# Infini's Christian Li wants one financial OS to follow founders from personal to business Neo, a Stabledash show. Sep 1, 2026. Christian Li. https://live.stabledash.com/shows/neo/episodes/the-financial-os-for-global-founders-DnRwOiGmLM4 The Hong Kong stablecoin neobank founder argues that compliance and bank relationships, not technology, set fintechs apart, and that agents should execute financial work rather than only advise. Christian Li dropped out of college and spent about two years learning fintech before starting Infini in 2024 with teammates from payment companies. The company, which describes itself as a financial OS for consumers, SMBs and indie developers, began as a consumer neobank and then extended to business banking. It has shipped about 30 features in the past year. ## From consumers to founders Christian Li says Infini started from the APAC community, especially Hong Kong and Singapore. He says building for consumers and for businesses is a "total different experience", from onboarding to user acquisition to the product itself. "We believe that in the future, actually, there's no like exact boundary, you know, between the the personal life and their business life," he says. Infini planned to launch its mobile app the following week. Using Airwallex as a reference point, he says the target user is the prosumer and that the company could serve customers globally if its product is good enough. ## Corridors in Asia Christian Li says the major FX flow in Asia is still between the US dollar and hkd, as people collect funds in dollars and need them in Hong Kong dollar bank accounts. He notes Hong Kong issued its first legal Hong Kong dollar stablecoin this year, while saying there is still a long way to build. He also reports fast-growing demand from Africa, where people convert local currency to stablecoins and send it back, and more interest from Korean consumers and businesses in crypto solutions since this year. ## Compliance over technology For Christian Li, a sustainable fintech depends on compliance and reliable relationships with banks. He says the boundary between Web2 fintech and crypto is disappearing. He calls crypto neobanks "very boring right now" because infrastructure providers make it easy to start one and everyone is doing the same thing. ## Agents that act Christian Li expects agents in finance to change, arguing that data and privacy matter on the financial side even though large model providers build good products. He says agents should execute work for users, especially around payments and transfers, not just advise. Taken together, Christian Li is betting that Infini can stand out among similar neobanks by carrying founders across personal and business accounts, keeping compliance and banking partners as the base, and adding agents that move money instead of only advising. ## Key takeaways 1. Christian Li started Infini in 2024 as a consumer neobank and later added business banking, and it now offers products for both. 2. Christian Li says there should be no boundary between a founder's personal and business banking, and Infini planned to launch a mobile app the following week. 3. He names USD to hkd as the main FX flow in Asia and wants agents that execute tasks like invoicing and reconciliation. ## Chapters - 0:00 Infini builds a financial OS for consumers and SMBs - 2:07 Prosumer demand pushed Infini from consumer to business banking - 4:40 Business products need workflow integration that consumer apps lack - 7:08 Offshore Hong Kong entities, not mainland China, are the opportunity - 11:01 Infini plans to grow from APAC to global prosumers - 13:43 Personal and business banking should merge for founders - 17:14 USD to HKD is the main Asian FX flow - 20:14 Compliance and bank relationships matter more than technology - 23:17 Agents that execute tasks will set neobanks apart ## Transcript **Host** (0:00) Value transfer is nothing new. Hunt, gather, trade, expand. An exchange that's older than instant. The strongest prevail and the fastest survive. The function remains as its form continues to accelerate forward. **Dakota** (0:46) Christian, welcome in. What's going on? How are you today? You're going in OS. **Drew Rogers** (0:52) Where where are you at in the world right now? In Hong Kong. So **Christian Li** (0:57) that's, like, 01:30 in morning. **Drew Rogers** (1:02) Well, hopefully, you're a night owl. We... It's always a pleasure when we get to interview people from from all over the world. We, like I said, we record in in US time, so so thanks for staying up today. Or I don't know. Maybe you're already up at this time and now the the life of a founder CEO. Work never stops. Drew, you were gonna ask something. What do you wanna dive into first when we're talking about the financial OS **Dakota** (1:26) for for Christian, we'd love to start with an introduction. Tell us a bit about what you're building, and we can kind of pick pick pick things apart from there. **Christian Li** (1:36) Sure. Yeah. Again, thanks for having me. I'm Christian, founder of Infinee. We are actually building a financial OS that made on, you know, to all the consumer and also all these SMB and indie developers. Yeah. So we've been filing 2024 and, you know, starting as a new bank for