Hi fintech friends, Osborne here!

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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🐦🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

• Paytm's CEO released a statement requesting the government to bring payment devices under India's production-linked incentive scheme to boost local production of POS devices.
• Prosus sold its PayU Global Payment Organisation i.e. payments operations outside India, Turkey and Southeast Asia, to Rapyd for $610mm.
• UPI payments hit a record 996cr (9.96bn, +6% MoM) transactions with a throughput of $187bn (+4% MoM) in June, 2023.
• A total of 68mm income tax returns were filed for FY23 (ended Mar, 2023), and 5.4mm first time accounts.
• PayU India is reportedly planning to list in India by 2024 and will seek a valuation of $6bn.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Bajaj Capital launched Tiger, a cobranded credit card with IndusInd Bank.
2. CredAble partnered with Grip Invest to launch InvoiceX Bluechip 200+, an investment product on invoice financing.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. RupeeRedee, a personal lending startup, raised $3.5mm.
2. Mufin Green, an EV lending startup, raised $1mm.
3. Clix Capital, a lending company, raised $ 146mm in debt.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. PayU Global sold off its Global Payments Organisation (ex-India, Turkey and SEA), to Rapyd for $610mm.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Nium reported $82mm in 2022 revenue, a 2.7x YoY growth.
2. Bank of Philippines Islands (BPI), the oldest bank in Southeast Asia, is reportedly aiming for 50mm digital customers in three to five years.
3. Siam Commercial Bank, a large Thai bank, and Bank of Thailand, Thai central bank, jointly developed an app to launch the country's retail CBDC pilot project.
4. Airwallex invested $165mm into its Singapore entity for expansion in SEA.
5. UnionDigital Bank, a Philippine digital bank, partnered with BigPay by Capital A, the AirAsia group's fintech arm, to launch embedded lending solutions in BigPay's app in Philippines.
6. Binance launched a platform specific for the Japanese market.
7. Bank Raya, an Indonesian bank, reported $8.3mm in pre-tax profits in H1 2023.
8. XTransfer, a Hong Kong SME fintech startup, launched cross border payments for HK SME's.
9. SoftSpace, a Malaysian fintech infra startup, partnered with JCB, a Japanese card network, and Hong Leong Bank, to drive up JSB card acceptance in Malaysia.
10. Revolut Singapore launched instant card transfers to 80+ countries.
11. Zurich Insurance in Singapore, partnered with Klook to launch travel insurance and telehealth services.
12. Hashkey launched Hong Kong's first licensed crypto exchange for retail users.
13. Tazapay received MAS approval for a Major Payment Institution license.
14. Endowus, a Singaporean wealth management startup, grew revenue by 2.5x to $6.1mm in 2022 and reported net loss of $20mm.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Micro Connect, a Hong Kong based microfinance company, raised $458mm at $1.7bn valuation.
2. Finda, a South Korean loan comparison startup, raised $37mm.
3. Terminal 3, a crypto security startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITION:

1. Symplefy, a Vietnamese payroll and HR startup, was acquired by GoLogiq, a US based consumer analytics provider, for $30mm.

🌏 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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