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: Devki and Ambika Pande's newsetter - The Painted Stork

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• Global POS payment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.4% to $278tn by 2023.
• Global fintech investments dipped by 42% YoY to $114bn from 4,547 deals.
• Trust Fintech, a core banking solution and ERP provider, filed its draft IPO prospectus with NSE Emerge. It posted a total revenue of INR 18.8cr ($2.3mm) and earned a net profit of Rs 7.3cr ($0.9mm) in H1 FY2024.
• GroMo, an agent-led financial product distribution startup, claimed to have 160 products on its platform, servicing 3.6mm agent partners to whom GroMo paid out INR 100cr ($12mm).
• Default loan provisioning in bank books dropped to INR 17,956cr ($1.9bn) in the quarter ended March, 2023, the lowest in five years. NPA provisioning was $7.9bn in the quarter ended March, 2021.
• RBI introduced several measures to curb frauds on Aadhaar Enabled Payment Systems.
• Paytm Payment Bank reportedly shifted its payment nodal account to Axis Bank post RBI's actions against Paytm Payment Bank.
• Zerodha's AMC reportedly crossed INR 500cr ($60mm) in AuM with 100K investors in 3 months since launch.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Central banks of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Mauritius launched real time payments between Indian and the various countries.
2. PayNearby, a banking correspondent startup, launched Digital Naari, a program to generate self-employment opportunities for women in rural and semi-urban areas.
3. PayU launched credit line on UPI for its merchant network.
4. Leo, a student fintech startup, launched Leo1, its prepaid card for students.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Released a clarification regarding card network based commercial payouts to non-KYC receivers. Extended some deadlines for Paytm Payment Bank regarding RBI's action against the bank, from 29th Feb to 15th March, 2024.
2. IRDAI (insurance): Released regulations for Bima Sugam, a centralised digital insurance marketplace. It is considering increasing the policy trial period from 15 days to 30 days. Approved Godigit's plan to go public.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Credit Saison India, the Indian credit arm of Singapore based Saison International, raised $145mm.
2. Ayekart, an aagri financing startup, raised $6.5mm.
3. Veera, a rewards focused mobile browser, raised $6mm.
4. PocketATM, a micro atm startup, raised $400K.
5. Moove, an African mobility fintech startup, raised $10mm in debt for India expansion.
6. FlexiLoans, a small business finance startup, raised $7.23mm in debt.
7. Freo, a neo banking startup, raised an undisclosed amount in debt.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Malaysia's pension fund invested $21mm in two VC funds.
2. South Korean banks launched a "mock" hack involving a white hat hacker group and 19 banks to attempt server hacks and DDoS attacks.
3. Fintech funding in Asia was down by 56% YoY, reaching $7.3bn in 2023.
4. Tonik Bank in Philippines partnered with Xendit, a Southeast Asian payments company, to launch payment acceptance for merchants in Philippines.
5. Brankas, a Southeast Asian fintech infrastructure startup, partnered with NetGlobal Solutions to launch payment acceptance in Philippines.
6. Philippine central bank is launching its CBDC but opted to do so not on the blockchain.
7. InyPay, a Singaporean digital finance startup, raised Earlypayday, an earned wage access product.
8. The value received by illicit cryptocurrency addresses amounted to $24.2bn i.e. 39% drop YoY.
9. KogoPay, a UK banking and payments company, partnered with Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand to ease payments for UK and European tourists in Thailand.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Thai Credit Bank, a Thai based women busienss focused credit company, raised $24mm.
2. Doxa, a Singaporean supply chain procurement startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Privy, an Indonesian digital identity startup, acquired AyoPajak, an online tax platform.

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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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