Daniel Shin’s contributions to the e-commerce and payments industries have helped transform the online shopping landscape in Asia. The prolific entrepreneur has launched several innovative businesses over the last decade. These businesses include:
- The payment platform PortOne Global.
- The company builder Fast Track Asia.
- One of Korea’s largest e-commerce platforms is Ticket Monster (TMON).
As an angel investor and experienced entrepreneur, Shin has accrued valuable insights into sourcing talent, supporting start-ups, and testing new business ideas.
Daniel Shin discusses the story behind PortOne Global, explains the latest trends in payment services, and shares advice for fledgling entrepreneurs and investors.
Introducing PortOne Global
PortOne Global is an omnichannel, end-to-end payment solution for online businesses. The platform currently supports around 2,500 merchants with every stage of the online payment process, from integration to billing.
The Singapore and South Korea-based company offers several advantages. These include integrated payment API (application programming interface), all-in-one payment data reconciliation, and many value-added applications. These applications span from customizable checkouts and cross-border payments to payout services.
PortOne Global also offers clients consultations on payment optimization.
One Integration, Numerous Payment Methods
Shin founded PortOne Global after managing payment systems while running TMON. Due to the fragmented nature of Asia’s payment landscape, the business leader found it a challenge to guide a team of engineers to integrate every available payment option.
PortOne Global resolves this issue: The platform serves as a single API that simplifies how online sellers link, implement, and manage various payment options. These payment options may include e-wallets, bank transfers, credit cards, and account-to-account payments.
Expanding Into New Markets
PortOne Global provides connections to major payment service providers (PSPs) across Korea, South Asia, and beyond. These PSPs include, among many others, Alipay and WeChat Pay. Working alongside global partners like PayPal, PortOne Global users can accept international payments and expand their businesses worldwide.
Daniel Shin launched PortOne Global in Korea, but the business is globalizing quickly. With support from major investors like Nyca and SoftBank Ventures, the company continues to build a comprehensive fintech ecosystem with the world’s leading tech companies. Today, the business generates an annual total payment value of approximately $9 billion.
In addition to Korea, PortOne Global now has a presence in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and India. The digital landscapes of these new markets are less developed than Korea’s. However, Shin is excited to witness the early-stage growth of their market development.
Daniel Shin on Emerging Trends in the Payment Services Industry
In today’s digital world, there are more PSPs than ever before. With customers using so many different payment methods, e-commerce businesses must cater to these varied options so as not to lose out on potential sales.
Shin explains that one way to improve sales conversion rates is to provide a payment method that matches the customer’s preference.
In the past, providing more payment options has come at the expense of an increased engineering burden and budget. With PortOne Global, e-commerce businesses can leverage more than 100 payment options. They can offer these payment options with no more engineering work than it would take to connect to a single payment method.
PortOne Global offers merchants the ability to expand their businesses without having to enlarge their engineering teams. This is a significant advantage, especially in today’s economy, where fundraising has become tight. Shin emphasizes that it’s crucial to control costs wherever possible. This is because engineering costs are rising much faster than the rate of inflation.
The Impact of New Technology on Payment Service Providers
Shin predicts that the payment services industry will continue to see new fintech companies like PortOne Global emerge. As more end-to-end, comprehensive payment solutions become available to online businesses, merchants will have more options to choose from.
This increase in choice for merchants will force PSPs to lower their margins and improve their payment stability. (Payment stability refers to how reliably and consistently a PSP’s system processes transactions.) Shin adds that this should result in an improved experience for the end users.
Data, Machine Learning, and Automation
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is set to have a significant impact on the payment sector. A broad subfield of AI, machine learning focuses on developing computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience.
Shin explains that data lies at the heart of the payment industry. Machine learning is now enabling leading PSPs to help merchants automate tasks that were previously done manually.
Some of the tasks payment services are automating for e-commerce businesses include reconciling payment data, streamlining tax reporting, and managing supplier payouts.
