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).

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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

• Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB's) investments went up sharply during covid years (2020-2022) accounting for 75% of the scheme since inception in 2015.
• The Indian government has declared HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and NPCI's technology resources as "critical information infrastructure".
• The Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Committee for Commerce, in its report on Promotion and Regulation of Ecommerce in India, suggested that the MDR for UPI payments should be re looked at.
• India's GST council is expected to introduce a 28% GST on sale of cryptocurrencies. A survey done by the council, says "most are OK with the tax".
• HDFC Bank is planning to move its payments module out of core banking to avoid system failures.
• CoinDCX, a cryptocurrency exchange, is halting deposits and withdrawals.

🚀 Product Launches

• Freo, a retail neobanking startup, partnered with Equitas Small Finance Bank to launch FreoSave, a retail digital savings account.
• Card91* partnered with YES Bank and RuPay to launch its card infrastructure product.
• ICICI Bank launched Campus Power, a banking platform for students and schools.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Released a notification disallowing non-bank prepaid payment instrument (PPI) license holders from loading prepaid wallets with credit lines. Extended the deadline for implementation of new card issuance guidelines to 01st Oct, 2022.
• SEBI (securities): Stopped AMC's from offering bundled insurance products with mutual funds. Allowed AMC's to resume investing in global stocks.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Leap, a fintech startup for overseas education, raised $75mm.
• Annapurna Finance, a microfinance startup, raised $15mm.
• Finbox, a credit infrastructure startup, raised $15mm.
• Castler, a treasury management startup, raised $1mm.

ACQUISITION:

• Pine Labs acquired Setu, a financial infrastructure startup, for $70-75mm.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• AirAsia launched AirAsia Pocket, a closed loop wallet, in Malaysia.
• Three Arrows Capital, a Singaporean crypto hedge fund, is looking for a bailout.
• A report by Experian claims that 25% of APAC online consumers have been a victim of fraud.
• China's digital yuan wallet was downloaded by 261mm people - about a fifth of the country's population - and used for transactions worth $13.8 billion.
• Huobi, a Chinese crypto exchange, received licenses to operate in Dubai and New Zealand.
• HBL Bank in Pakistan became the country's first bank to launch WhatsApp banking.
• BigPay, AirAsia owned payments startup, launched cash collection services in Indonesia and Philippines.
• Crypto.com received in principle approval for its Major Payment Institution license and Sparrow received approval for Digital Payment Token Services.
• Mojaloop Foundation, a global open source payments company, launched a Centre of Excellence for CBDC's in Singapore.
• MAS Fintech head said that the regulator will be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on bad behaviour in the crypto industry.

💰 Financing Announcements

• StashFin, a Singaporean neobanking startup, raised $70mm at a $800mm valuation.
• FinHay, a Vietnamese stock investment startup, raised $25mm.
• Helicap, a Singaporean alternate lending startup, raised $5mm.
• AnFin, a Vietnamese stock trading startup, raised $4.8mm.

🌏 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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