consumer, then we extend to business banking. Right now, we actually provide product for both of it. Yep. Tell us a bit about the... **Dakota** (2:07) We've seen this. Right? Like, we've seen companies... And just for context, Neo is this part of our show that we're working on with Dakota. And they... It's been really interesting. I think we've we've interviewed about over... Well over a dozen teams building building in this conversation. And something we've seen is this evolution from retail or personal banking to business and to institutional. Was that always the plan as you started the business, or speak a little bit about the evolution there and why why you went down that path? **Christian Li** (2:42) Got it. Yeah. So we've been, you know, beginning with a consumer bank... You know, new bank as, you know, one of the fast growing bank in APAC region. And after, like, half year, we actually find out, you know, actually, instead of building a consumer bank only, you know, the new emerging group. For example, the prosumer, the indie developer are actually grow very fast, and this group actually need a financial who can help them deal with all the, you know, payment, asset management, treasury management, and, of course, you know, using agent to actually improve the efficiency, especially for this OPC and also the small team who actually couldn't afford accounting or, you know, a finance team. So so we say, maybe this actually is the opportunity for the future neobank to combine the Symbolcoin or blockchain, crypto, and AI agent together to actually, you know, help them solving the problem. So that's kind of the goal here for us, actually, to solving all of these. So, actually, we spend the past year to actually build a product that could serving, you know, majority of the purpose, you know, of the payment, whether you are accepting the payment using, you know, the payment link or checkout page, or actually if you, you know... Especially for these people or, you know, startup who live outside The US, it's actually very important for them to actually having this, you know, money rails to move their, you know, money cross borderly, especially to, you know, using these good, you know, infrastructure that US, you know, some of the bank or the fintech company has built. So I think... Yeah. Right. Maybe you're starting from last year, this could be something that interest or never happened before. So that's kind of the, you know, story in the past year for us. **Drew Rogers** (4:40) What what is drastically different between building for businesses and building for, like you said, the prosumer, the consumer, the freelancer? Because I think on the surface, these apps look the same, But what are some of those nuances that you're finding that you're having to add or that customers are coming and asking you to integrate that, like I said, starts with Mhmm. Draw a clearer line and and really make these feel like differentiated products? **Christian Li** (5:05) Yeah. I I think in the past few years, you know, when you are trying to build a software... Building a software, actually, it's actually a very different experience when you are targeting for the consumer or business. For example, like, you know, when people are building b to b software for enterprise, especially for fintech, you know, whether it's onboarding process, user acquis... User acquisition side, or actually, you know, the the product that actually student, I think it's, like, total different experience. So we start as a new bank for consumers. So actually, probably we're more good at, you know, better at, you know, building a product that actually could let the people onboarding themselves. So we find out, especially in Asia, there's still lack of the product. You know you know, majority of the payment company in Asia actually have a large team for, you know, customer service, you know, their product. You know, probably, you know, when a customer trying to onboard with, they probably need time and, you know, many, you know, help from the team. So actually, we're seeing for the prosumer, the first is the user acquisition side is kind of different than all the b to b enterprise. But in... On the other hand, I... You know, in the past, you know, when we're trying to build a consumer new bank, actually, there's nothing related to workflow. You know, as a founder, you are more, you know, targeting or focused on, you know, how, you know, how how is the onboarding process more different, or you have a, like, a better, you know, rotation rate. But actually, for business side, there are much thing to... Many things to do, especially, you know, ways like a SMB SMB. It's nothing same with enterprise. But, of course, you actually need to enable and, you know, build more deeply to integrate with other work... Workflow, especially on the financial side. So I think that kind of major thing that we discover and working on. Yep. What what is it what **Drew Rogers** (7:08) is it like? Help us... Bring us into, like, the perspective of building neobanks specifically for Asia, and I think China especially. We we had Eugene on from OSL. We're seeing kind of this... They're feeling a lot of tension between US dollar backed stablecoins in China from a regulatory perspective, but