Ep. 78 / Finance Tech and the Great Commission with Simoun Ung

Marketplace ministry is easy to praise and hard to live, especially when your career spans countries, cultures and competing definitions of success. In this episode we sit down with CEO Simoun Ung and trace the story of how an entrepreneur and inventor became a builder of financial inclusion in the Philippines and a leader of Bible translation around the world. 

Simoun shares his family’s story, from ethnic Chinese roots and a legacy of early missionaries, to a grandmother whose daily prayers made faith feel unavoidable. From there, we dig into the real-world problem that grabbed his attention after returning to the Philippines: a largely unbanked population paying hidden taxes with cash-only transactions. We unpack how prepaid cards and digital billing can serve the “bottom 75%" and why finance-tech innovation must stay close to real human need. 

Then the conversation turns to missions, calling and leadership. Simoun tells the providential story that led to his work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. How Scripture shapes his discernment, and why East-West leadership differences matter for governance, transparency and trust. We end our time together with a challenging question for every Christian leader: if a Bible is translated but not used, what does impact actually mean? 

If you'd like to learn more about Simoun Ung's work with Wycliffe and OmniPay you can go to their websites and follow him on social media. And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Transcript

Brian Stiller 0:10

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. One of the things that strikes me most in conversations with evangelical leaders around the world is how often the most effective ambassadors for the kingdom are people who have learned to live with one foot firmly in the marketplace and the other in ministry. Today's guest is a remarkable example of exactly that. Simoun Ung grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Came to faith as a boy and eventually returned to the Philippines, the country of his roots, where he built a distinguished career in the financial industry, most notably as CEO of OmniPay, the Philippines' leading issuer of prepaid payment cards. He also served as independent director at Maybank Philippines. But Simoun would be the first to tell you that business was never the whole story. He comes from a lineage of evangelists from Fujian Province, China, and the Great Commission has been woven into his life since his teens. In 207, he became the founding chairman of Wycliffe Bible Translators Philippines, an organization committed to giving every language community access to God's word in their own heart language. He later served as president, helping to accelerate Bible translation in some of the most remote and difficult corners of the world. And I want to thank you for joining in this inspiring conversation. Please consider sharing this episode with a friend. If you haven't done so already, please hit the subscribe button, and you can also join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Simoun, it's a real pleasure to have you on Evangelical 360. Simoun, such a pleasure to have you in Evangelical 360.

Simoun Ung 2:02

Thank you. Thank you.

Brian Stiller 2:06

You're an inventor, you're a businessman, you run ministries, uh an intriguing life. And you're here at the World Evangelical Alliance, the General Assembly here in Seoul. But unwrap your life a bit for us so we know where you come from and what makes you tick.

Simoun Ung 2:27

Well, born into a Christian family, we've been very blessed. My great-grandmother was a Christian. That's pretty rare in this part of the world, as you may think. We're ethnic Chinese. My family moved to the Philippines in 1921. And then during martial law, under the first president, Marcos, grandfather declared his own version of martial law and said, wife, children, grandchildren, everybody go to Canada.

Brian Stiller 2:54

And why did you choose Canada?

Simoun Ung 2:57

I think the draft in the US was very fresh in his mind still at the time from Vietnam. And so he decided not going to escape martial law in the Philippines to end up having my kids go fight a war on that side of the world.

Brian Stiller 3:09

So you you then so you were young when you moved to Canada then?

Simoun Ung 3:14

Yeah, yeah. Finished grade one in Canada, the high school, undergrad, master's, everything was in Canada, all my education. My family came to know the Lord because of some Methodist missionaries who set up a girls' school in China. It was called Yok Dip. And that's back then in the early 1900s, the girls didn't go to school because the families would send the sons to school. The girls tend to be in that culture at the time, were married out of the family. So they didn't, they the families wouldn't invest the resources to educating the daughters normally. My great-greatmother grandmother wanted her daughters to be educated, sent them to Yoktyak to this Methodist-run girls' school in China. And that's where my great-grand aunt uh came to know the Lord, went on to seminary in China, became an evangelist in China, then later in the Philippines.

Brian Stiller 4:12

Remarkable.

Simoun Ung 4:14

And led the entire family to the Lord's.

Brian Stiller 4:17

So how did you so uh uh you're you're growing up in Vancouver with this uh uh ethnic Chinese community from the Philippines, via the Philippines. And uh were you an accommodating young teenager or were you rebellious?

