14 December 2010

MEF Executive Questionnaire #21: Sia Hui Yong, Tranglo

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact MEF Marketing Director, Stephen Jenkins.

The twenty first in the series is from Sia Hui Yong, CEO of Tranglo.


1. Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation
Trango operates a global prepaid airtime and money transfer hub that connects to various mobile operators and financial institutions for cross-border transactions. My role is to oversee the company product and business development strategy.

2. Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses
Tranglo charges transaction fees or transaction fees sharing for every airtime or money transfer transaction completed.

3. What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?
Our company is the pioneer in airtime transfer globally since 2008 and to date we have more than 50 operators connected to our hub.

4. What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?
We are pioneering a complete cross-border transaction services that encompass airtime, money, digital content and bill payment. These products shall enrich and complement our hub offering to our partners, especially useful to serve the migrant/ethnic segments.

5. What is exciting you most in 2010 (either personally or professionally)?
International airtime transfer concept is going main stream and gaining acceptance in more Telco operators and financial institutions.

6. What is the most important piece of technology in your life?
Nothing in particular.

7. What mobile device(s) do you use?
Blackberry, Nokia and i-Pad

8. What’s your favourite application?
Blackberry Messenger

9. What’s your ringtone?
Standard phone ringing tone

10. Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?
Telecoms.com, Moconews and telecomasia.net – good analysis and news source for industry movement

11. What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?
The various competing smartphone platform and different billing technology which may not necessarily be tied to the mobile operators.