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).

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.

Want to be a This Week in Fintech - Asia Sponsor? Email me at sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com or see our sponsorship information here.

✨ Mumbai Fintech Happy Hour presented by IDFC FIRST Bank

Our Mumbai Fintech Happy Hour was so fun! We had 230+ fintech founders, VC’s, executives from financial firms and more, attend the happy hour.

Thanks to our presenting sponsor - IDFC FIRST Bank and co-sponsors - Tartan, Tether by M2P and Pazcare.

🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• UdaanCapital, a digital lending product by Udaan, a B2B commerce startup, claimed to have disbursed $275mm in credit to 100K merchants.

🚀 Product Launches

• RBI and NPCI launched UPI-Lite, Credit Card on UPI and several other payment products.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• SEBI (securities): Put Digit Insurance' IPO in abeyance. Directed AMFI (mutual fund association) to check splitting of transactions by mutual fund distributors.

💰 Financing Announcements

• Zopper, an insurance infrastructure startup, raised $75mm.
• Light Microfinance, a microfinance company, raised $24.5mm.
• Savart, a wealth management startup, raised $1.5mm.
• MoneyPlanned, a wealth management startup, raised $312K.

1-min Anonymous Feedback: Your feedback helps me improve this newsletter. Click UPVOTE 👍🏽 or DOWNVOTE 👎🏽

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• South Korea's financial regulator detailed more cases of “abnormal” forex transactions, most related to crypto, bringing the total to $7.2B since June 2022; 72% were sent to Hong Kong.
• PPro, a global payments infrastructure company, launched its services in Malaysia via integration with GrabPay and Touch n Go.
• Thailand's Siam Commercial Bank is piloting a tech platform to apply blockchain to real estate supply chains.
• MAS, Singapore's financial regulator, awarded a Capital Market Services license to SBI Digital Assets from Tokyo.
• WeLab, a Hong Kong lending startup, partnered with Astra, an Indonesian conglomerate, to acquire Bank Jasa Jakarta for $510mm.
• Indonesia's trade ministry plans to issue a new rule governing crypto asset exchanges.
• GCash, a Philippine payments company, plans to launch stock trading services.
• DBS Bank launched digital asset trading for accredited investors.

💰 Financing Announcements

• StoreHub, a Malaysian payment acceptance startup, raised $13.5mm.
• Revenue Monster Group, a Malaysian merchant payment acceptance startup, raised $6.5mm.
• Instapay, an Malaysian payments startup, raised $4.75mm.

🌏 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.

1-min Anonymous Feedback: Your feedback helps me improve this newsletter. Click UPVOTE 👍🏽 or DOWNVOTE 👎🏽

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.