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).

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.

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

📊 Stat of the week

Of the 200-300mm crypto users worldwide, only ~4mm unique addresses have ever used DeFi protocols i.e. sub-2% penetration rate. (Source)

As on end Jan-2022, total 150 DeFi apps hold $107bn in user funds, $30bn down from the start of 2022. (Source)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. The NPCI, a retail payments body, is piloting a UPI-lite platform for UPI payments without internet.
2. Ruptok, a gold financing startup, claimed to have disbursed over $13.5mm in gold loans over 18 months.
3. Zomato set up a wholly owned subsidiary for an NBFC platform.

🚀 Product Launches

1. IndiPaisa and Hitachi Payments partnered to launch a payments and finance platform for SMB's.
2. Pencilton, a teen neobank, launched Pencil Card - a debit card intergrated with the National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) for travel payments.
3. Shootih launched an SMB wealth management platform.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Vyapar, a SMB accounting startup, raised $30mm.
2. Raise Financial Services, a fintech startup with its first product in stock trading, raised $22mm.
3. Kissht, a small ticket, instant SMB and retail finance startup, raised $13.5mm.
4. Flint, a crypto investment startup, raised $5.1mm.
5. Reevoy, an invoice factoring startup, raised $4mm.
6. Pillow, a crypto investment startup, raised $3mm.
7. Minko, a retailer finance startup, raised $1.5mm.

ACQUISITION:

1. MODIFI, a trade finance startup, acquired SeaWise Capital's Indian trade finance and SaaS business.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Bank Indonesia and MAS, central banks of the Indonesia and Singapore respectively, have signed an MoU to deepen payments partnership and promotion.
2. ZA Bank, a Hong Kong based digital bank, received an SFC license to provide investment and securities service.
3. ANT Group is shutting down Xiang Hu Bao, China's largest mutual aid platform.
4. Endowus, a digital wealth management app, launched Endowus Income Portfolios, a life-stage based portfolios.
5. OJK, Indonesia's regulator, has banned financial firms from facilitating cryptocurrency sales.
6. Bank Indonesia, Indonesia's central bank, launched its first real time payments infrastructure BI-FAST.
7. Akulaku owned Bank Neo Commerce claimed to have grown to 10mm new account holders within six months of launch.
8. Thailand's regulator is planning to introduce regulations for crypto payments.
9. Wise partnered with Tencent to launch remittance in China through Weixin.
10. BSP, the Philippine central bank, reported 53% adult Philippinos owned e-Money accounts in 2021, compared to 29% in 2019 and expects 70% adults to have bank accounts by 2023.
11. Marqeta added Singapore, Thailand and Philippines to its global card issuing network, totaling to 39 countries globally.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Babel Finance, a Singaporean crypto startup, raised $40mm.
2. Ayoconnect, an Indonesian fintech API startup, raised $15mm.
3. BreederDAO, an NFT generation startup, raised $10mm.

🌏 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.

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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