Hi fintech friends,

Happy National Day to our Singaporean friends! (9th Aug)

Happy Independence day to our Indian friends! (15th Aug)

Happy Independence day to our Indonesian friends! (17th Aug)

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

📊Chart of the week

20 year annualised returns by asset class of Indian investors.

(Source)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• Scripbox, a mutual fund distribution startup, claimed to have INR 12,000 cr ($1.5bn) of AuM.
• A report claimed that the Indian fintech market is projected to have $200bn in revenue and $1tn in AuM by 2030.
• Muvin, a teen banking startup, claimed to have 50,000 users.
• mSwipe, an offline payments company, received a Payment Aggregator license from RBI. It plans to launch an online payment gateway and apply for a PPI license as well.
• Coinswitch Kuber launched Web3 Discovery Fund, a $10mm web3 fund.
• Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS), a corporate action advisory firm, opposed the reappointment of Vijay Shekhar Sharma as CEO of Paytm.
• A report by UN highlighted that 7% of Indians own cryptocurrencies - 7th highest in the world.

🚀 Product Launches

• PhonePe launched Buddy, a smart speaker POS.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Released guidelines tightening digital lending rules.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Lysto, an India and Singapore based NFT startup, raised $12mm.

ACQUISITION

• Scripbox, a mutual fund distribution startup, acquired Wealth Managers, a wealth management startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• Indonesia's GDP grew 5.44% in Q2.
• The Consumer Credit Oversight Board Task Force, instituted by the Malaysian Ministry of Finance, has sought feedback on its proposed BNPL regulations.
• ZA Bank, Hong Kong's digital bank, launched investment fund service for customers to manage personal finance along with other banking services.
• Hodlnaut, a Singaporean crypto lender, halted withdrawals and dropped its license application.
• Crypto.com, a crypto exchange, secured licenses to operate in South Korea.
• Apple Pay launched in Malaysia.
• A survey by Amadeus, a travel tech company, highlighted that Singaporeans are most willing to fund their non-essential expenses with BNPL.
• Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) partnered with Bloomberg to launch Fin Lab, a platform for students to learn about capital markets and gain practical experience.
• A survey by Visa on APAC users highlighted that 38% of adults are likely to use a DeFi service in the next six months.
• Bank of Thailand, Thailand's central bank, partnered with 2C2P and other payment platforms in Thailand to launch its CBDC trial.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Dana, an Indonesian payments startup, raised $250mm.
• Atome, a Singaporean BNPL company, raised $100mm in debt.

🌏 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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