ViewTrade Chief Growth Officer Laksh Gangwani joins Mayank Singh on The Exponential Show to discuss how technology, changing investor expectations and local market structures are reshaping financial services across Asia-Pacific.
From overnight U.S. equity trading and tokenization to artificial intelligence, Gen Z and the evolution of financial infrastructure across APAC, the conversation focuses on a central question: How can financial institutions use technology to create better outcomes without losing sight of trust, regulation and the problems they are actually trying to solve?
Guest: Laksh Gangwani, Chief Growth Officer, ViewTrade
Host: Mayank Singh
Show: The Exponential Show
Recorded at: True Digital Park, Bangkok, Thailand
What Does This Conversation Cover?
In this episode, Laksh Gangwani shares his perspective on several developments shaping financial services and global investing infrastructure:
- Why overnight trading should be viewed as additional market infrastructure rather than simply an extension of traditional U.S. trading hours.
- Why financial institutions should define the problem before adopting tokenization or other emerging technologies.
- How AI is changing the preparation and decision-making layers of work.
- Why human judgment remains important as AI becomes embedded in financial-services workflows.
- How Gen Z could change expectations around financial products, user experience and customer outcomes.
- Why APAC cannot be approached as a single financial market.
- How local regulation, tax structures, technology and market maturity influence financial infrastructure decisions.
- What ViewTrade’s work in Thailand illustrates about solving structural challenges through industry collaboration.
- Why trust and alignment with customer outcomes remain fundamental to financial services.
Why Does Overnight Trading Matter for Investors Outside the United States?
Laksh describes overnight trading as additional financial-market infrastructure, particularly for institutions and investors located outside the United States.
The important distinction, in his view, is the customer for whom the infrastructure is being built.
For an investor or institution already operating during regular U.S. market hours, another trading session may offer limited additional utility. For customers in markets such as Singapore, Thailand or Australia, however, access to U.S. securities during hours that are closer to their own working day can address a different operational and user-experience requirement.
Rather than evaluating overnight trading only against regular U.S. market hours, Laksh argues that it can also be considered in the context of the local trading sessions available to customers in other parts of the world.
As the infrastructure develops, greater institutional participation, market connectivity and liquidity could influence how these sessions evolve.
What is Laksh Gangwani’s View on Tokenized Stocks?
Laksh’s view is that the starting point for tokenization should be the problem being solved, rather than the technology itself.
Tokenization can offer meaningful benefits in areas where existing processes are inefficient or where digital representation materially changes how an asset can be issued, transferred or serviced.
For listed equities, however, he argues that financial institutions should examine the full market-structure implications before assuming that tokenization or instant settlement automatically produces a better outcome.
Questions institutions should consider include:
- What problem does tokenization solve for the customer?
- Does it materially improve the existing market structure?
- What new liquidity or funding requirements could it create?
- How would settlement processes need to change?
- Who bears the operational and infrastructure costs?
- Does the new model improve the customer outcome?
The broader principle is applicable beyond tokenization: technology should solve a clearly defined problem rather than be adopted primarily because it is part of a current technology cycle.
How is AI Changing Financial Services?
Laksh describes artificial intelligence as both a significant technology shift and a practical productivity tool.
One framework he uses in the discussion is the distinction between the preparation layer and the decisioning layer.
The preparation layer includes activities such as gathering information, organizing data, drafting initial material and identifying issues. These are areas where AI can increasingly accelerate workflows.
The decisioning layer involves judgment: interpreting information, assessing context, understanding consequences and deciding what action should ultimately be taken.
As AI assumes more preparation work, Laksh expects employees to spend more time applying expertise, judgment and accountability.
This distinction is particularly relevant in regulated financial services, where speed and automation must operate alongside risk management, compliance and human oversight.
Is AI Replacing Jobs in Financial Services?
Laksh’s perspective is that AI can change the scope of jobs as much as it changes individual tasks.
Within ViewTrade, he describes teams using AI-enabled workflows to expand the range of work they can perform. One example discussed in the conversation is an internal compliance workflow designed to help marketing teams identify potential issues more efficiently while retaining human review.
The broader opportunity is to make specialized organizational knowledge more widely accessible and help employees perform work that previously required more manual preparation.
For financial institutions, the challenge is therefore not simply adopting AI. It is deciding where automation adds value, where human judgment remains essential and how roles should evolve around those capabilities.