Simoun Ung 4:34

Uh probably rebellious. I I remember, you know, if dad loses his temper, that was very rare. We would be opening the windows, climbing out the trees, and then go down and run away. Yeah. So I'm sure we gave our parents a good work out there. Uh but uh was baptized when I was in high school at the Evangelical Chinese Bible Church in Vancouver.

Brian Stiller 4:56

And was was that a uh a uh a sudden a sudden moment or a slow process of coming to faith?

Simoun Ung 5:04

Uh it was a slow process because um we see that faith lived out not home. You know, I re I know if I if I wake up at four in the morning, grandma's gonna be in her lazy boy praying, doing her devotions, praying for every single one of her family members. And she did that till the day she died.

Brian Stiller 5:22

So you didn't have much choice, did you? She prayed you in.

Simoun Ung 5:27

Pretty much. I'm pretty sure it was sheer will on grandma's uh part to make sure all her children and grandchildren followed the Lord.

Brian Stiller 5:36

So then you you went to you on to university?

Simoun Ung 5:39

Yeah, went to UBC for my uh bachelor's.

Brian Stiller 5:42

That's University of British Columbia?

Simoun Ung 5:43

That's right. And then in Ontario. That's right.

Brian Stiller 6:00

But then how do you end up back in the Philippines?

Simoun Ung 6:03

Well, after my MBA, uh we were we had a family business doing coin laundry in West in the West in Van Greater Vancouver area, and uh that said, go practice your MBA, expand the Southeast. So my next stop was Calgary in Edmonton. So you're expanding these laundry. Yeah, so we would put coin laundry machines into the university, storms, apartments, and then uh share the revenue with the apartment owners. So that was the business back then.

Brian Stiller 6:30

So you were your family was by nature entrepreneurial?

Simoun Ung 6:34

Yes. Uh grandfather set up his first business post-World War II in 1953. It was in paint manufacturing in the Philippines. Uh we sold our our family sold our shares in 2003 after 50 years. At the time we sold, the company had 90% market share in the Philippines for architectural paints.

Brian Stiller 6:56

That's quite a record. So why did you go want to go back to the Philippines?

Simoun Ung 7:02

Well, at the time, this was in 96. My wife was pregnant with our first child. And I figured if I didn't go back then, I'd never go back. And it was really a, I guess, a sense of responsibility where we want to give back to Philippine society, uh, take the best practices that we learned in in Canada and the U.S. and bring it back to the Philippines and help it prove.

Brian Stiller 7:25

So, why did you have this commitment to the Philippines? Was it just because you were you'd been born there? Is that what linked your

Simoun Ung 7:32

We were born there and um the Philippines was very good to us as a family. You know, basically we were refugees in 1921 when my great-grandfather uh moved to the Philippines. And you know, we're now in a position to be able to give back to the country that had helped treated us so well. So it was more of a civic responsibility, I guess, that we should do what we can to help.

Brian Stiller 7:55

P So then you became inventive. So that entrepreneurial instinct kicks in again.

Simoun Ung 8:03

Yeah, part of it really was um, you know, coming from Canada, where it's a highly banked society, going back to the Philippines and then being shocked.

Brian Stiller 8:12

A highly banked society?

Simoun Ung 8:13

Yeah.

Building Financial Inclusion For The Unbanked

Brian Stiller 8:13

So what do you mean by that?

Simoun Ung 8:15

A. Highly banked in the sense that almost all adults will have a bank account. Yes. In the Philippines, maybe 20, 25 percent would have it at that time. And so there was this huge uh uh segment of the population that didn't have access to bank accounts. So you didn't have, you couldn't get a debit card, you couldn't get a credit card. You know, for you and I to pay bills, we'd pick up a phone, maybe on the laptop, hit a few keys, and pay the bill. For the less privileged sectors of society, they would have to take time off, withdraw cash, commute, pay the bill, and then commute back. So their cost for doing that same transaction you and I would do is much, much higher.

Brian Stiller 8:56

Okay.

Simoun Ung 8:57

And that was what we wanted to be able to address.

Brian Stiller 8:59

You know, so how how did you notice that? What led you to see that sector as uh as having need?

