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).

Note: Will take a pause from publishing TWIF Asia next week. Regular programing will resume on 04th June, 2022

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

• Paytm is reportedly filing for a new general insurance license.
• Nithin Kamath, Zerodha's cofounder, believes that India's fintech market size is 100-150mm users.
• Navi, the financial company founded by Sachin Bansal, seeks to raise $80mm via a public bond sale.
• EnKash, a corporate card startup, claims to have 70,000 business clients and 550K cards outstanding.
• A trader from Rajkot with a Telegram group of 1.1mm traders, claimed to have used "black magic" to cause the Indian stocks to drop 4%.
• Money View, a consumer credit startup, claimed to have crossed $80mm in revenues in FY22 with total disbursement of $850mm. It aims to cross $200mm in revenue by FY23.
• India's bank credit outstanding grew by 11% YoY to $1.6tn as of 06th May, 202 and bank deposits grew by 9.71% YoY to $2.23tn.
• Flipkart claimed that it's pay later credit facility crossed 6mm users within seven months since launch.
• A hacker manipulated Razorpay's authorisation system and stole ~$1mm.
• Cashaa, a European crypto to fiat neo bank, announced its exit from India.

🚀 Product Launches

• Slice*, a GenZ cosumer credit startup, launched UPI payments.
• Hero Electric partnered with RevFin to launch two-wheeler EV financing.
• WhatsApp launched Pay button for transfers between India and Brazil.
• MakeMyTrip, an online travel booking company, launched a BNPL option. It partnered with 15 financial firms and fintechs for the offering.
• VISA partnered with Paytm to launch QR based card payments.
• BharatPe launched a P2P investment product for its small business users in partnership with LenDenClub and Liquiloans.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Rejected the universal banking application of Navi, the financial services company founded by Sachin Bansal, and others. Launched Interoperable Card-less Cash Withdrawal from ATM's with UPI integration. Adopted the new definition of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. CoinShift, a DAO treasury management startup, raised $15mm.
2. WintWealth, a fixed income investment startup, raised $15mm.
3. SustVest, a sustainable investment startup, raised $160K.

ACQUISITION:

1. PhonePe acquired WealthDesk, a Smallcase-like, thematic investing startup, for $50mm.
2. PhonePe acquired OpenQ, a wealth management startup, for $25mm.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• Alipay partnered with Ingenico to launch Alipay+ across Ingenico's global network.
• Syfe, a Singaporean robo-advisor investment startup, launched its services in Hong Kong.
• UangTeman, an Indonesian consumer credit startup, sued OJK, the Indonesian financial services regulatory authority, after OJK revoked the startups license.
• YAP, a Dubai-based digital banking startup, was granted an In-principal Approval to launch E-Money services from Pakistan's central bank.
• Elevandi, an entity set up by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), set up it's advisory committee.
• Nium, a Singapore based cross border infra startup, received an International Remittance Hub license from Malaysia's central bank.
• Terra, the stablecoin project that crashed recently, was fined $78mm in taxes by South Korea's National Tax Service.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Xendit, an Indonesian payments startup, raised $300mm.
2. Mekari, an Indonesian small business SaaS startup, raised $50mm.
3. Vida, an Indonesian digital identity startup, raised $47.7mm.
4. Coins.ph, a Philippine fiat and crypto wallet startup, raised $30mm.
5. RockFlow, a Singaporean investment startup, raised $10mm.
6. Anycover, a Singaporean insuretech startup, raised $450k.
7. Quantifeed, a Hong Kong based digital wealth management startup, raised an undisclosed amount.
8. DT One, a Singaporean micropayments startup, raised an undisclosed amount.
9. Forward, a Thai DeFi derivatives trading startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

🌏 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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