also this need for it. You know, I think, for example, my dad's pinned up for for baseball gloves. He's been talking with a manufacturer over there, and he's trying to order Mhmm. Order samples. And he's like, they're sending a Swift, and I'm sitting over here like Mhmm. This is horrible. We're gonna have to wait. The tracking numbers... But on the other hand, it doesn't feel like that they know necessarily another option exists. We've also talked with Etherfuse. They're doing some work with Kazakhstan for stablecoins, stable bonds, again, to really bolster these corridors into China. So what what do you think people misunderstand about maybe the neobanking space specifically in... On Asia or even more granularly in China? And what do actually... The businesses there need. **Christian Li** (8:08) Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I I assume when we talked about China, it's actually the two part. The first part is the onshore, which when we're talking about Mainland China. The second part is actually the offshore. You know? People usually register in Hong Kong. You know, they operate as a Hong Kong entity to actually, you know, selling product, whether it's, you know, software or hardware or, you know, product. I I believe there's many, you know, product who are selling to the globally everywhere. So for money, you know, when we talk about finance or fintech, it's actually kind of same. In China Mainland, of course, there's actually not many opportunity for any young, you know, team founder or startup because, you know, you you have, like, giant fintech company or like Alipay, Alibaba, you know, like WeChat Pay. So act... The super app, the money scrap in China is, like, very, you know, dominant and popular, you know, of course, I think the products, you know, super good. But when we're talking about offshore, especially for the global money movement, I think it's still different. AirWallet, for example, is probably one of the famous company recently. They are, you know, starting as a, you know, b to b company who providing the merchant account and also the, you know, paying and payout service. Right now, they they also, like, be sent to a super app, but they are, like, major target for b to b b to b company. You know, for us, you know, we we actually sort of both, and we can find out whether they are the consumer or the business. They all need, you know, kind of like all the solution, whether it's on the car issuing side. For example, especially right now, there's more, you know, software. There's more AI, you know, dominant world. People actually need these, you know, virtual car, for example, to pay out a spend online, especially when they are, you know, they are more and more AI company, you know, AI software. There's, you know, some company who grow really fast. So I I I think the difference in the last ten years, actually, all the new entrepreneur will start from from now actually are, you know, working more closely with globally. And, of course, at this moment, I think whether it's stablecoin or is fiat, you know, US dollar, that's something people need, but infrastructure is still kind of behind. Yeah. And, of course, I think the first question is always about regulation in Hong Kong. I think, you know, for example, they actually kind of issued the first, you know, Hong Kong dollar civil queen this year legally. Of course, I think there is still a long way to build, but I but I actually believe the financial system right there and all the... Whether banking or the fintech company can actually grow, you know, once everything is settled. Yep. **Dakota** (11:01) You you mentioned just sort of the the landscape that you're building in in the APAC region. You mentioned Airwallex. It does seem like in the last six to twelve months that that organization has just exploded in terms of popularity and volume, and their recent fundraise was massive. What do you what do you feel like, you know, an organization like that got right? Or or as you think about growing and building and deepening the impact for what you're building in that market specifically, like, what are some of these things that you're thinking through? What might be unique in the market you're going after that... Yeah. Maybe an American audience, I think we have the majority of our listeners right now, are either in The UK or The US that might be misunderstood about, you know, the region that you're building in. **Christian Li** (11:58) Of course. Yeah. I I think we start from APAC community, you know, especially in Hong Kong, Singapore, know, these kind of the major regions in APAC for, you know, for any money movement or fintech. Yeah. But, of course, right now, we are also trying to expand, you know, just like what Air Wallach did, of course. They also start with, you know, this, you know, offshore corporate who actually need to, you know, dealing with the money movement globally. For example, they need to collect funding, you know, in... Whether you're in US or in Europe or in Africa. I think this is actually the same kind of thing. Yeah. So for us, I I think it's... You know, we've been spent years on building this product to make sure, you know, everything... Every part... Because, you know, we are not actually building