Simoun Ung 9:06

Um it because you you know you can see even your regular office employees back then were being paid in cash. Right? And of course, my qu first question I'm used to getting my my paycheck deposited directly to my bank account in Canada, right? And so, of course, my first question is why isn't it deposited into a bank account? They don't have a bank account. And so, as you noticed, and you see a lot of what they call cash-in, cash out agents today, basically over-the-counter bills payment type of thing. You know, you're from Canada, so you you would uh use your own bank online, do a uh pay-through Interact, right, the bills, and you're done, right? And you never leave your seat. There, it was a very, very different experience. So that was really what we were trying to address initially. And uh, I guess it was financial inclusion before it was called financial inclusion. In fact, that's how we applied and got the license from the Philippine Central Bank. You know, the the governor asked, What are you trying to do? I said, Well, Gov, I'm not after the top 3% of the Philippine society, let the 20 credit card companies fight for that. I'm not even after the top 25%, let the 600 banks fight for that. Just give me the bottom 75%. He laughed and gave us the license.

Brian Stiller 10:25

Did you have uh training in in the computer or in the engineering component that was required to set up such a

Simoun Ung 10:35

I used to code with punch cards in UBC, so you know, very early on, I guess, you know, there was that sort of comfort level with uh the technology. Uh but really going back to the Philippines, we did a lot of projects uh before we set up this business. I was a JICA consultant. That's a Japan international cooperation agency, kind of the Japanese equivalent of USAID. And um we did a lot of government projects mostly around infrastructure. And so that gave me the experience in setting up national scale projects. And so it it allowed us to see how to make projects sustainable that was going to be developmental as well for for the country. And then it was just a matter of finding the right partners and talent to be able to put things to fruition.

Brian Stiller 11:27

So you're involved in business, you're you're inventing this new system in the Philippines that became very successful. Yes. And today it's

Simoun Ung 11:37

we're still doing well. Um

Brian Stiller 11:40

how many people would you have in your system?

Simoun Ung 11:42

Maybe about 14 million.

Brian Stiller 11:45

How much of that 75% do you have?

COVID Disruption And A Fintech Pivot

Redesigning Remittances With More Control

Simoun Ung 11:48

Uh well, after COVID, it changed a lot. And so actually, we're doing a strategic pivot now. So out of uh population is roughly 110 million, right? But um during COVID, everybody was forced to go digital. And so that that's now forcing us to rethink and doing our own strategic pivot, uh, partly due to competitive pressure, but mostly due to regulatory and developmental pressures. So, what the Bank of International Settlements is doing is uh they have a project Nexus that will link up all the domestic real-time payment rails around the world. So sending money back and forth will become uh very cheap. And then for our business, our fee-based income, of course, will go one way. And so we we're reinventing ourselves now kind of in that process to see how we can redefine the financial inclusion to be able to reach out to very specific segments. So part of part of our outreach now will be for the domestic foreign migrant workers from the Philippines. Actually, we're gonna pilot in Canada, uh, where we want to redefine remittance, remove agency risk, meaning today the migrant worker in Canada might send money to the Philippines, expecting husband to pay tuition. Husband may end up going drinking with his friends, you know, or send to sister to buy medicine for mom. And sister has a new phone. It's very common. It's this we call it friendly fraud or agent risk. So, what our new system will be is to redefine remittance so that they can do an interact e-transfer, for example, into a multi-currency wallet that we operate. Then from that wallet, they can exchange it from CAD to PHP or Canadian dollar to peso. And then from the peso, they can then pay the bills. So they can pay the water billow, power, bill, only utilities, tuition, all of that straight from the app while they're in Canada. So that you remove all the agency risk and give them the granularity of control over their own funds.

Brian Stiller 13:54

That's remarkable.

Tools For SMEs Banks Ignore

Simoun Ung 13:56

So that's that's one of our new projects. The one that we're piloting right now in the Philippines is targeting SMEs. Targeting the small medium enterprises. So the small medium enterprises typically are largely underserved by the banks. The banks will give them a business account, but basically it's a glorified personal account with a business name tag on top. So what we've built now, and we're running in a sandbox in the Philippines, is uh more of an enterprise resource management system. It will have an online inventory management, service scheduler, electronic invoicing, automated reconciliation with an automate with an online dashboard for the business owners so they can see their current balance, available balance. When they issue invoices, the payment instructions are there, even the QR code in the Philippines. So you can scan and pay from any bank and any e-wallet. Once there's payment, we will see the transaction. We actually recon reconcile it with the invoice. So the business owner knows whether that invoice is paid, partially paid, unpaid. They'll know the exact status without having to manually check their bank accounts and trying to reconcile this. Even in Canada, most of that is manual today. So we we're automating this now in the Philippines for the small medium enterprises. And once we're we're comfortable with it, we may roll it out to in Canada as well.

