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).

🐦🏆 Tweets of the Week

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

📈 Chart of the Week

Source

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. An Indian fintech self regulatory organisation (SRO) is expected to be launched in 3-6 months, once RBI finalises its standards.
2. PayU is expected to file a draft IPO prospectus to raise $500mm at a potential $7bn valuation.
3. A group of persons reportedly hacked a Payment Gateway provider and siphoned off funds worth INR 161.8cr ($19mn).
4. Groww reported 6.62mm active investors in Sept, 2023, becoming the largest broker by active users.
5. PayMate reported INR 1,350cr ($162mm) revenue in FY23, 11.6% YoY growth.
6. $264mm was the total funds raised by Indian fintech startups in Sept, 2023.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Razorpay launched Optimizer, a AI payments routing product for multiple gateway payments.
2. Spice Money partnered with NSDL Payments Bank to launch financial products for rural users.
3. Fibe, a consumer credit startup, partnered with Axis Bank to launch a numberless credit card.
4. Jupiter launched Rupay Credit Card payments on UPI.
5. Pazcare launched Pazcard, a spend card with flexible benefits.
6. ICICI Bank launched iFinance, an account aggregator feature for savings and investments.
7. OmniCard partnered with ONDC to launch corporate gift card issuance.
8. CredAble partnered with Mahindra First Choice to launch invoice discounting for its pre-owned auto sales business.
9. LoanTap launched a co-lending product for BNPL payments.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Directed Bank of Baroda to stop onboarding new customers through BoB World app. Fined Paytm Payments Bank, RBL Bank and others for KYC violations.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. InsuranceDekho, an insurance marketplace, raised $60mm.
2. Onsurity, an employee healthcare startup, raised $24mm.
3. OroMoney, a gold-backed financing startup, raised $12.5mm.
4. Jiraaf, a fixed income investments startup, raised $8.7mm.
5. KiVi, an agri financing startup, raised $1.8mm.
6. AuditCue, an auditing SaaS platform, raised $1.5mm.
7. Zolve, a cross border neo banking startup, raised $100mm (debt).

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

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Indonesian fintech startup fund raise dropped 94% in Q3 2023 to $21mm while Vietnam grew 190%.
2. UnaFinancial, formerly RoboCash, a Singaporean fintech company, partnered with Velexa, a UAE based digital investment platform to expand to UAE.
3. Coins.ph, a Philippine crypto exchange, partnered with Circle, to promote USDC remittances.
4. Tyme Bank, a Philippine digital bank, announced expanding its digital bank offerings to Indonesia and Vietnam.
5. Ripple received full license for Crypto Payment Services in Singapore.
6. PayPay, a SoftBank owned payments company reportedly has 60mm+ users, two thirds QR code payment market share in Japan.
7. Zengin, Japan's interbank payments network, suffered an outage for 24hours, impacting 1.4mm payment transfers.
8. Momo, a Vietnamese payments company, grew its annual revenue by 18% YoY to $355mm.
9. Inward remittances in Pakistan declined 20% QoQ in Sept, 2023 to $6.4bn.
10. MoneyHero, a Hong Kong based personal finance marketplace, listed on the NASDAQ via SPAC merger with Peter Thiel backed company.
11. Account Labs, a Singaporean web3 startup, launched UniPass Wallet, a web3 wallet for payments in stablecoins.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Account Labs, a Singaporean web3 payments startup, raised $7.7mm.
2. Circular, a Singaporean subscription service for consumer electronics, raised $7.6mm.
3. CrossFund, an equity financing startup, raised $1.5mm at $47mm valuation.
4. Eazy Digital, a Thai SaaS platform for insurance brokers, raised $1mm.
5. Luna, an Indonesian fintech infrastructure startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITION:

• KakaoBank, a Korean digital bank, acquired 10% of Superbank, an Indonesian bank.

🌏 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