Samson Wong has found the sweet spot. As senior finance director for Asia Pacific at payments fintech Payoneer, he isn’t simply growing the business but also helping drive a regional expansion that will make it easier for small and medium-sized companies to trade globally and grow their businesses too.
‘There are around 80 million underserved SMBs [small and medium-sized businesses] in need of cross-border B2B financial solutions. We seek to empower them by providing multicurrency financial stack solutions,’ he proudly explains.
‘Clearing speed is important for small businesses, because they have families to feed’
CV
2019
Series of finance roles at Payoneer, Hong Kong, becoming senior FD APAC in 2024
2017
Business controller for Asia, Eurofins Hong Kong
2012
Series of financial analysis roles at Intel, Malaysia and Hong Kong, becoming FP&A regional lead APAC for sales and marketing in 2016
‘Imagine you’re an SMB owner. You put your products online and you’re away, efficiently trading globally – the world is your oyster. This should be within anyone’s reach, just by a few clicks of a button. That’s what we believe in.’
Complexity simplified
But cross-border transactions are notoriously complex, particularly for small businesses in emerging markets. Furthermore, because traditional banks may not have the best infrastructure to serve them, small businesses can struggle to pay vendors and employees, and even themselves.
Payoneer’s clients can be as small as husband and wife setups, selling souvenirs or handcrafted products through marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. ‘They’re not big enterprises moving millions of dollars in each transaction, so clearing speed is important, because they have families to feed – they need liquidity,’ he explains. ‘We allow them to manage their accounts payable and collect their accounts receivable. We allow them to manage their cash so they can pay and get paid.’
Wong gets to make a positive impact for both his employer and for small businesses and their owners. He says: ‘I’ve found a true calling by trying to do what’s right in the corporate world – we can still do good things for people seeking opportunities.’
Life in Penang
Originally from the ‘beautiful island of Penang in Malaysia’, Wong is the youngest of three siblings from a working-class family, whose engineer father worked for a semiconductor business.
He proudly attended the Penang Free School, the oldest English-language free school in South-East Asia, founded in 1816. It was here he began to take an interest in the business world. Coupled with his father’s pragmatic approach to life, it led to his pursuing a career in accounting and finance.
‘He helped turn my interest into a feasible career choice; it was a logical decision,’ he recalls. ‘After taking accounting classes during a diploma in business studies, I took a leap of faith and attempted the ACCA exams, without any paper exemptions, so I was on the full journey from F1 all the way through the 14 papers.’
While studying ACCA, Wong spent a year and half as an auditor at Saw & Co in Penang, followed by a short stint as a credit/collections analyst with Hewlett-Packard in Kuala Lumpur. But his first ‘real career building experience’ came when he joined multinational semiconductor company Intel, where he immersed himself for five years in corporate finance and accounting.
Here he learned the soft skills needed to ‘survive and even thrive in that environment’ and enjoyed several successes and promotions across accounting, treasury and operational finance roles, eventually becoming FP&A lead for sales and marketing in APAC. It was a role that paved the way for a major career and life transition.
‘I knew Hong Kong was a fertile ground for those who want to springboard their career’
Destination Hong Kong
‘I got the opportunity to move to Hong Kong. I remember joking with my family that I’d go there and become an actor, because we’d only ever seen Hong Kong on TV,’ he recalls. ‘It was another leap of faith, but I knew Hong Kong was a fertile ground for finance professionals, for those who want to springboard their career to new heights.’
For anyone else considering such a move, he has some wise words: ‘It’ll be both challenging and enriching. Challenging to hit the reset button and live in a foreign land; and enriching by gaining valuable experience and friendships. If given the chance, I’d do it all over again.’
And he couldn’t have done it without ACCA, he says. ‘I chose ACCA specifically for its pedigree as one of the world’s best-recognised professional qualifications. It has opened doors at every step of my career. Not only did it earn me my first corporate job and promotions, but it also gave me the mobility to go to Hong Kong and all my subsequent career moves. It’s been seamless.’
Just as helpful has been his ease with languages. He speaks ‘Mandarin, Cantonese and the Taiwanese dialect, which is very close to Fujian’, as well as Bahasa Malaysia (‘from here you can easily transition to Indonesian’) and English. ‘Language is a pathway to understanding people and their culture,’ he says.
‘You don’t want to limit innovation, but the abuse of tech cannot go unchecked’
Payoneer
2005
Established
70
Currencies supported
2,000+
Employees worldwide
2 million
Customers
Tech love
The move to Hong Kong also decoupled his career from that of his father, although he has never left tech entirely. ‘I’m a little bit of a geek that way. I always follow the latest technology trends and news, and it’s an exciting sector to work in,’ he says.
‘There’s always something new around the corner, it challenges you to think on your toes, solve new problems, and create new ways of working on the go. Sometimes you feel like you’re building a plane as you fly it.’
Indeed, as Wong sees it, a constant concern for fintech lies in pacing, as technological innovation moves faster than the law. ‘This is going to intensify in the years ahead, so we need to act responsibly,’ he says. ‘It’s increasingly important for both corporates and regulators to find ways to maintain a healthy balance. On the one hand, you don’t want regulations to limit innovation, while on the other, regulations falling too far behind will only allow the abuse of technology to go unchecked.’
For Nasdaq-listed Payoneer, which is scaling up in Asia Pacific, and for Wong, as a financial steward responsible for setting standards that comply with ever-changing laws and regulations, the race is on. That is just fine, he says. ‘Without getting into the nitty-gritty, I’m personally very excited and confident for what lies ahead of us.’
