Hi fintech friends,

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).

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• Positive Pay System (PPS) for cheques above INR 5 lacs ($~6,500) was implemented by Indian banks as of 1st August, 2022.
• Equitas Small Finance Bank is preparing to launch 3 separate apps (merchant app, insurance app and consumer app) in anticipation of launching its super app within 15 months. It plans to increase partnerships with fintech startups.
• India’s International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) signed a partnership on supervisory cooperation in financial services.
• Startup funding in India fell 72% YoY in value and fell 50% YoY in volume as of July, 2022.
• 58.3mm income (direct) tax returns were filed for FY22 (ended Mar, 22), compared to 58.9mm for FY21.
• GST (indirect tax) collections for the month of July, 2022 grew 28% MoM to $19.35bn - making it the second highest monthly collection. GST collection was higher on account of growth in imports of 48% MoM vs 22% growth in revenues from domestic sources.
• A survey by LoanCircle reported that 42% of Indians experienced financial fraud in the past 3 years.
• Credgenics, a digital debt resolution startup, launched its services in Indonesia.
• A report by NeoGrowth claimed that 22% of small businesses that availed loans were run by women.
• Account Aggregator platform is live on all public sector banks bringing 1.1bn bank account data on the network.
• Swiggy plans to launch a co-branded credit card.
• India's enforcement directorate froze $8.2mm in assets of WazirX citing suspected foreign exchange violations. Binance founder CZ meanwhile tweeted that Binance never acquired WazirX.
• RBI announced in its MPC meeting that non-resident Indians (NRI's) will soon be able to pay utility bills using Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).
• Non-life insurers reported highest ever monthly revenue in July across all product categories.
• Paytm Money, Paytm's wealth and investment arm, hiked brokerage charges for stock delivery and intraday, futures and options (F&O) for new users.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Tortoise, a savings startup, launched Save Now Buy Later (SNBL) for the upcoming iPhone for CRED users.
2. Yubi, a debt marketplace startup, partnered with U Gro Capital, an SME lender, to launch several SME focused credit products.
3. IndusInd Bank partnered with M2P* to launch an API infrastructure and a digital suite of products.
4. GoldenPi, a fixed income investment startup, partnered with 5Paisa to launch fixed income investing on 5Paisa.
5. Setu launched Reverse Penny Drop for bank account validation.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Released the value of the composite Financial Inclusion Index for March, 2022 - it stands at 56.4 vs. 53.9 in March 2021.
• IRDAI (insurance): Released a consultation paper proposing to cap general and health insurer's experiences at 30% of gross written premiums.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Dezerv, a wealth management startup, raised $20mm.
2. TWID, a rewards and loyalty management startup, raised $12mm.
3. Credit Fair, an embedded credit startup, raised $10mm.
4. Jify, an earned wage access startup, raised $10mm.
5. CredAble, a supply chain finance startup, raised $7.1mm from Axis Bank.
6. Tartan*, a payroll API startup, raised $4.5mm.
7. Bluecopa, a finance operations automation startup, raised $2.3mm.
8. Northern Arc Capital, a diversified financial services company, raised $25mm in debt.

ACQUISITION:

1. ICICIDirect, the stock broking arm of ICICI Bank, acquired Multipie, an investor networking startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• GoTyme, a joint venture between Tyme, a Singapore-headquartered digital banking group, and the Gokongwei Group, a Philippine-based conglomerate, received its "Certificate of Authority" - the final step to launch a digital bank, from the Philippine central bank.
• Indonesian government banned Paypal and several other tech platforms from operating in the country.
• Philippine govt. is planning to introduce PhilSys ID, a digital identification system, to improve access to financial services and launch e-governance.
• MAS, Singapore's central bank, is planning to introduce regulations for stablecoins.
• Japan's central bank scrapped its CBDC plans citing lack of demand from the public.
• EZ Wage, a Singaporean financial wellness startup, partnered with Pakistan's Bank Alfalah to launch earned wage access in Pakistan.
• AMTD Digital, a Hong Kong fintech company popular with Reddit's WallStreetBets, saw its share price grow 21,400% to $1,679 from its IPO price of $7.80 in just two weeks.
• Indonesia's regulators lifted the ban on PayPal after it was found compliant with local laws.
• Revolut launched crypto trading services in Singapore.
• Thailand's central bank moved its retail CBDC study to pilot stage without plans for issuance.
• The Philippine central bank warned against using Binance to invest in crypto.
• State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan's central bank, ordered Tag, a Pakistani payments and banking startup, to return all user funds before 19th Aug, 2022. The founders of the startup are accused of forging documents submitted to the central bank among others.

💰 Financing Announcements

• UNOAsia, a Singapore-HQ Philippine digital bank, raised $11mm.
• Nano, a Vietnamese earned wage access startup, raised $6.4mm.
• OrBit Markets, a Singaporean DeFi startup, raised $4.5mm.
• Openull, a South Korean BNPL startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

• US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic published on Friday’s and Saturday’s.
• Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins published on Monday’s.
• Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
• Africa, written by Benjamin Dada.

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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