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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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Hey Fintech Friends #2 ft Pierre Whatley

Listen now (49 min) | Available on Spotify, Apple and anywhere else you listen to podcasts! Timestamps: Intro News (2:30) Interview with Pierre about his experience and current work at FS Vector (4:46) Quick Fire Questions with Pierre and friendly questions (37:00) Signals: The stock market's Secret Menu

This Week in Fintech

Give a listen to our latest podcast series with fintech friends! You can find the series on all popular podcasting services including Spotify and Apple Podcast.

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.

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• LendingKart, a business finance startup, raised $~10mm in debt.
• Daily trading volumes of Indian crypto exchanges dropped 60-87%.
• Vauld, a Crypto lender and exchange, paused withdrawals, trading, and deposits and says it's exploring a restructuring, after users withdrew $198mm since 12th June.
• HSBC is planning to relaunch its onshore private banking in India.
• Paytm Money is migrating its systems to the BSE StAR mutual fund platform and will use its brokerage code instead of RIA code.
• CapitalFloat rebranded to Axio.
• MyShubhLife, a blue collar worker finance startup, plans to disburse INR 250 crs ($32.5mm) in loans in FY23 and INR 500 crs ($65mm) in FY24.

🚀 Product Launches

• AssetPlus, an agent driven wealth product distribution startup, launched Corporate Fixed Deposits and NPS investment products.
• SafeGold, a digital gold investment infrastructure, launched Gains, an "interest on gold" product.
• AU Small Finance Bank launched LIT Card, a "Design your Credit Card" to select benefits based on lifestyle.
• Tide, UK based SMB lending startup, partnered with Transcorp to launch SMB expense card for Indian SMB's.
• Raise Financial launched Upsurge, an investment social network.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• SEBI (securities): Directed exchanges to set up online complaint filing and tracking system for investors. Released a consultation paper on Prohibiting Insider Trading in the Mutual Fund industry.
• RBI (central bank): Directed non-bank payment system operators to obtain prior approval before acquisitions or takeover. Approved in-principle Payment Aggregator licenses for Pine Labs, Stripe, 1Pay and Razorpay. Approved in-principle Account Aggregator license of Setu.
• IRDAI (insurance): Permitted general insurance companies to offer motor policy add ons for Pay as you Drive or Pay How you Drive.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Innoviti, an offline payments company, raised $15mm.
• MarketWolf, a social investing startup, raised $10mm.
• EnsuredIt, an insurance SaaS startup, raised $4.2mm.
• TruBoard, an debt management and collections startup, raised $2.7mm.
• Finvu, an account aggregator startup, raised $2.5mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

• M2P*, a banking and payments infrastructure startup, acquired Finflux, a cloud lending SaaS startup.
• Clear, an SMB tax startup, acquired CimplyFive, a compliance risk management automation startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• Singapore's financial regulator, MAS, is planning to introduce additional consumer protection safeguards against crypto trading.
• SingLife with Aviva, a Singaporean insurer, launched A Better Odyssey, a cross industry collaboration to digitise Singapore's small businesses.
• Binance signed an MOU to share its digital asset regulation expertise with the Cambodian government.
• YouTrip, a Singaporean neobank, launched in-app travel insurance feature in partnership with HL Assurance.
• Atome, the Southeast Asian BNPL startup, received $45mm from its parent firm.
• Sleek, a platform providing incorporation and accounting services, received a Major Payment Institution License (MPI) from MAS.
• ANT Group open sourced its Privacy Software platform.
• PayPay merged with Yahoo Japan to launch a commerce marketplace to compete with Amazon and Rakuten.
• Delio, a South Korean crypto startup, launched a crypto bank - the country's first money market deposit account.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Bank Jasa Jakarta, a WeLab backed digibank, raised $259mm.
• Kitabisa, an online crowdfunding startup, raised $5mm.
• Kini, an Indonesian earned wage access startup, raised $4.3mm.
• Rey, an Indonesian health insurance startup, raised $4.2mm.
• Peakflo, a CFO suite SaaS startup, raised $4.1mm.
• Ancileo, an insurance SaaS startup, raised $3mm.
• Pina, an Indonesian personal finance startup, raised $3mm.

🌏 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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