Brian Stiller 15:28

That's a real mission, isn't it?

Simoun Ung 15:30

Well, it's uh 90% of our business, right? Of uh of any economy normally is the small medium enterprise, but they're the ones not served or underserved. So that's a right.

A Call Into Missions And Bible Translation

Brian Stiller 15:43

So how how did this line up? Obviously, what you're doing is ministry. You're ministering to people, you are serving people, you are helping, and especially people at at the lower level income who don't who the big banks and big credit card companies don't give as much attention to. But you also have an interest in in uh in Bible translation. How did that come about?

Simoun Ung 16:11

Well, it was an interesting story. Uh it was actually the Lord had impressed the burden for missions on on me over 20 years ago. And I remember arguing.

Brian Stiller 16:23

And you know, do you remember why? What where did that come from?

Hearing God Through Scripture And Identity

Simoun Ung 16:26

I just remember feeling the burden for missions. And it really was very clear to me around 2005 that the Lord wanted me in missions. And I was arguing with the Lord. I said, my children were young, how would how do I approve them? How is this all gonna work? You know, the typical human mind with all the constraints that we put on. Shortly thereafter, Pastor Luis Pantoja was looking for me, unbeknownst to me. So my wife and children and I were actually in the car in the Philippines on the way to the airport to fly to Vancouver. I get a phone call from the office that there's an emergency meeting with one of the government banks. They needed to see me right then and there. So I told my wife, it's a direct flight. Your parents are on the other side. Why don't you go ahead with the kids? I'll take the flight tomorrow. That was a Friday afternoon. I honestly can't remember what the bank meeting was all about. Maybe it was an emergency for them, but not for me. And we did work with Philippine Airlines before, as in we helped them get landing rights. So I was very confident I could get space. So Saturday, I'm at the airport. There's only one flight a day direct to Vancouver. And I couldn't get on the flight. I tried paying the people in the lineup to give me their seat. I tried paying full fare first class. I called the owner's son. I tried everything. Couldn't get on the flight. Next day, Sunday, I did the exact same thing. I still couldn't get on the flight, but I got confirmed seat on the next flight. And so Arch, my home church, Grace Christian Church of the Philippines, we don't have a Sunday evening service, a vesper service. And uh, by the time I left the airport, it was about four o'clock, so I said, okay, since I missed the church, I'll go to Green Hills Christian Fellowship. Pastor Luis Pantoja is the senior pastor then. So he preached that night, and as his as is his practice, he'll stand at the sanctuary doors to shake his congregation's hands on their way out. Gets to me, he said, Simoun, I've been looking for you. I don't go to his church normally. But he knew my dad from Canada as well. So I said, so he goes, When do you have time for me? I said, Pastor Luis, I'm literally on the plane tomorrow. He goes, Are you going to Vancouver? I said, Yes. He said, Great, me too. So the genesis for Wycliffe Bible Translators Philippines was actually in a Chinese restaurant in Richmond, BC. That's where he told me what his burden was for setting up a Bible translation agency in the Philippines for the uh run by the Filipinos to be able to later on serve the Greater Asian Church. And he was on the board of Wycliffe International back then, and so that's what he wanted to do. I actually turned the board down because I said, I'm Canadian, I'm Filipino, I'm not American, I can't even get to the office, even if I wanted to, because of the lockdown restrictions back then. And the board asked me to pray about it. The Lord used Genesis 22 uh that morning in my devotion, where, you know, uh he called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Two things struck me that day. The first was as a father, if the Lord asked me to sacrifice my child, I'd negotiate. Say, Lord, take me, spare my child. There is no such recount of that interaction ever happening in scriptures. And so it really made me think, you know, what type of father was Abraham? I mean, that that takes a lot of faith. The second thing that struck me then was Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, who was his heir, and that God had appointed for him. And he knew that, God knew that. It was a very clear arrangement. Now you're gonna take away my heir as Abraham. I need time. I need to make arrangements. I need to make contingency plans because you're taking out my air. But the Bible says he left, he arose the next morning and left. So there was no contingency on the part of Abraham in terms of planning or anything like that. So I said, okay, Lord, if that's your will, you want me to take over as president-CEO of Wycliffe Associates, fine, I'll I'll submit. Uh just please make sure there's a ram in the thicket somewhere close by. You know, and uh so I just finished my term as president CEO of Wycliffe Associates this last September 20. And uh the I I was able to uh uh mentor two internal successor candidates, and the board picked one of them to replace me as CEO.

