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).

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

📊 Stat of the week

NFTs account for 1%, or $16Bn in value, of the ~$2Tn cryptocurrency ecosystem; 46.6% are avatar NFTs, 19.8% are game NFTs, and 13.5% are collectible NFTs. (Source)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. RBI is considering allowing certain non-bank financial companies to become credit card issuers.
2. Cashfree Payments claimed to be profitable for the past four years till FY21, reporting a 48% YoY increase in net profit to $3.4mm.
3. LegalPay, a litigation finance startup, launched a healthcare-focused fund.
4. Coupl, a neo banking startup for couples, is expecting to launch its service soon.
5. CoinDCX claimed to have registered 10mm users in four years since launch.
6. Navi, Sachin Bansal's fintech company, converted to a public company and is expected to file its IPO prospectus soon.
7. Razorpay acquired a company in Malaysia foraying its international expansion in Southeast Asia.
8. Mutual fund industry's Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) folios crossed 5mm for the first time.
9. RBI Governor cautioned investors against investing in crypto assets, stating that the assets have no underlying value, "not even a tulip".
10. Fleek, a subscription management startup, claimed to have 100K registered users.
11. CredAvenue, a debt platform, is partnering with Finacle, Infosys' core banking system, to offer co-lending platform to banks.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Clear, a tax filing startup, launched crypto taxation and optimisation platform.
2. CoinSwitch, a crypto trading startup, launched SIP-style recurring buy plan.
3. OroWealth, an investment product distribution startup, formed a JV with Cosmea Financial to launch an AMC business.
4. LendingKart partnered with Amazon to launch working capital finance for Amazon's sellers.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Increased the limit of e-RUPI transactions from INR 10K to 100K (from $133 to $1,333).
2. IRDAI (insurance): Approved LIC's IPO plans.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Polygon, an Ethereum scaling startup, raised $450mm.
2. Mintifi, an SMB finance startup, raised $40mm.
3. U GRO Capital, an SMB finance company, raised $18.5mm.
4. Karbon Card, a corporate card startup, raised $15mm.
5. Wealthy*, an investment product distribution startup, raised $7.5mm.
6. Mudrex, a basket-style crypto investing startup, raised $6.5mm.
7. Colexion, a celebrity NFT startup, raised $5mm.
8. Nira, a consumer lending API startup, raised $2.5mm.
9. Dvara SmartGold, a gold investing startup, raised $2mm.
10. GoalTeller, an automated wealth advisory startup, raised $500K.
11. LegalPay, a litigation finance startup, raised an undisclosed amount.
12. Nova Benefits, an employee insurance startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Razorpay acquired Curlec, a Malaysian recurring payments startup, for $19mm.
2. PineLabs acquired QFix, a payments startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. State Bank of Pakistan directed banks to introduce free P2P payment transfers for free.
2. MAS, Singapore's central bank, ordered DBS Bank to increase its capital requirements by $692mm following the major service outages.
3. QisstPay, a Pakistani BNPL and 1-click checkout startup, launched its platform in US.
4. PBOC, China's central bank, made a statement terming cross border broking activities as "illegal".
5. Dana Fintech, a Bangladeshi SMB lending startup, partnered with Merchant Bay to launch SMB financing.
6. Singtel is integrating with Zip to launch BNPL on Singtel's Dash app.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Tonik Bank, a Philippine digital banking startup, raised $131mm.
2. Julo, an Indonesian P2P lending startup, raised $60mm.
3. PDAX, a Philippine crypto exchange, raised $50mm.
4. Brick, an Indonesian fintech infrastructure startup, raised $8.5mm.
5. Infina, a Vietnamese stock trading startup, raised $6mm.
6. Majoo, an Indonesian SMB accounting SaaS startup, raised $5mm.
7. Peddlr, a Philippine SMB accounting startup, raised $4.3mm.
8. IIMMPACT, a Malaysian fintech API startup, raised $2mm.

🌏 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.
• Policy, written by Ben White.

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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