What Does AI Mean for Gen Z and the Future Workforce?
Laksh argues that younger, digitally native workers face disruption from AI but also have an important advantage: they are often already comfortable building, experimenting and working with digital platforms.
In the episode, he describes an example of a young intern who used AI tools to build a trading application before joining the organization.
For Laksh, examples like this illustrate a broader change. People entering the workforce may increasingly be able to demonstrate practical capabilities without following the traditional sequence of entry-level tasks that previously served as the starting point for many careers.
His advice is to develop the ability to move from preparing information toward interpreting information and making informed decisions.
How Could Gen Z Change Banking and Wealth Management?
Gen Z’s impact extends beyond the workforce.
Laksh expects digitally native customers to have very little tolerance for unnecessary friction in financial services. Access alone may also become less differentiated because younger consumers have grown up expecting products and information to be available digitally.
That places greater emphasis on outcomes.
Financial institutions may increasingly need to ask:
Is the product simply providing access, or is the overall business model aligned with creating better outcomes for the customer?
The conversation also explores changing expectations around relationships with financial institutions. Younger customers may be less likely to remain with a provider purely because of a longstanding relationship and more likely to evaluate the quality, usability and outcome of the service they receive.
Why Isn’t APAC a Single Financial Market?
One of the most important observations in the conversation is that APAC should not be treated as one homogeneous financial-services market.
Each country has different characteristics that affect how financial products and infrastructure should be designed.
These can include:
- whether the market is primarily creating or preserving wealth;
- the maturity of its financial system;
- tax structures;
- regulatory frameworks;
- technology readiness;
- availability of local technology talent;
- investor behaviour;
- existing institutional relationships; and
- local operating requirements.
For ViewTrade, Laksh explains that market-entry decisions begin with a different question:
What problem can we solve that makes the local financial ecosystem better?
That approach means the appropriate model for Thailand may be different from Australia, Singapore, India or another market in the region.
Thailand: A Case Study in Financial Infrastructure and Collaboration
Laksh uses Thailand as an example of why local financial infrastructure requires more than importing a technology or brokerage model from another market.
ViewTrade has worked with the Association of Thai Securities Companies (ASCO) and other industry stakeholders on issues connected with Thailand’s KYC framework and the infrastructure required to support Qualified Intermediary participation for eligible financial institutions.
The initiative illustrates how a problem that initially appears to be an operational inefficiency can involve a combination of tax, regulatory, documentation and market-structure requirements.
Instead of approaching Thailand solely through product distribution, Laksh describes ViewTrade’s approach as working with the local ecosystem, supporting existing industry relationships and investing in local market expertise.
The broader lesson is that cross-border investing infrastructure needs to account for local regulation and operating realities rather than assuming that a model developed for one jurisdiction can simply be replicated in another.
Why Does Local Market Expertise Matter in Cross-Border Investing?
Cross-border investing can appear simple from the customer’s perspective: open an account, fund it and access another market.
Behind that experience, however, financial institutions may need to coordinate onboarding, KYC, tax documentation, market connectivity, execution, custody, settlement, reporting and regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions.
Laksh describes effective infrastructure providers as absorbing much of this complexity so that their clients can focus on the experience they provide to their own customers.
This is also why local presence matters.
Understanding local market structure, regulation, operating practices and institutional relationships can help infrastructure providers identify problems that may not be visible through technology alone.
What Should Financial Institutions Prioritize When Adopting New Technology?
Across AI, tokenization, overnight trading and other areas discussed in the episode, a consistent principle emerges:
Start with the problem and the desired customer outcome. Then determine whether technology improves it.
That means asking:
- What problem are we solving?
- Who benefits from the change?
- Does the technology create a materially better outcome?
- What new operational, regulatory or infrastructure requirements does it introduce?
- Can it operate reliably at the scale required by a financial institution?
- Does it strengthen or weaken customer trust?
This problem-first approach can help organizations distinguish durable infrastructure improvements from technology adoption driven mainly by hype.
Why is Trust Still Fundamental to Financial Services?
The conversation closes with a broader discussion about the role of trust.
Laksh argues that financial institutions are able to operate because customers trust them with money, information and financial decisions. Technology may change the infrastructure through which financial services are delivered, but it does not remove that underlying responsibility.
That makes customer alignment particularly important.