a very niche protocol or product. We are actually trying to build a financial OS. Of course, for a young, you know, team, it's more difficult to build since you need to actually, you know, be good or actually be best in every part of it. But actually, other hand, you know, since we have this, you know, AI power, all the efficiency, we actually build really fast. We've been delivering, like, 30 features, you know, everyone's. So, actually, in the past year, even though we are still a, you know, young team, we're trying to, you know, become better. But still, we already have, like, financial OS who have the footsteps on it. Yeah. So... Yeah. So I I I think for us, the target user is actually the prosumer. Of course, we start as a APAC. But in the future, I think especially if our product is good enough, we can actually provide the service globally in any, you know, region that we can, you know, legally or have licensed out. **Dakota** (13:43) So prosumer sounds like the kind of interesting mix of, like like, SMB, solo entrepreneur, not like a massive enterprise, but someone who's kind of in that, like like, founder focused Yeah. Smaller organization, but it's still, like, maybe driven by one single or a couple single people. Is that what you would contextualize as a, like, a prosumer? **Christian Li** (14:09) That's correct. Yeah. So we've been trying to serve the founders especially. For example, like, actually, we're gonna we're gonna launch our mobile app in the next week. We've actually combined probably just like what Revolut or actually Mercury has achieved. We believe that in the future, actually, there's no like exact boundary, you know, between the the personal life and their business life. So, you know, because we've been seeing like a lot of the fintech product, you know, if a founder in US, probably you've been, you know, use like many product, you know. For personal, you'll probably use your own personal banking. For corporate, of course, you might need, you know, a corporate banking or a fintech just like what Rand and Brex provide... Or Mercury provide. So at Infiniti, actually, think this process should be more smooth. There shouldn't be, like... You know, it shouldn't be changed to something else because, you know, in Infiniti, whether it's for personal app or for your team, you can actually convert, you know, or, you know, swap very easily and smoothly. We've been trying to connect everything together. As a founder, of course, in personal, you can have your crypto card. You can, you know, enjoy the, you know, one of best the strategy, you know, for your asset management. Of course, you know, there's always the moment when you're saying, hey. I'm I'm ready actually for a... On a, you know, company to actually build you something interesting. Then I I think even it's right here, you can know... You know, you you can actually open a business account in one minute and trying to, you know, add more feature out. Of course, you know, have more customized workflow for, you know, all the scenarios that actually business require instead of a personal one. So that's something we think probably gonna be more meaningful as we also discover just a lot of funders. You know? They're probably just OPC who are solo entrepreneur in the first, offers to go expand. Yeah. But still, I think in the future world, you know, there probably less of the company are made by the large enterprise. There will be, like, more and more SMB, just like what RENT, you know, made very successfully in US. I think that's also a trend, you know, globally. **Drew Rogers** (16:23) Yeah. You know, this isn't the first time we've heard this, Drew. I'm sure both of us are thinking like a flex right now and talking with Eric and this this convergence of, like, business and personal banking. It also feels like I'm kinda surprised that more founders haven't thought about this. I'm thinking about the local SMB that's been banking with the credit union for years, and they're like, yes. We just wanna take care of you and your whole entire life. We want to make sure you're good on your mortgage and your business account and your personal account and your retirement. And I think about my parents. I'm like, they don't want five different banks for all these different accounts. They want one place to go. I also think of Alvin from from where he's like, people will trade where they bank, not bank where they trade. I think it's kind of like a similar idea of where, like, you'll probably also bank your personal finances where you finances. I wanna shift gears a little bit, though. When we think about, Christian, from, like, from a builder perspective right now working in in Asia where there's especially, like, this... There's there's a ton of different currencies flowing in and out. Where... What... What's hot right now outside of the US dollar? Which corridors are really strong? And maybe which corridors, know, there's there's room for improvement and maybe are on on your radar right now that you're looking for partners in. Bring us into, like, the current state of maybe FX flows in Asia. **Christian Li** (17:46) Sure. Yeah. I I think the major FX flow in Asia is still between the US dollar and Hong Kong dollar, which is... Actually, I I I believe