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

1. NPCI, India's retail payments entity, is having consultations with RBI regarding the 30% market cap on UPI.
2. Central Securities Depositories Limited (CSDL) detected malware on its systems and claimed that no sensitive information was compromised.
3. PB Fintech, the parent co. of Policybazaar, invested $2mm in YKNP Marketing Management, a UAE based banking SaaS company.
4. CredoPay, a payments and neobanking startup, launched in Oman via a JV.
5. PhonePe is in talks to acquire ZestMoney for $200-300mm.
6. RBI asked Paytm to reapply for its payment aggregator (PA) license within 120 days.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Cashfree Payments launched Unifi, a single banking platform for businesses to manage multiple accounts across banks and track their business transactions.
2. Kotak General Insurance launched ‘Meter’, a 'pay-as-you-use' car insurance optional add-on.
3. Flipkart partnered with Axis Bank to launch ‘Flipkart Axis Bank Super Elite’ credit card for Flipkart's premium customers.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. IRDAI (insurance): Approved the general insurance license application of Kshema General Insurance. Cleared GoDigit's IPO process.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Krisal.AI, a wealth management startup, raised $10mm.
2. Galgal Money, a neobanking startup, raised $1mm.

ACQUISITION:

1. Bajaj Finance acquired 40% of Snapwork, a tech services company that develops apps for banking and other FI's.

Note: $1 = INR 82

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. The central banks of Thailand and Vietnam officially launched the QR payment linkage.
2. Central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand are collaborating to work on a regional payment connectivity platform.
3. WeLab, the Hong Kong based neo banking startup, is planning to raise $200-250mm at $2bn valuation.
4. BitKub, a Thai cryptocurrency exchange, plans to list its shares on the Hong Kong exchanges when "things get back to normal".
5. ABA Bank, a Cambodian bank, launched instant card issuance kiosks.
6. Brankas, a banking infrastructure startup, launched Brankas Open, an open source license for Banking-as-a-Service and Open Finance software.
7. Singapore and UK signed a fintech trade agreement.
8. Experian was appointed to operate Singapore’s BNPL bureau.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. XanPool, a Hong Kong-based fiat-to-crypto platform, raised $41mm.
2. Pashouses, an Indonesian fintech and real estate startup, raised $5mm.

ACQUISITION:

1. Quantifeed, a Hong Kong-based wealth management start-up, acquired Alpima, a London-based portfolio construction, visualization and analytics fintech company.
2. MUFG, a Japanese bank, will acquire the Philippine and Indonesian units of Home Credit for $621mm.

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

• US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic.
• Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins.
• Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
• Africa, written by Emeka Ajene.
• China written by Ning Ye.
• Policy written by Mohammad Hamdy.

And of course, our podcast series - Beyond Two Percent and Hey Fintech Friends.

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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