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).

Happy Holidays and a relaxed end of year to all our readers. We'll be off next week and resume scheduled updates from 11th Jan, 2024. See you then!

Are you considering starting up? I’d love to help. DM me here: superdm.me/osborne

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Mintifi grew its revenue by 72% YoY to INR 384cr ($45M) in the year ended March, 2024.
2. Banks' net profit grew by 33% YoY and GNPA ratio fell to 2.7%, according to an RBI report.
3. IndusInd Bank is selling off INR 1,573cr ($184M) worth of microfinance loans due to asset quality issues.
4. The number of bank frauds grew to 18,461 cases and the amount involved jumped 8x to INR 21,367cr ($2.5bn) in H1 FY25 (Apr-Sep 2024), according to RBI data.
5. Digital lenders disbursed 3cr (30M) loans valued at INR 37,000cr ($4.3bn) in Q2 FY25 (Jul-Sep 2024). Growth moderated to 19% YoY compared to 44% last year. Total disbursements reached INR 70,000cr ($8.2bn) in the first half. Average loan size was INR 10,891 ($130), according to a report by Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE).

🚀 Product Launches

1. PineLabs launched Pine Labs Mini, a soundbox to accept QR and card payments.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Constituted a committee to develop a Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of AI in the financial sector. Enabled payments to/from full KYC prepaid payment instruments using UPI.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Metropolitan Stock Exchange (MSE), a stock exchange in India, raised INR 238cr ($28M) from stock brokers including Rainmatter (Zerodha), Groww, Share India Securities and Securocorp Securities.

1-min Anonymous Feedback: Your feedback helps me improve this newsletter. Click UPVOTE 👍🏽 or DOWNVOTE 👎🏽

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. XTransfer, a Chinese B2B cross-border trade payment startup, and OCBC, a Southeast Asian financial services group, launched cross-border payments for SMEs.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Fairbanc, a Singapore and Silicon Valley B2B finance startup, raised $3.13M.

🌏 Sponsor on TWIF

Mail us at sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com

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.

1-min Anonymous Feedback: Your feedback helps me improve this newsletter. Click UPVOTE 👍🏽 or DOWNVOTE 👎🏽

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn