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).

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

Translation from Hindi: "Credit will be given only to people between 80-90 years of age after taking approval from their parents".

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

📈 Chart of the Week

Source: Tracxn, Jan, 2024.

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Funding in Indian fintech sector declined 57% YoY to $571mm in Q1 2024.
2. Aadhar Housing Finance received SEBI approval to list its shares in the public markets.
3. Rupyy, the consumer financing arm of CarDekho group, reported $2bn of loan disbursals in FY24.
4. PB Fintech, the listed parent entity of PolizyBazaar, announced a partnership with ICICI Lombard to list its products on PolicyBazaar. PB Fintech also announced the launch of PB Pay, it's payment aggregator entity.
5. Gurgaon police arrested the founders of Finsara, a small ticket consumer loan company as the employees resorted to extortion and intimidation in recovery of outstanding loans.
6. MoneyView, a consumer finance startup, reported INR 577cr ($69mm) in revenue in FY23 (ended Mar, 2023), +2.6x YoY.
7. Freo, a neobanking startup, reported INR 350cr ($42mm) in revenue in FY24 (ended Mar, 2024) and achieved profitability.
8. Paytm's market share of UPI transactions declined to 9% as of March, 2024.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Ashneer Grover launched ZeroPe, a surgery and healthcare financing startup.
2. Allianz Partners, a global insurance and reinsurance company, launched its reinsurance operations out of India's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at GIFT City.
3. PayU partnered with Paypal to launch cross border payments.
4. PhonePe partnered with eSewa and HAN Pokhran, to launch UPI payments in Nepal.

📝 Regulatory Update

1. RBI (central bank): Declined the Small Finance Bank license application of Dvara and Tally Solutions. Introduced frameworks to enable cash deposit facility using UPI. Approved the Prepaid Payment Instrument license application of Revolut India.
2. IRDAI (insurance): Introduced updated definitions of certain terms for health insurance products.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Paytring, a global payments orchestration startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. MUFG will be acquiring 20% stake of HDB Financial, valuing the company at $10bn.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. KoinWorks, an Indonesian P2P lending startup, reported $15mm (+71% YoY) in revenue in 2022.
2. GlobalData released a report stating that payment cards were used in 40% of digital commerce transactions.
3. TerraPay, a global cross border payments company, and Nuvei, a Canadian payments company, received MAS approval as Major Payment Institutions in Singapore.
4. eToro, an Israeli stock broking platform, submitted an application to MAS to operate as a broker in Singapore.
5. TransferGo, a UK based cross border payments company, raised $10mm for its expansion to SEA.
6. MAS partnered with Mastercard to launch an information sharing and cyber threat intelligence platform for the Singaporean financial services sector.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. SmartPay, a Japanese checkout finance startup, raised $7mm.
2. Awan Tunai, an Indonesian inventory financing startup, raised $5mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. 9Basil Group, a Thai alternate investment firm, acquired AlteriQ Global, a Singaporean private credit financier.
2. Empower Finance, a US fintech company, acquired Cashalo, a Philippine consumer credit startup.
3. UBS formed a joint venture with Sumitomo Mitsui to acquire Credit Suisse's local wealth business in Japan.

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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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