Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, Principal at EMVC!

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).

Sponsored Content

Have you ever felt pain from manual finance processes or high card payment costs? Or maybe you're looking for levers to optimize revenue. Meet Acme Technology. Our software enables you to connect directly with your bank of choice to automate all your finance and payments processes. Think real-time reconciliation and direct-to-bank payments. No lengthy integration, just streamlined APIs that transform your bank integration into a Stripe-like experience.

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

(Note: Neither TWIF nor I endorse any views in the tweets highlighted above.)

📈 Chart of the Week

(Source: RBI Report - Cash versus Digital Payment Transactions in India: Decoding the Currency Demand Paradox)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in its report said that BNPL options pose risks to global credit systems and "warrant monitoring".
2. NPCI Bharat Billpay partnered with SBI Card and other banks to launch credit card repayment acceptance on Bharat BillPay.
3. Razorpay POS, the offline payments acceptance product of Razorpay which makes up 10% of Razorpay's total payments volume (TPV), grew TPV by 40% YoY post the Ezetap acquisition.
4. Paytm announced plans to issue fewer personal loansunder INR 50K (~$610) to comply with RBI's regulations on increasing risk weightage.
5. Indian banks have reportedly asked their fintech partners to reduce small ticket unsecured personal loans.
6. India’s GST collection grew a 15% YoY in its GST collections to INR 1.68 tn in November 2023.
7. ZestMoney, a BNPL startup, and Akudo a teen banking startup, are reportedly shutting down its operations.
8. OkCredit, a small business accounting startup, reportedly generated INR 9cr ($1.1mm) in revenue since inception.

🚀 Product Launches

1. BriskPe partnered with CurrencyCloud to launch cross border payments for small businesses.
2. Dhan launched mutual fund investing on its platform.
3. Fixed Invest, a fintech startup, partnered with Bajaj Finance to provide digital fixed deposit products to the latters userbase.
4. IppoPay, a small business payment acceptance startup, partnered with Visa to launch credit cards for its small business users.

📝 Regulatory Updates

RBI (central bank): In its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) press conference, the RBI governor stated introducing the following initiatives and regulations for fintech startups and the financial industry:

• It will release a regulatory framework for web aggregation of loan products.
• It is enhancing the UPI transaction limited for education, IPO subscriptions and healthcare spend use case from INR 2lacs ($2.4K) to INR 5lacs ($6K), per transaction.
• It is enhancing the limit for UPI transactions for recurring payments including credit card payments, mutual funds, insurance etc.
• It is establishing a cloud facility for the financial sector data in India.
• It plans to set up a Fintech Repository for fintech startups to voluntarily share aspects of the business

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Digivriddhi, a dairy fintech startup, raised $6mm.
2. Navadhan, a rural credit startup, raised $5mm.

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

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

• Revolut Singapore launched a 24-carat gold plated card for its top spenders.
• OCBC Bank in Malaysia partnered with Moby, a Malaysian payments firm, to launch QR payment acceptance for small businesses.
• YouTrip, a Singaporean e-wallet provider, partnered with Google Pay to integrate YouTrip cards for payment with Google Pay.
• Coinbase launched an upgraded wallet feature to send cross border payments with crypto via messaging apps.
• The central banks of Indonesia and UAE signed a partnership to collaborate on Islamic finance and digital innovation.
• InLife, a Philippine insurance firm, is selling its 40% stake in Oona Philippines, a Philippine insurance startup.
• The central banks of Singapore and China agreed to partner on cross border CBDC payment acceptance.
• The central banks of Thailand and Hong Kong launched cross border payments acceptance between the two countries.
• Neem, an embedded finance startup in Pakistan, partnered with Mastercard to launch a multi-year product for card issuance in Pakistan.
• Singapore's central bank introduced Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P), a financial platform, with the goal to raise $5bn in funds for climate action in Asia.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Igloo, a Southeast Asian insurance startup, raised $36mm.
2. AwanTunai, an Indonesian BNPL startup, raised $18mm.

🌏 International

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