Hi fintech friends,

Happy Holidays! Hope you are able to find time off fintech and relax.

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: There will be no TWIF Asia next week i.e. 1st Jan, 2022. I’ll resume regular programming by 8th Jan, 2022.

Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, I may be able to help - reach out to osborne@thisweekinfintech.com.

Want to be a This Week in Fintech - Asia Sponsor? Reach fintech founders, industry professionals and enthusiasts. Email me at sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.

🦉🏆 Tweets of the week

📊 Stat of the week

0.01% of bitcoin owners own 27% of the currency. Top 10,000 bitcoin accounts hold 5 million bitcoins, or $232 billion. (Source)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. India's Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested the founder and CEO of Kudos Finance for alleged misuse of it's NBFC license.
2. Clear, a tax filing startup, plans to expand to middle east and expects to generate $100mm in revenues.
3. Fintech startups in India raised $8bn in 2021, 65% YoY.
4. Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India's central bank, said that a partial ban of cryptocurrencies might not work and is in favour of a complete ban on crypto currencies.
5. NPCI, India's bank-run, nonprofit, retail payments platform, partnered with digital brands to enable tokenised payments for RuPay, India's home-grown card network.
6. Indian tech companies are lobbying with RBI to extend the tokenisation deadline to two more years.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Mudrex, a crypto asset management startup, launched Crypto-as-a-Service - an API-based enterprise crypto management platform.
2. Google Pay partnered with Mastercard to launch tokenisation for its users.
3. Paytm partnered with MoneyGram to launch global remittance for MoneyGram customers globally to send money to Paytm users in India.
4. PhonePe partnered with Edelweiss General Insurance to launch motor insurance on PhonePe.
5. Quicko, a taxation compliance startup, launched Glyde, a consumer tax compliance app.
6. Groww, an investing platform, launched a slew of products for stock investing.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Extended the deadline for restrictions on card data storage till 30th Jun, 2022.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Razorpay, a payment processing startup, raised $375mm at a $7.5bn valuation.
2. Ofbusiness, an industrial goods marketplace and credit startup, raised $325mm at $5bn valuation.
3. Stack Finance, an investment management startup, raised $4.5mm.
4. Metadome, a metaverse builder startup, raised $4mm.
5. Veefin, a supply chain finance startup, raised $3mm.
6. Tyke, a startup investment startup, raised $1.5mm.
7. Minko, a SMB credit startup, raised $1.5mm.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. HBL Bank in Pakistan launched tokenised card payments through it's mobile app, HBL Pay.
2. Igloo, a Singaporean insurance startup, partnered with Pine Labs, to launch Igloo's first Malaysian product - a mobile protection plan.
3. Indonesia's central bank launched BI-Fast, an instant bank transfer system with low costs.
4. UnionDigital Bank, the digital arm of Philippine Union Bank, expressed interest to enter the NFT market.
5. Finatext, a Japanese stock trading company, had Tokyo's worst ever stock trading debut with stock price plummeting 35% on IPO.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. MoMo, a Vietnamese payment startup, raised $200mm.
2. CHAI, a South Korean payment startup, raised $45mm.
3. CreditBook, a Pakistani book keeping startup, raised $11mm.
4. CapBay, a Malaysian sharia-compliant SMB lender, raised $7mm.
5. Solscan Analytics, a Solana block explorer, raised $4mm.

Acquisition:

1. UnionBank, Philippines’ 10th largest bank, is acquiring Citigroup's consumer banking business for $908mm.

🌏 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.

📜 Notable Nuggets

1. $12.1 bn in cryptocurrencies was stolen between Jan 2011 and Dec 2021 (Report)
2. House Money: Why our appetite for risk grows with our money.
3. TikTok Made Them Famous. Figuring Out What’s Next Is Tough.
4. A 30,000-Foot View Of Retail Banking From Google Cloud
5. What’s behind the growth of fintech in South Korea?
6. An Intro to B2B Cross-Border Payments

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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