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).

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Moglix, a B2B ecommerce platform, is investing $50M into Credlix, it's supply chain financing subsidiary for expansion in US and Mexico.
2. Navi, a financial services firm founded by Sachin Bansal, processed $557M in Aug, 2024 and is now the sixth largest UPI player, outgrowing Amazon pay.
3. Bizongo, a B2B ecommerce platform, hived off BizongoFin, its supply chain financing arm and BizongoBuy, a raw material marketplace arm as two separate entities.
4. NPCI is considering easing its proposed market share cap requirement of 30% for UPI market operators.
5. UCO Bank, a state-owned bank, is yet to recover $10M from its users out of $100M in funds incorrectly released by the bank.
6. Naspers received CCI approval to acquire 10% stake in Vastu Housing Finance.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Infibeam Avenues, a payment gateway company, launched Rediffpay, a consumer facing UPI payments app.
2. Meta's WhatsApp partnered with Zaakpay, Mobikwik's payment gateway arm, to launch embedded payment solutions for businesses and users.
3. AU Small Finance Bank partnered with Niva Bupa Health Insurance to launch health insurance products for its customer base.
4. Godrej Capital, the financial services arm of Godrej Group, launched an affordable housing finance subsidiary.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. SEBI (securities): Released new regulations for the issue and listing of non-convertible securities.
2. RBI (central bank): Lifted restrictions on IIFL's gold loan operations.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. M2P Fintech, a financial software startup, raised $80M.
2. Aye Finance, a small business lending startup, raised $30M.
3. Kaleidofin, an unsecured lending startup, raised $14M.
4. GrayQuest, an education financing startup, raised $6M.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Stockal, a global investing infrastructure startup, acquired Acru, a domestic investing infrastructure startup for global Indians.
2. Veefin, a supply chain financing startup, acquired 26% in EpikIndifi, a lending software company.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) in Thailand partnered with Mastercard and Soft Space, a Malaysian fintech startup, to launch SCB Tap to pay in Thailand.
2. DBS Bank will introduce OTC crypto options trading and structured notes for eligible institutional and wealth clients.
3. UnionPay partnered with AXS, a payment solutions provider, to launch a bill payment service for Chinese residents living in Singapore.
4. Five consortiums have so far applied for virtual banking licenses in Thailand.
5. TymeBank, the South African digital bank with Singapore HQ, raised $9.5M for expansion in SEA.
6. DTCPay, a Singaporean digital payments provider, partnered with Visa to launch new card products for its users in Singapore.
7. The Hong Kong government is preparing to issue a policy for use of artificial intelligence in Finance.
8. MAS, Singapore's central bank, introduced new licensing guidelines for payment services providers.
9. Advance, a Philippine earned wage access startup, partnered with Cebuana Lhuilier, a pawn shop company, to launch a $2M credit line product for small businesses.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Pathao, a Bangladeshi ride sharing app, raised $12M for expansion into fintech.

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