because I I I saw some data, you know, so, you know, you know, have conversation with Fran at Circle, you know, our friend who are, you know, doing the payment, you know, business. I think the major money flow is, you know, people collect fund in US dollar, and they actually need to offer them, you know, to Hong Kong dollar Hong Kong dollar to their bank account because they afford majority of the corporate are incorporated in Hong Kong, and they usually have a Hong Kong bank. So I would say, you know, for volume perspective, this kind of the major rose. Of course, right now, gradually, you can see outside of the US dollar, there's actually more, you know, you know, movement between, you know... I I think another way is to whether Hong Kong dollar or Singapore dollar because, you know, these are still the center of the APAC economy. And in other hand, I think, especially, you know, for example, if you are a Hong Kong company, probably you are, you know, targeting, you know, regions in Africa. Know, we've been selling a very fast growing demand or the market there. People collecting the local currency in Africa and, you know, they're trying to convert to single coin and send back then, you know, offer them to $1 or Singapore dollar. Think it's still a, you know, very fast growing rose right now. **Drew Rogers** (19:12) What about for REA? Are you seeing any there? Any demand there? What's what's what's... What about with any any For **Christian Li** (19:21) us, to be honest, we we didn't discover, like, many movement between the, for example, Hong Kong or Singapore to Korea. But, of course, I think Korea is a very interesting market. You know, of course, they have their own regulation or policy, But we can see the Korean... For example, Korean consumer or even Korean business are, you know, more interesting or explore the crypto solutions than before. I think in the past, from my understanding, you know, Korean are very good at or they are more interested at trading, you know, especially this, you know you know you know, this trading movement in in the past two years. Yeah. But I can see since this year, there's more, you know, asking where there's more market opportunity in the Korean community when we're talking about these signals. **Dakota** (20:14) Would love to dive into the... Kind of build here and how you have built this product, something that we've been exploring. Either I... I'd imagine on the personal and business side, there might be some differences, but I'd imagine a lot of similarities. Like, what what... When you thought about building this, what were some of the key infrastructure decisions or partners that you might have utilized Mhmm. The buy then build kind of question? Like, what what did you build in house versus what partners or key key pieces to this business are you partnered with to build it? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So... **Christian Li** (20:56) Because, you know, we are kinda like a young team, and we... Of course, my teammate who are working in, you know, the fintech or, you know, payment company before, but... Because I just dropped off from college. So I think the the first lessons were the most important lessons. It took, you know, two years for me to learn exactly for, you know, building a fintech company. The most important thing is sustainable and, you know, a healthy business model, so that will require actually more on the compliance side, especially when we gradually find out the, you know, the boundary between the, you know, Web two fintech and crypto are actually, you know, are are actually disappearing. I I think, you know, these two are actually combining together. So that mean actually to building... Even we are building a stablecoin or a crypto payment product, it still requires, you know, tons of work on the compliance side. For compliance, of course, you know, of course, a, you know, MMA policy, a, you know, a compliance, you know, structure could enable and make sure, you know, we can build in long term. But in other hand, I think when you... You know, when I... You know, the big lesson I learned is actually the rules, the providers, the relationship with all the banking and PST are also super important for fintech. Of course, in the, you know, in in the future, you know, the product are different. Right? Because there are more... There might be product who can solve your, you know, problem or question in ten minutes. There are maybe problem... Problem, you know, product who solve these in, you know, ten days or a month. Of course, the product who can, you know, solve the problem as soon as possible will win. But, you know, on the hand, as, you know, we build this gradually, you know, besides all the user experience, beside all the, you know, agent that might actually change dramatically. I think it's still the fundamental part for Fintech is still if you are having, you know, these live... Reliable, you know, so one of the best, you know, commercial term without relationship with bank, you know, whether it's on the bank to provide the virtual accounting or, you know, paying per payout service or the issuing bank to providing the card issuing or the... Any other, you know, thing. I think that's still **Drew Rogers** (23:17) some