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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• RBI, India's central bank, is reportedly evaluating neo banking business models.
• Contact-less payments as a percentage of total in person payments grew from 2.5% in Dec, 2018 to 16% in Dec, 2021.
• Dezerv, a wealth management startup, offers to manage portfolios with a hurdle rate of 15%.
• NPCI, India's retail payments body, partnered with Lyra Network, a retail payment rails in France, to accept UPI and Rupay.
• The RBI Governor responded to a question about fintech startups, claiming they can pose a systemic risk.
• Plural, the online payment gateway of PineLabs, claimed to be processing INR 2,000 crs ($267mm) of monthly transaction value.
• RBI plans to take its Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS), domestic financial messaging alternative to SWIFT, global, with plans to make it the regional default.

🚀 Product Launches

• CASHe, an instant personal startup, launched instant loan disbursal via WhatsApp.
• Zerodha launched family portfolio view within its brokerage app.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Lifted business restrictions on Mastercard India. Raised the minimum amount for Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA) for e-mandates from INR 5,000 ($66.7) to INR 15,000 ($200.0). Released its Payments Vision for 2025.
• SEBI (securities): Introduced new nomination framework for mutual fund investments.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Siply, a micro savings startup, raised $19mm.
2. WeRize, an agent driven financial product distribution startup, raised $15mm.
3. PayGlocal, a cross border payments acceptance startup, raised $12mm.
4. Pazcare, an employee health insurance startup, raised $8.2mm.
5. Mewt, a small business neobanking startup, raised $4.6mm.
6. Hostbooks, a small business accounting startup, raised $3mm.
7. Nume Crypto, a crypto payments acceptance startup, raised $2mm.
8. Gullak, a micro savings startup, raised $1.3mm.
9. Rooba Finance, an institutional crypto and digital asset management startup, raised $1.3mm.
10. DPDZero, a digital debt collections startup, raised $520K.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• Minna, Japan's first digital bank, claimed to have 1mm downloads and 400K in 12 months since launch.
• Huobi Thailand, the Thai operations of Chinese crypto exchange, will cease operations in Thailand after its license was revoked.
• Wirex, a crypto payments startup, launched new instant payment methods for users in Malaysia and Singapore to load money in their crypto wallets.
• MAS, Singapore's central bank, partnered with IFC and UNDP to launch a global MSME finance program.
• Ajaib, an Indonesian wealth management startup, launched crypto trading.
• Babel Finance, a Hong Kong based crypto lending platform, paused withdrawals and redemptions.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Flip, an Indonesian P2P payments startup, raised $55mm.
• TripleA, a crypto payments startup, raised $4mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

• MoMo, a Vietnamese payments startup, acquired a 49% stake in CVS, a Vietnamese securities company.
• Circle, a payment and treasury company known for USDC stablecoin, acquired CYBAVO, a Taiwanese digital asset custody and dAPP startup.

🌏 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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