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

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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Chart of the week

Source: CapitalMind

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. RBI Deputy Governor cautioned Small Finance Banks to assess whether there is over dependence of high cost term deposits from a limited number of institutions.
2. YES Bank's CEO said there is likely to be elevated stress in the retail credit segment owing to multiple personal loans, credit cards and reports of losses from F&O trading.
3. PB Fintech, the listed holding company of PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar, will invest $100M for a 20-30% stake in a new healthcare company.
4. BharatPe and Ashneer Grover settled the lawsuit out of court and Ashneer Grover will no longer be associated with the startup.
5. MUFG, a Japanese bank, reportedly submitted a bid to acquire a majority stake in YES Bank.
6. HDFC Bank grew its deposits by 15.1% YoY to INR 1.5tn ($17.9bn) in the quarter ended Sep, 2024, taking its total deposit base to INR 25tn ($298bn)
7. Groww, India's largest stock broker, reported a loan book of INR 965cr ($ 115M) in its NBFC arm, while revenue of its broking unit grew 124% YoY to INR 2,900cr ($ 345M) in FY24.
8. CRED reported INR 2,473cr ($ 294M) in revenue in FY24 (ended Mar, 2024).
9. Consumer lender financial performance (FY24, ended Mar, 2024):
   • Navi: AuM - INR 10,190cr ($ 1.2bn), Revenue - INR 2,614cr ($ 311M), Profit - INR 669cr ($ 80M).
   • Fibe: AuM - INR 4,064cr ($ 484M), Revenue - INR 839cr ($ 100M), Profit - INR 105cr ($ 12.5M).
   • MoneyView: Profit - INR 171cr ($ 20M).
   • Kreditbee: Revenue - INR 1,948cr ($ 236M), Profit - INR 285cr ($ 34M).
10. Unsecured business loans are starting to show signs of stress, as per a report by India Ratings.
11. Gold loans accounted for the largest share of loans by NBFC's and are the fastest growing loan segment, growing 26% YoY, as unsecured personal loans fell by 4% YoY.
12. SBI Bank will add 600 new branches in FY25.
13. 65% self-employed women in Indian metros have not taken a business loan and 39% rely on personal savings, according to a report by DBS Bank and CRISIL.
14. Flipkart reported 27x growth in buyers using credit payments using easy monthly instalments (EMI) for purchase during its Big Billion days.
15. The joint venture of Jio Financial Services and Blackrock was granted in-principle approval by SEBI to launch its proposed mutual fund.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Google's GPay partnered with Muthoot Finance to launch gold loan products.
2. ICICI Bank partnered with MakeMytrip to launch a premium co-branded travel credit card.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. SEBI (securities): Cleared the proposal to introduce a new asset class for high-risk profile investors. Introduced new guidelines for F&O trades including:
   • Upfront collection of Option Premium (effective Feb 1, 2025)
   • Removal of calendar spread treatment on Expiry Day (effective Feb 1, 2025)
   • Intraday monitoring of position limits (effective Apr 1, 2025)
   • Increased contract size to INR 15lacs ($18K) for index derivatives (effective Nov 20, 2024)
   • Rationalization of Weekly Index derivatives products (effective Nov 20, 2024)
   • Increased tail risk coverage on options expiry day i.e. 2% additional extreme loss margin (ELM) to be maintained for short options contracts (effective Nov 20, 2024)
2. RBI (central bank): Raised concerns regarding partnership practices used by gold loan firms for asset backed lending.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Basic Home Loan, an affordable housing finance startup, raised $10.6M.
2. Vivriti Capital, an NBFC, raised $25M in debt via climate bonds.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. The Philippine government introduced a 12% VAT on digital platforms.
2. Kasikornbank in Thailand launched Orbix Custodian, as the country's first licensed digital asset custodian.
3. Tooba, a UAE-based social crowdfunding platform, launched its services in Malaysia.
4. Visa launched Visa Tokenised Asset Platform (VTAP) to help banks issue and manage fiat-backed tokens on blockchain networks connecting fiat currencies.
5. Vilja, a Swedish banking-as-a-service company, launched operations in SEA, HQ in Malaysia.
6. ANZ Bank joined Singapore's MAS Project Guardian.
7. FOMO Pay, a Singaporean payments startup, partnered with Visa to integrate its QR solutions for Singapore's QR system (SGQR) allowing users to pay with card by scanning a QR code.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Salmon, a Philippine neo banking startup, raised $30M.
2. First Circle, a Philippine small business banking startup, raised $7M.
3. Truely, a Singaporean e-SIM provider, raised $3.5M.

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