Hi fintech friends,

Welcome to the weekend of the year! We made it.

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).

Don’t forget to share with fellow fintech friends!

Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity, I may be able to help - reach out to osborne@thisweekinfintech.com.

Want to be a This Week in Fintech - Asia Sponsor? Email me at sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com or see our sponsorship information here.

🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. SBM Bank announced a strategic partnership with Zwitch, the banking infrastructure platform of Bank Open.
2. HDFC Bank partnered with Mintoak, a small business payments startup, to create an ecosystem of payment acceptance for small businesses.
3. RBI conditionally approved YES Bank's 9.99% stake sale to Carlyle Group and Advent.
4. Payment Council of India launched Project Pratima, a common icon library for uniformity and fraud prevention.

🚀 Product Launches

1. CASHe partnered with Haptik to launch automated instant credit disbursal on WhatsApp.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Announced the pilot launch of eRupee - Retail, the retail format of the RBI's digital currency.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Kreditbee, a small ticket personal lending startup, raised $80mm.
2. IndiaGold, a gold-backed financing startup, raised $10mm.
3. Cypherock, a crypto hardware wallet startup, raised $1mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. CRED acquired CreditVidya, an unsecured loan underwriting SaaS startup.
2. IppoPay, a payments startup, acquired Roamsoft, a fintech software services startup.

Note: $1 = INR 82

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

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM), a Malaysian subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Bank, launched a digibank app Rize.
2. 2C2P partnered with Pine Labs to roll out BNPL acceptance across Southeast Asia.
3. Funding Societies Thailand claimed to surpass THB 1bn (~$28mm) in lending to small businesses.
4. Society Pass, a Vietnamese fintech company, partnered with Stripe to offer payment settlement services.
5. Line announced the closure of Bitfront its crypto exchange platform in Japan.
6. Revolut is further expanding its offering in Japan, Philippines and India.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Igloo, a Singapore based insurance startup, raised $27mm.
2. TipTip, a creator monetisation startup, raised $13mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Binance acquired SEBC, a Japanese crypto exchange.
2. Tonik Bank, a Philippine digital bank, acquired TendoPay, a payroll based fintech startup.

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

• US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic.
• Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins.
• Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
• Africa, written by Emeka Ajene.
• China written by Ning Ye.
• Policy written by Mohammad Hamdy.

And of course, our podcast series - Beyond Two Percent and Hey Fintech Friends.

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.