Three former executives of Russian online bank Tinkoff, George Chesakov, Pavel Fedorov, and Raffy Montemayor, have raised $16 million to launch a fintech startup focused on Southeast Asia, initially targeting the Philippines, they announced.
The trio running the company left Tinkoff in the second quarter, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered Western sanctions against Russia and revealed that Tinkoff’s London-listed owner TCS Group Holding, was planning to expand in Asia.
The men running the fintech startup include George Chesakov, a Tinkoff co-founder. He announced a week before the Ukraine incursion that TCS would partner with Swiss payments specialist BPC in the Philippines as part of a $200 million expansion into Asia.