is Xendit?
Xendit is a Southeast Asian fintech company that provides payment infrastructure across Indonesia and the Philippines. It processes payments, runs marketplaces, disburses payroll and loans, detects fraud, and helps other businesses grow exponentially. We serve these companies by providing a suite of world-class APIs and a dashboard UI that simplifies processes.
“I’m currently changing the way financial services are provided in South East Asia. Find me in Silicon Valley, Jakarta, or somewhere in between.” Says Moses Lo
The Woman behind Xendit
Moses Lo is the CEO and founder of Xendit, one of Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30. She landed in entrepreneurship, from a career that spanned diverse sectors. She worked for BCG for several years gaining exposure to corporates. Moreover, she joined many Silicon Valley startups, namely PayPal, Amazon, Expedia, Microsoft, IBM, and Ripple Labs.
The Unicorn Co-founder of Xendit
Tessa Wijaya, who is the co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of Xendit, is a fierce Indonesian woman in the massively male-dominated fintech industry.
Calling herself “a unicorn among unicorns among unicorns”, the unconventional tycoon hails from a small village in Indonesia. She runs a $1 billion fintech start-up that allows and executes digital payments for businesses in Southeast Asia.
While women occupy only seven percent of executive positions in the Financial Technology Industry, Wijaya aims to propel a paradigm shift and inspire more women and girls to tread on less-traveled roads.
Xendit was established in 2015, and ever since has seen a massive rise in its numbers. The company provides payment infrastructure across Indonesia and the Philippines. It is instrumental in processing payments, operating marketplaces, disbursing payroll and loans, identifying fraud, and helping other businesses grow quickly. At present, Xendit carries out over 65 million transactions worth $6.5 billion every year.
“I really do want to encourage more women to be in tech,” the millennial entrepreneur told CNBC Make It.
Who is The Woman behind Xendit?
As a female-led fintech startup that received its unicorn status lately, Xendit has come a long way. Being a tomboy as a child, she looked up to her grandmother, who brought her and her cousins up by running a small food business. Wijaya believes that her grandmother inspired her to pursue her ambitions.
As a beginner in the Fintech industry, Wijaya got an interview for an analyst job at a novel private equity fund in Jakarta. While she did not have any experience in conventional financial firms, her passion and intelligence helped her crack the interview. Ever since she has been learning about the intricacies of the industry in and beyond her working hours.
Overcoming Barriers
However, Wijaya admits that life has not always been a bed of roses for her. Usually, as a minority in the company teams, she would always struggle to make her point heard. Without a degree from Harvard, MIT, or Ivy League Universities, her teammates usually overlooked her ideas. The lack of a reputable degree made it difficult for a young woman from the suburbs of Indonesia to create a difference in the industry she was passionate about.
Furthermore, Wijaya identified a loophole in the Financial systems in and around the country of her birth. She watched the exponential rise in technology with no concrete payment infrastructure. Without payments, everything else simply fell short. Luckily for her, Wijaya came across a bunch of students from the University of California Berkeley, who were creating a similar project through the start-up accelerator Y Combinator. Six years after, we received a thriving Indonesian company with a team of six hundred people, processing online payments and running marketplaces in Malaysia and beyond.
Authored by Yasmine Deraz
Edited by Yara Fakhoury
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