Brian Stiller 21:18

Fascinating, Simoun. As as people are are listening to you, um you're in business, well educated. Uh you move born in one country, ethnically from another country, raised in another country, and then you go back to where you were born. Uh, you have a love for the church, for the wit witness of Christ. You're in business, you're inventive. How do you hear the voice of the Lord?

Simoun Ung 21:52

Well, sometimes it's very clear, and usually in my devotion, it it comes out pretty clear.

Brian Stiller 21:57

So you you find the scriptures. Speak to you from like the story of Abraham and Isaac?

East West Leadership And Measuring Impact

Simoun Ung 22:06

Sometimes it's very clear. Usually that's what I'll pray for. I said, Lord, you know me. I'm not very discerning, so you've got to pretty much hammer me over the head, you know, make it real clear for me. Tell my wife the same thing too, right? So but uh it it's it's quite interesting. Uh you you mentioned uh you know being ethnically Chinese, being born in the Philippines, growing up in Canada. I found it actually really helped me in terms of missions. Because missions, you know, cross-culturalism is inherent, right? And being able to see East and West, and being native in East and West, I think very few not a lot of people have that uh blessing to be able to do that. And we're comfortable in either, right? Sometimes I feel like I have to flick a switch when I fly over the Pacific to from one place, one region to the other. But uh really, you know, I'm I'm comfortable working in either environment.

Brian Stiller 23:06

A P You are such a world Christian.

Closing Thanks And Ways To Engage

Simoun Ung 23:09

Uh well, you know, i in in some sense it also helps even even in how you manage the organization in terms of the mission, because I find the the West tends to be more transactional and the East tends to be more relational. Right? So sometimes the governance structures, the transparency, the accountability isn't so clear in the East because they're used to relying on that people-to-people relationship to keep things in balance and in check and balance. Whereas the Western style of transparency and accountability is very, very different, right? We want internal audit, we want this, we want external audit financial statements, all of that. So, you know, being but sometimes on the West, we lose the people side of things, right? We're so fixated on the numbers that you forget the people. I'll give you an example. In in one of the discussions I had to have with my board and Wycliffe Associates is how do we define success? Is it when we check the box and say NT done, New Testament done, Old Testament done? Are we done? Or do we want to make sure that that Bible is used by the church and it's engaged by the church? And you won't see success or you don't consider it's a success until you see that church flourish and multiply and making disciples of all men. And as if as as believers, we're all called to the Great Commission. And so my challenge to the Board of Wycliffe Associates then was you know, Bible translation is a critical part of that discipleship-making process, but it's only part, right? And how do we make sure that that local church moves from just having the Bible to being able to really uh see lives transformed and souls saved? Because if we don't see that, then what are we doing this for? Right. And so now our challenge is in this very black and white definition that the West has in terms of success now has to change, right? And you know, now we call it impact, right? Where's your impact? How do you measure impact? You know, is it is it how often is your is that language or that Bible app used? How many hours a day or how many minutes a day? Is it used every day? Is it used more on Sundays? You know, all those types of things can be proxies for impact, right? Because at least you know the Bible's being used. The worst thing we can do as a Bible translation agency is to produce a Bible without any people using it, a people less Bible, so to speak. And so, you know, part of it, I think sometimes that East and West, there's that dynamic tension between the two. Um and you know, being able to live in that tension sometimes is also helpful. Right? Sometimes we get too comfortable in the West just being on this side, and the East doing them, just being on this side. But there's actually a healthy tension, I find, from being able to do both.

Brian Stiller 26:22

It's a wonderful story of the integration of all of those various factors in your life and how God has led you in your business to serve people, and then your leadership in Wycliffe to serve the body of Christ. Simoun, it's a joy to have you with me today on Evangelical 360 here in Seoul, South Korea. Thanks again. Thanks, Simoun, for joining me today. Your leadership and creative initiatives have been strategic in enabling us to see how the Spirit is at work guiding the Church of Jesus Christ through turbulent times. And to my listeners, thank you for being a part of the podcast. Be sure to share this episode using hashtag Evangelical360 and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guests, check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already received my free ebook and newsletter, just go to Brianstiller.com. Thanks again. Until next time.