Cultures have no borders
May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month.
The financial services industry has a key role to play in shaping a truly borderless financial world
The 2020 US Census revealed around 20 million people in the country identified as Asian, and with ancestries spanning 75 ethnic and national groups and more than 100 languages spoken, AANHPI is far from being a monolithic group.
To understand how that translates to challenges and opportunities when it comes to financial services, we need to dig deeper into what makes up the community — a diverse and growing population.
According to Pew Research Center, around 57% of Asian Americans, including 71% of Asian American adults, were born outside out of the US, and Asian Americans are projected to be the largest immigrant group in the country by the middle of the century, surpassing Hispanics by 2055.
The median age of US-born Asians was 19, while that of foreign-born Asians was 45. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 58% of those born in the US were Gen Z and a quarter were Millennials, with 27% of Asian Americans living in multigenerational households. Nearly one in five self-identifies as a family caregiver.
From an economics contribution perspective, one in ten businesses in the US was Asian owned in 2021, and 42% of companies that went public in the last two years in the US have at least one Asian Pacific Islander co-founder.
According to Goldman Sachs, Asian Americans hold 10% of Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry since 1980, represent 11% of American doctoral degree graduates, hold 13% of college-educated STEM jobs, and have driven 19% of high-impact US patents.
However, while Asian Americans tend to do well economically compared with the overall population in the US, income and poverty rates vary greatly within the group.
Against that backdrop, here are a few questions and opportunities worth considering.
- How can we best support Asian American business owners? Think about the tools that they’d need to manage their businesses, as well as the ability to establish and build credit as they embark on and continue through their entrepreneurship journeys.
- Beyond traditional wealth management, what products and services will such multigenerational households benefit from? How can the financial services industry best cater to households and individuals with family caregiving responsibilities — from planning to providing care? And what about those who need to straddle between different households or even countries?
Fintech start-up Pomelo is a great example. Launched in 2022, the fintech facilitates remittances from the US to the Philippines via a “send now, pay later” model. Users can send money abroad via Pomelo’s credit card product directly to GCash, a popular mobile wallet in the Philippines, while building up their own credit at the same time.
Although the diversity of the AANHPI group is not always captured in studies, ample opportunities exist for financial institutions to explore how best to serve a growing and evolving community and stimulate economic growth domestically and beyond geographical barriers.
What unites us is more than the colour of our skin. Our shared identity also gives us a chance to celebrate our similarities and differences in a country that we call home.
The rise of the internet and mobile technology has created a globally interconnected world. The financial services industry — from main street banks, community banks, and credit unions to fintechs and minority depository institutions — has a key role to play in shaping a truly borderless financial world.
About the author
Theodora Lau is the founder of Unconventional Ventures, a public speaker, and an advisor. She is the co-author of The Metaverse Economy (2023) and Beyond Good (2021), and host of One Vision, a podcast on fintech and innovation. She was named one of American Banker’s Most Influential Women in FinTech in 2023. She is also a regular contributor and commentator for top industry events and publications, including BBC News and Finovate.
