For SMU Master of IT in Business graduate Vaibhav Kanth, every digital transaction represents an act of faith. Behind the scenes at one of the world’s largest delivery platforms, he oversees an invisible system of global commerce, revealing that the most valuable asset is not money, but trust.
It begins with an almost subconscious tap on a screen. A confirmation appears, an order is dispatched and the transaction is completed in seconds. In that fleeting moment, a complex architecture roars to life: data packets cross borders, fraud checks are triggered, and banks, digital wallets and card networks connect in precise sequence.
Presiding over this intricate system is SMU Master of IT in Business (MITB, 2020) graduate Vaibhav Kanth.
As Director, Product, for fintech at Delivery Hero, the Berlin-based parent company of foodpanda, Vaibhav oversees the payment infrastructure that powers millions of transactions daily across 18 countries. The central challenge of his work is not merely technical, but deeply human: engineering confidence in a process that must stay frictionless and largely unseen to work flawlessly, every time.
Front‑row seat to a financial disruption
Vaibhav sees fintech as the latest chapter in a timeless story of commerce. Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has long served as a personal reference point, reminding him that “money, credit, even companies, are essentially shared stories we all agree to believe in”.
That idea became tangible during his time working in India, where he watched small merchants — long reliant on cash — adopt digital payments.
“The emergence of real-time payments, digital wallets and embedded finance struck me as transformative for economies like Southeast Asia, and I was determined to seize that opportunity,” he recalls.
Melding critical thinking and analytical rigour at SMU
At SMU, that instinct to interrogate how systems work was matched with analytical discipline. “That rigour allowed us to scale confidently across markets, knowing the impact was both meaningful and sustainable,” he notes.
Trained as a computer engineer, Vaibhav entered fintech with a strong technical base but a growing awareness of what he had not yet studied. Beneath every seamless transaction sat financial systems he had never formally learned — clearing houses, settlement mechanisms and global payment networks that govern how money moves.
“Coming from a non-finance background, I had to build my knowledge from the ground up,” he says.
To close that gap without sacrificing technical depth, Vaibhav enrolled in SMU’s Master of IT in Business programme. The experience proved pivotal. Its interactive, discussion-driven classes pushed him to articulate his thinking, defend assumptions and refine ideas through debate — often confronting the limits of his own understanding in the process.
Used to individual execution, he found the emphasis on teamwork demanding — and transformative. Working with classmates from different professional and cultural backgrounds forced him to weigh technical elegance against regulatory realities, user behaviour and business constraints.
What I value most from my time at SMU is the mindset of evidence-based problem solving."
Vaibhav Kanth (MITB, 2020)
That mindset was sharpened further through the programme’s specialised fintech track, which blends technology, business and finance. Students learn to test hypotheses with data, challenge intuition and build strategies grounded in evidence — habits that now shape how Vaibhav designs and scales payment systems across markets.
Building trust on a global scale
Today, Vaibhav leads the product function for fintech at Delivery Hero, shaping how customers pay across a patchwork of markets and payment ecosystems.
“One of the biggest challenges of implementing fintech at scale is navigating differences in regulation and consumer behaviour,” he explains. “Every market has its own payment infrastructure and compliance requirements. What works in Europe may not resonate in Southeast Asia.”
Meeting these demands requires constant tailoring — integrating local digital wallets, meeting data-localisation rules and still delivering a consistent, trustworthy checkout experience.
At Delivery Hero, technology is used not only to solve problems, but to prevent them.
“Data and AI help us anticipate rather than just react,” says Vaibhav. “Analytics maps the customer journey — from checkout latency to drop-off points — so we can pinpoint friction quickly.”
AI then enables dynamic interventions, such as routing payments through the fastest acquirer, suggesting alternative payment methods when cards are declined, or tailoring incentives based on a customer’s likelihood to convert. The result is a payment experience that feels seamless, secure and personal.
In the volatile global economy of late 2025, however, sophisticated technology alone is not enough. Vaibhav’s approach combines treasury monitoring, robust hedging strategies and compliance-by-design systems, alongside close collaboration with regulators and local partners.
“Fintech may be about moving money, but it’s really about moving trust,” he says. “The leaders who succeed are the ones who remember that behind every transaction is a person counting on them to get it right.”
In his own words: Vaibhav Kanth on the future of fintech
On redefining customer expectations
“The biggest disruptions in fintech have been the rise of real-time payments, network tokenisation and the embedding of financial services into platforms. These shifts are moving expectations from static card rails to seamless, invisible and trusted experiences.”
On innovating with an eye on risk
“Leaders must balance speed with resilience and trust. The risks lie in regulatory fragmentation, cyber threats and over‑reliance on opaque AI models. Those who stay transparent and adaptive will set the pace.”
On creating lasting value
“Real impact often comes from solving the ‘boring’ problems, building reliable rails, reducing friction and ensuring compliance at scale. If you can take pride in fixing the plumbing while keeping an eye on the horizon, you’ll create lasting value.”