of the most important thing for us to, you know, to build in the future. What are you most excited to see come to life? Like, things that you're maybe... You know, that you're... Like, early stage or early stages of building? You... I... You know, we have this vision even though I think you mentioned for, like, the AI CFO. What do you see on the horizon that gets you really excited? **Christian Li** (23:38) Definitely. I I think we are trying to finding some, you know, interesting way about, you know, how people interact with their money or finance. Because, you know, neobanks, especially crypto neobanks, is very boring right now because every... Everyone is doing the same thing. Right? Because right now, you know, thanks to the infrastructure, you know, provider, you can actually fund and start a new bank very easy. But still, I think in the future, it's still, you know, you know, when there's tons, there's hundreds of fintech or new bank, I think the problem is still is if you can delivery fast enough, if you can actually, you know, the workflow of all your customers, and you can actually deliver them with a better product. I think that's super important. And right now, I think, of course, you know, every team has their execution speed. Someone deliver fast, someone probably not. Someone could provide a good, you know, for example, customer service, someone who, you know, didn't care about their customer. That's different. But on the other hand, I think the understanding from agent is still very, very, you know, have, like, mass opportunity. For example, Revolut just launched their personal Asian, like, two months ago. But still, I I think it's actually kind of the... Shocked me when these giant are still, you know, move kind of slow on their side, on adoption of the Asian side. We we... Of course, we see some, you know, good fintechs are are building this, but still, you know, I I think people are still, for example, people now, they probably still prefer to use GPT or, you know, Cloud as a, you know, financial agent for them. But I think this is definitely gonna change because, you know, of course, you know, they are the best. You know, LM offers they are building the good product. But still, when we talk about financial side, data is important. Privacy is important. And, also, agent is not about giving otherwise. Agent should be something who can execute this for you, especially when it is related to money or, you know you know, payment or transfer. Yeah. So that's something we're trying to build, whether providing a personal agent, financial agent who can actually advise and, you know, do a, you know, good... You know you know, for example, have a, you know, plan for you for any consumer, especially for this consumer who doesn't have much experience, you know, on their financial life before. I think that's super important, and I think that's also something we try to build. We are not trying to build a, you know, a product who, you know, you know, just launch with the consumer, and we are actually trying to help with them to improve their, you know, financial life or, you know, the schedule Yeah. For their future. As for the, you know, as for the for the business side, it's actually the same. We've been discovered there's tons of the funder who does not... For example, me, before building Anthony, I'm not, you know, that good with all the financial side too. Then, you know, you know, I force myself to learn all of these. And of course, I I think, of course, 90% of the founder, they should be focused on their product instead of, you know, taking care of all the financial thing. Of course, I think before they can, you know, actually afford a CFO or a, you know, financial team, I think agent could definitely help them to work on this. So that's something we've been trying to build it on, the ASFO we're gonna launch, who actually help them, you know, whether it manage their, you know you know, invoice, payment, or actually schedule the, you know you know, just lot of, like, reconciliation work for them to do. Of course, there'll always be financial report. There'll also be forecasting. I think, you know, cash flow runaway is, like, super important for founders, but still, you know, many of them still, you know, are no idea what happened. So that's something we're trying to target out, and that's something we're trying to provide a pro... Proactive agent who can actually think and work in advance. I think that's something meaningful for the future, you know, founders. **Drew Rogers** (27:48) Awesome. Christian, thanks for coming on today and diving in. Appreciate you staying up late. We gotta transition. We have our next guest, Sebastian, joining from Portola. Mhmm. So if credit is on your mind right now, if you plan to be on, maybe stay tuned for this next segment because credit is definitely a hot topic within neobanks from our end. But thanks for coming on again today. Was great to Have a good have a good sleep. No worries. Have a good sleep. No pressure. Thank you so much. Yeah. You can find the interviews on YouTube later. **Dakota** (28:17) Chris, thanks for the time. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Thank you for the time. Catch them Bye. Later. **Drew Rogers** (28:22) See you.