For Laksh, one of the most important questions financial-services firms can ask before making a strategic decision is:
Will this decision strengthen customer trust and improve the customer outcome, or could it create a trust deficit?
That principle connects many of the topics explored throughout the episode — from AI and tokenization to market access, APAC expansion and the design of financial infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
1. Overnight trading is an infrastructure question.
Its relevance should be considered from the perspective of customers outside the United States and the markets in which they operate.
2. Tokenization should begin with a defined problem.
New infrastructure should demonstrate a meaningful improvement over existing systems before institutions redesign established processes around it.
3. AI is shifting work from preparation toward decision-making.
AI can automate and accelerate many preparatory tasks, while human expertise remains important for judgment, accountability and regulated decisions.
4. Gen Z will raise expectations for financial experiences.
Frictionless technology and access may become baseline expectations, increasing the importance of customer outcomes.
5. APAC is a collection of distinct markets.
Regulation, taxation, market maturity, technology and customer behaviour differ significantly by jurisdiction.
6. Cross-border financial infrastructure must incorporate local context.
Technology alone cannot address every challenge involved in connecting financial institutions and customers to international markets.
7. Trust remains a core financial-services requirement.
Innovation should ultimately strengthen the relationship between financial institutions and the customers they serve.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is overnight trading?
Overnight trading refers to trading activity that takes place outside the traditional U.S. daytime market session. In the context of this conversation, Laksh discusses its potential relevance for institutions and customers outside the United States who may want access to U.S. securities during hours that better align with their local time zones.
Why is overnight trading important in Asia?
For customers in Asian markets, traditional U.S. trading hours occur late at night or early in the morning. Overnight market infrastructure can potentially provide access during hours that are closer to the customer’s local trading day, subject to the availability, liquidity, rules and risks of the relevant trading venue or service.
What is tokenization in financial services?
Tokenization generally refers to representing an asset or associated rights digitally using token-based infrastructure. Laksh argues that institutions should first establish what customer or market problem tokenization is intended to solve before determining whether it provides an advantage over existing infrastructure.
Will AI replace financial-services professionals?
The episode presents a more nuanced view. AI is expected to automate or accelerate many preparation-oriented tasks, while human professionals continue to play an important role in judgment, oversight, interpretation and decision-making, particularly in regulated environments.
What is the preparation layer versus the decisioning layer?
The preparation layer includes collecting, organizing and initially processing information. The decisioning layer involves applying expertise and judgment to determine what action should be taken. Laksh expects AI to perform more preparation work, increasing the value of skills associated with the decisioning layer.
How is Gen Z changing financial services?
Laksh expects digitally native customers to demand lower-friction experiences and place greater emphasis on outcomes rather than access alone. Financial institutions may therefore need to rethink product design, customer relationships and how their incentives align with the customers they serve.
Why does financial infrastructure differ across APAC?
APAC markets have different regulatory regimes, tax systems, levels of wealth and market maturity, customer behaviours, technology ecosystems and institutional structures. Infrastructure models therefore often need to be adapted country by country.
What role does Qualified Intermediary infrastructure play in cross-border investing?
The U.S. Qualified Intermediary framework relates to withholding and reporting requirements for eligible non-U.S. financial institutions handling certain U.S.-source income. Appropriate KYC frameworks and operational processes can be important components of QI participation. Institutions should obtain appropriate legal and tax guidance regarding their specific obligations.
What is ViewTrade’s approach to financial infrastructure?
As discussed in the interview, ViewTrade focuses on B2B financial infrastructure and works with financial institutions, broker-dealers, wealth firms and fintech platforms. Laksh describes the company’s approach as starting with the client’s problem and working to address the underlying operational, technology or market-structure complexity.
Disclaimer:
This content is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and reflects views expressed during a recorded interview. Certain statements may represent the personal views of the speaker and should not be interpreted as the views of ViewTrade or any of its affiliates unless expressly stated.
Nothing in this content constitutes investment, legal, tax or financial advice, an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security or financial product, or a recommendation regarding any investment, investment strategy or financial service.
References to market structures, trading sessions, artificial intelligence, tokenization, regulatory frameworks, tax arrangements, products or services are illustrative and may be subject to change. Availability of any product or service is subject to applicable laws, regulations, jurisdictional requirements and relevant contractual terms.
Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Readers should consult appropriately qualified professional advisers regarding their specific circumstances.
