Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, investor in early stage startups.

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. PayU India reported $237M revenue (+12% YoY) from its payments business and $82M (+91% YoY) from its lending business during the six months ended Sep, 2024.
2. MobiKwik will launch its IPO this week and will value the company at $250M.
3. Paytm sold a 5.4% in PayPay Japan for $250M to focus on its core payments and financial services businesses.
4. Loans against gold jewellery by banks grew by 50% in the first seven months (Apr-Oct 2024) of the current financial year, while credit in other personal loan segments grew in single digits.
5. Signzy, an ID verification startup, suffered a security incident after it was hit by a cyberattack.
6. A parliamentary standing committee on finance endorsed various reforms proposed in the Insurance Amendment Bill, including allowing composite insurance licenses and reducing capital requirements.
7. RBI is requiring PE/VC funds to appoint directors on the boards of NBFC's, not just observers, to increase accountability.
8. Loan growth was 11.1% YoY, significantly lower than the 20.6% recorded last year. Deposit growth has also fallen, reaching 11.2% as of November 15, 2024, compared to 13.6% a year earlier.
9. Credit card additions at Indian banks dropped 50% YoY in October due to rising delinquencies and stricter RBI regulations.
10. Plum, a group insurance startup, grew revenue by 2.5X YoY to INR 41.3cr ($4.9M) in FY24.
11. Mosambee, the PineLabs owned offline payments company, grew revenue by 28% to INR 240cr ($28M) in FY24 while profit increased by 87% to INR 28cr ($3.3M).

🚀 Product Launches

1. BharatPe launched 'Shield', a fraud protection plan called to offer coverage against digital frauds, including protection against fraudulent Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions.
2. FinBox launched an Account Aggregator-based customer data platform (CDP) that allows banks and NBFCs to access extensive customer data and get real-time insights.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Lifted business restrictions imposed on Navi Finserv. Launched MuleHunter.AI, a to detect fraud and alert banks about fraudulent accounts. Increased transaction limit for offline digital payments made through UPI Lite from INR 500 to INR 1,000 and the overall limit from INR 2,000 to INR 5,000. Allowed Small Finance Banks (SFBs) to provide credit lines via UPI to their customers.
2. SEBI (securities): Released a draft circular providing clarifications regarding regulated entities and partnerships with finfluencers. Cautioned investors against unregistered online platforms offering unlisted debt securities.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Vastu Housing Finance, a housing finance startup, raised $100M.
2. Mintifi, a supply chain finance startup, raised $80M.
3. ZFunds, a mutual fund distribution startup, raised $3M.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Snowdrop, a transaction data enrichment provider, partnered with BigPay, a payments app, to launch in Thailand.
2. CredAble, an Indian supply chain finance startup, partnered with PowerCred in Indonesia to launch working capital products for banks in Indonesia.
3. Coinbase is working on launching stablecoins in Thailand and Philippines pegged to the Thai Baht and Philippine Peso.
4. LinePay Taiwan, the Taiwanese payments company of LINE Group Japan, was listed on the Taiwanese Stock Exchange at a valuation of $1.07bn.
5. Goro, an Indonesian fractional real estate investment startup, joined the Indonesian regulatory Sandbox for Property Tokenisation.
6. Cambodia blocked access to 16 cryptocurrency exchange websites, including Binance and Coinbase.
7. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) announced that two new electronic payment solutions, EDP and EDP+, will be launched in mid-2025 to phase out the use of cheques.
8. Independent Reserve, an Australian crypto startup, expanded to Singapore.
9. Australia's government invested $50M in Singapore's Financing Asia's Transition Partnership (FAST-P) to support sustainable infrastructure development and clean energy transition in Southeast Asia.
10. Thailand Post partnered with bolttech to launch motor insurance to customers across Thailand.
11. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) partnered with Mastercard Impact Fund to launch small business financing for MSMEs in Asia.
12. HSBC's Singapore arm partnered with Dandelion to improve its cross-border payment capabilities.
13. MUFG partnered with Surecomp to launch a trade finance multi-bank channel product.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. KPay, a Hong Kong-Singapore based payments company, raised $55M.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) acquired WealthNavi, a Japanese robo-advisory company, for $664M.

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