Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, investor in early stage startups.

Please enjoy all the news and updates from the past week in today’s edition. If you feel TWIF brings you value, please share it with your friends (and maybe suggest they subscribe too).

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

(Note: Neither TWIF nor I endorse any views in the tweets highlighted above.)

📈 Chart of the Week

Source: India in Pixels

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Paytm received government approval to invest $6mn in its payment serivces entity. The finance ministry's approval is pending.
2. Ayekart, an agri-finance startup, partnered with Grameen Foundation to offer its platform as a service including with embedded financing.
3. Amazon Pay's CEO, in an interview, called for an implementation of a fair value merchant discount rate for UPI payments.
4. Dzerv, a wealth management startup, claimed to be managing INR 7,000cr ($840mn) in assets for its clients.
5. RBI issued an advisory for micro finance lenders to reduce loan disbursements in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as a precautionary measure, as the two states account for 25.3% of total micro finance loans.
6. Razorpay received a John Doe order from the Delhi High Court mandating that Facebook, Whatsapp and Telegram suspend any accounts found infringing on Razorpay's trademarks and engaging in fraudulent activities.
7. Care.fi, a health financing startup, claimed to have a disbursed $48mn in loans in FY24.
8. NPCI will be rolling out credit line on UPI product for users as Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank and PNB are live for the product.
9. The RBI deputy governor noted that some banks are misusing their internal accounts as a conduit for fraud and evergreening of loans.
10. A SEBI Working Committee for Futures and Options recommended a few measures to curb F&O trading: 1. increase the minimum lot size to INR 20-30lacs from INR 5lacs currently, 2. restrict weekly options to only one expiry per stock exchange per week. 3. limiting the number of strike prices for options contracts.
11. Jio Financial Services received RBI approval to convert from an NBFC to a NBFC CIC (Core Investment Company).
12. HDFC Bank added its credit card services as a biller on NPCI's Bharat Bill Payment System. It's still not reflecting on the BBPS apps.
13. Sharan Hegde, a financial influencer, reported INR 60cr ($7.2mn) in revenue in FY24, 85% of it comes from the financial education courses he sells. An entity owned by Sharan received SEBI approval to operate as a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA).

🚀 Product Launches

1. PayU partnered with Vi, a the JV telecom company of Vodafone and Idea, to launch payment gateway and credit products for Vi's small business customers.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Approved Resident Indians to open Foreign Currency Accounts in International Financial Services Centres.
2. SEBI (securities): Released new guidelines for filing requirements for dissolution of schemes of alternate investment funds.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Dzerv, a wealth management startup, raised $32mn.
2. Arya Ag, an agri commodity marketplace and finance startup, raised $29mn.
3. Jugyah, a digital real estate broker, raised $1.5mn.
4. Care.fi, a health financing startup, raised $2.6mn in debt.

ACQUISTIONS:

1. CASHe, a consumer loan startup, acquired Centcart, an insurance broking company.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Fave, a Pine Labs loyalty and rewards company, received MAS approval to oeprate as a Major Payment Institution.
2. Pakistan’s startups raised $3mn in H1 2024, a 92% drop compared to same period of last year.
3. WeBank, a Tencent banking unit, set up a technology center in Hong Kong and committed to invest $150mm.
4. Huione Guarantee, a Cambodian financial platform linked to the country's ruling party, was implicated in facilitating online scams including crypto scams across Southeast Asia totalling $11bn.
5. Pakistan received over $30bn in inward remittances in FY24 (ended Jun, 2024).
6. Thailand and Lao integrated their respective QR payment systems for real time cross border payments.
7. Southeast Asian startups raised a total of $893mn, with Singaporean startups raising 58% of the region's funding, followed by Bangkok (16%) and Jakarta (14%).
8. Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) imposed a $1.3mn fine on DBS Bank for AML breaches.
9. Singaporean banks will phase out OTP's to counter phishing scams in the country.
10. DBS Bank's crypto arm grew its trading volume by 3x YoY till May, 2024.
11. Startups in Asia raised only $14.6bn in Q2 2024, down 24% from Q1 and 32% YoY, with only 1,511 funding deals announced in Q2, down 15% from Q1 and 27% YoY.
12. pitchIN, a Malaysian crowd funding company, launched its first token crowd funding deal to raise $2.1mn for this deal.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Partior, a block chain based financial infrastructure startup, raised $60mn.
2. Moladin, an Indonesian EV financing startup, raised $50mn in debt.

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If you’ve made it this far - thanks! As always, you can always reach me at osborne@thisweekinfintech.com. I’d genuinely appreciate any and all feedback. If you liked what you read, please consider sharing or subscribing.

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