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.

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. RBI Deputy Governor pulled up banks for ceding the UPI market to non-banks where most of the business is with non-banks.
2. When asked about RBI deputy governors remarks, Axis Bank's Managing Director reportedly said that "banks do not have money to burn for building such businesses," and "businesses like UPI are loss-making and also lack cash flows, and wondered how their valuations keep going up."
3. RBI claimed that India's CBDC will be anonymous "to a certain degree".
4. The Mutual Fund industry's AuM grew to a record INR 40tn ($ 488bn).
5. BharatPe sued Ashneer Grover for misusing funds. The company also begun proceedings to claw back shares from the founders.
6. PayMate, a B2B payments company, received in-principal approval from RBI to operate a payment aggregator.
7. Ratings agencies have reportedly said the exclusion of loan portfolios with tenor less than 365 days from securitisation, will negatively impact the industry, especially the gold and personal loan segments.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Razorpay launched credit card on UPI acceptance for its merchant base.
2. Vested Finance launched 2 more Vests for users to invest in US tech companies and global ETF's.
3. MyShubhLife, a financial product platform for mass middle India, launched a Lending as a Service platform.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Updated the regulations on Securitisation of Standard Assets.
2. IRDAI (insurance): Approved allowing PE funds to directly invest in insurance companies. Approved allowing banks to tie up with 9 insurance companies for each of Life, General and Health insurance. Approved a proposal to allow insurance companies to raise alternate investments including subordinated debt and preference shares.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Vidyut, an EV financing startup, raised $4mm.
2. Yellow Metal, a gold-backed financing startup, raised $3mm.
3. AlgoBulls, a stock trading startup, raised $2mm.

Note: $1 = INR 82

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Tencent Financial Technologies rebranded to Tenpay Global, a new international brand for its cross border payments business.
2. Hong Kong's Industry Association released the shortlist of three credit reference agencies (CRAs) under the Multiple Credit Reference Agencies (MCRA) Model: Nova Credit Limited, PingAn OneConnect Credit Reference Services Agency (HK) Limited and TransUnion Credit Information Services Limited.
3. Binance is reportedly in talks to acquire Tokocrypto, an Indonesian crypto exchange startup.
4. Boost, a Malaysian payments company, launched a payment system for Thai tourists to make QR-based, real time payments on the DuitNow network.
5. BI-FAST, Indonesia’s domestic real-time payments scheme - provided by Bank Indonesia and powered by ACI Worldwide - announced plans to launch a wide range of new real-time payment services as the scheme celebrates its first anniversary

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Paywatch, a Malaysian earned wage access startup, raised $9mm.
2. Akros, a South Korean ETF startup, raised $2.3mm.

🌏 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.

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