Daniel Shin’s Advice for Entrepreneurs and Investors
Shin has received several awards and accolades that recognize his entrepreneurial achievements and leadership ability.
“Weekly People” has named him CEO of the Year, and “Maeil Business Newspaper” has nominated him as the next-generation CEO with the highest potential. In addition, the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Switzerland, named him the 2019 Young Global Leader.
He is well placed to offer advice to entrepreneurs and investors in the fintech space and beyond.
How Daniel Shin Tests New Ideas and Recruits Talent
Daniel Shin attributes his serial-entrepreneurship success to two factors: staying open to trying new ideas and finding great talent.
When he has an interesting idea, Shin tends to jump in with both feet. Instead of mulling over whether to pursue an idea, he has found that acting quickly and testing the idea in a lean way often proves effective.
While not all ideas lead to success, Shin notes that failures can also provide valuable lessons to learn from.
When it comes to sourcing strong talent, Shin has a laser focus. He explains that strong teams can execute operations faster. The faster you can execute your business strategy, the higher your chances of finding effective solutions and delivering results.
Licensing And Regulation in Fintech
According to Shin, launching a business in the fintech sector isn’t that different from founding start-ups in other industries. For instance, forming strong founding teams and experimenting quickly to find a deep product market fit are both key in fintech entrepreneurship.
However, one unique aspect of the fintech industry that entrepreneurs should consider involves licensing and regulation. Shin emphasizes the importance of determining your strategy around licensing as early in the start-up phase as possible.
License-heavy companies must create compliance and legal teams that deal with areas such as government relations and information security. As a result, license-heavy businesses must invest more deeply into each market.
While having a license can come with higher costs, it also offers several benefits, including:
- A regulatory framework for the company’s operations. This framework can increase customer trust and confidence.
- A competitive advantage over competitors who may find it difficult to obtain a license.
- More opportunities for partnerships with traditional financial institutions that are also regulated.
- The ability to offer a wider range of financial products and services to customers.
By contrast, being license-light can help companies scale faster across markets. These companies don’t need to observe the complexities and restrictions of regulatory requirements to the same level.
Additionally, companies that are license-light can reduce the costs associated with maintaining a compliance team and dealing with regulatory agencies.
However, being license-light may limit the range of financial products and services that the company can offer its customers. It may also create a barrier to entry for partnerships with traditional financial institutions that demand regulatory compliance.
Daniel Shin’s Early Investment Opportunities
In addition to managing his groundbreaking companies, Shin is an avid angel investor who has backed more than 40 businesses. Some of his notable investments include HonestFund, Korea Credit Data, Teamblind, Marketit, Vonvon, NBT Partners (Cash Slide), Toss Lab (JANDI), 82 Labs (Morning Recovery), Fave, and Pomelo Fashion.
On top of this, Shin is a founding partner of Bass Investment. Bass is one of the leading early-stage VCs in Korea, with over 100 investments.
As an angel investor, Shin backs talented teams and individuals with a vision to scale a business across Asia. He suggests that, as investments become increasingly competitive, it’s more important than ever to spot potential entrepreneurs early. This means backing them before the formation of their company or even before they quit their jobs.
Shin explains that any support you can provide before entrepreneurs launch their start-ups can form a valuable relationship between you and their business.
Early investment and support can make you the investor of choice once the company starts to take off. At this point, the round of funding may become competitive, with multiple investors vying for a stake in the company.
About Daniel Shin
A global entrepreneur and investor, Shin has played a pivotal role in the success of several companies by collaborating with e-commerce leaders and creating innovative payment solutions. In doing so, he has prompted a revolution in the wider e-commerce industry.
Shin has established and developed various successful fintech companies, including PortOne Global (founded in 2018), Fast Track Asia (co-founded in 2012), and TMON (founded in 2010). He has won several awards, including a Korea Internet Award on behalf of TMON.
Shin has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, “Wharton Magazine” named him one of their “40 under 40” Wharton graduates.
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