Antti ArponenFounder

United Arab Emirates - Dubai

Pyypl is the next generation consumer financial services company in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia.

Pyypl is a "DeepFinTech" company, not the typical "thin" mobile app running on 3rd party providers' systems. Pyypl is connected to global private and public blockchains, and to 200+ financial institutions globally. We use AI/ML in compliance/AMLCTF/fraud/biometrics/etc, and we own and operate a full digital financial services infrastructure ourselves.

Prior to Pyypl, at Virgin, some of us current Pyyplers built the challenger mobile operator business from zero since 2008, transforming the telecoms industry from traditional models into digital. Virgin Mobile has won nearly all digital and user experience awards in the Middle East and Africa. Virgin Mobile has reached same customer satisfaction levels as Uber and Apple, and is in a league of its own compared to other telcos.

Prior to my 12 fantastic years at Virgin, I spent 10 years in high-growth technology businesses at Yahoo!, Telia, Zed, ABB and ACN, living in Amsterdam, London and Helsinki.

Although I studied Finance at Helsinki School of Economics, and Telecoms Engineering at Helsinki University of Technology, it is the people, creativity, brand and growth that I love in my workdays. To balance the strategic level, I love being in the field with the sales teams, deep-diving into analytics with the data wizards, brainstorming new products with product managers, planning and optimizing marketing with digital gurus, and overtaking human capabilities with AI/ML algorithms.

Interests: Financial Services, FinTech, PSD2, e-Money, Open Banking, Digital transformation; Brand; People; Big data; Advanced analytics; Market disruption; Innovation; Regulatory; Government; Leadership; P&L; Product management; E-Commerce; eCommerce; IoT; Internet of Things; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Machine Learning; ML