Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, Principal at EMVC!

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: Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economist, SBI Group

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. PB Fintech, the listed parent co. of Paisa Bazaar and Policy Bazaar, reported INR 38crs ($4.6mm) of net profit in Q3 FY24 (ended Dec 2023), it's first reported quarterly profit since listing. Revenue from operations grew 43% to 871cr for the same period.
2. Paytm's market cap dropped by 36% from $5.8bn to $3.7bn in two days post RBI announced actions against Paytm's payment bank business.
3. Aadhaar Housing Finance is re-filing its draft IPO prospectus with SEBI to raise INR 5,000-5,500cr ($600-660mm).
4. Rario, an NFT marketplace, decided not to shut its platform and continue offering it to users.
5. Bajaj Finance reported 29% YoY growth in net interest income to INR7,665cr ($924mm), 22% YoY growth in net profit to INR 3,639cr ($438mm) and 35% YoY growth in AuM to INR 3.10tn ($37.4bn) during Q3 FY24 (ended Dec, 2023).
6. RBI's Trade Receivables Electronic Discounting System (TReDS) reported processing INR 11,000cr ($1.4bn) in monthly invoices value financed. In 2023, total invoices financed stood at $14bn (+55% YoY).
7. ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) piloted for personal loans with EasyPay and DMI Finance.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Fingular, a Singaporean financial services company, launched TrustPaisa, consumer credit products in India.
2. Razorpay launched Dynamic Routing on its Optimizer product and Native OTP products.

📝 Regulatory Updates

RBI (central bank):

• Announced taking action against Paytm Payments Bank for "persistent non-compliances and continued material supervisory concerns in the bank". The RBI directed Paytm Payments Bank (PPB) as below:
  • PPB shall not accept any further deposits or credit transactions or wallet top ups in any customer accounts after Feb 29 2024. 
  • PPB shall allow withdrawal or utilization of balances from customer accounts upto their  available balances. 
  • PPB shall not provide any other banking services including fund transfers, bill payments or UPI after Feb 29 2024. 
  • Nodal Accounts of One97 Communications (listed HoldCo) and Paytm Payment Services (payment entity) will be terminated no later than Feb 29 2024. 
• Approved Zomato and Stripe's application for a payment aggregator license.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Black Opal Group, a B2B2C property-fintech platform, raised $3mm from SBI and HDFC banks.
2. U Gro Capital, a listed SME financing company, raised $30mm in debt.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• South Korea's central bank is considering new regulations to make it easier for regional banks to become national commercial banks.
• Taiwan's QR payment service launched acceptance in South Korea.
• Alipay+, Alipay's consumer cross border payments platform, launched payment acceptance in taxis in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company has been partnering with countries globally to launch acceptance in preparation for Lunar New Year.
• Bureau*, an identity decisioning and fraud prevention startup, launched in Philippines and Indonesia.
• Mastercard Global stated that it was able to improve payment fraud detection by 20% with its new AI model.
• Bank Saqu, an Indonesian digital bank by Hong Kong's WeLab, reported 300K users within 2 months of launching.
• Ryalize, a Singaporean earned wage access infra startup, is launching in Saudi Arabia.
• Raqami Islamic Digital Bank received final approvals to launch in Pakistan.

💰 Financing Announcements

(there were no financing announcements this week.)

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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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