GoBear, Aegon’s FinTech partnership in Asia, has appointed Adrian Chng as its new CEO. The move coincides with the planned expansion by Asia’s only independent insurance and banking comparison website to Indonesia.
Chng succeeds Andre Hesselink, who led GoBear from its foundation in 2015. During Hesselink's tenure as CEO, GoBear has grown from its home market of Singapore to serving millions of users across Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
GoBear remains one of the fastest growing Fintech startups in Asia, having served over 29 million users, enabling them to compare over 2,000 different personal finance products. The company covers six countries and is about to enter Indonesia.
FinTech start-ups
Chng is one of Asia's foremost FinTech startup entrepreneurs. He has co-founded two FinTech startups and sits on the board of many others. Most recently, he was CEO of Fintonia, a merchant bank he founded in 2015 to invest in FinTech companies in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region and Hong Kong.
In addition, he co-founded Credolab and AsiaKredit in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The key drivers behind the ventures, according to Chng, are a strong commitment to helping customers and the community thrive, and creating employment.
There is no doubt that faster, cheaper and easier access to basic financial services improves people's lives
Adrian Chng
Chng is best known for leading Asian jobs portal JobsDB.com, a key achievement of which was combining expertise with JobStreet.com through a its AUD 1 billion merger with JobStreet.com in 2014. "There is no doubt that faster, cheaper and easier access to basic financial services improves people's lives," Chng said. "That's why I am so excited to be joining GoBear right now. We are in the middle of launching new products and expanding into new markets like Indonesia. We're reaching more and more people every day."
GoBear
GoBear was launched as a partnership between global insurance company Aegon and Walvis, a Dutch venture capital fund. Originally staffed by three people, the company now employs over 100 people (19 nationalities).
Aside from Chng, the other members of the management team are Ivonne Bojoh, Frank Stevenaar, and Marnix Zwart.
Hesselink is moving back to the Netherlands, but will continue to be involved as a Special Advisor to GoBear and its shareholders, Aegon and Walvis. The shareholders have thanked Hesselink for his "great entrepreneurship and contribution to the development of GoBear".
Hesselink commented, "I am proud of how much GoBear has accomplished, becoming a leading Asian financial comparison platform. I would like to thank the employees, partners, and users of GoBear for making this possible. I will really miss my day-to-day involvement with GoBear, but I am very confident that the company is in very capable hands to make it even more successful."