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

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

📈 Chart of the Week

Source: Coatue - East Meets West 2023

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Life Insurance premium in India grew 2% YoY in FY24 (ended Mar, 2024) from INR 3.7tn ($44.6bn) in FY23 to INR 3.8tn ($45.8bn) in FY24. Group life insurance premium, which accounts for 60% of new business premium, drove the sectors growth by 41.5% YoY.
2. AngelOne, a stock broking platform, reported net profit of INR 340cr ($41mm) for the quarter ended Mar, 2024, growing 30.6% QoQ. Revenue grew 28% QoQ to INR 1,357cr ($163.5mm) during the same period.
3. SBI released a research report stating that credit outstanding grew 20% YoY whereas deposits grew 13.5% YoY.
4. The Central Economic and Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) wrote to the Ministry of Finance to ensure all private banks seek the Bureau's clearance before extending loans to a company to verify if there is any enforcement case pending against the company. The same provision is already in place for public sector banks.
5. IndusLaw published a primer on Payment Service Provider regulations to operate payment services in International Financial Services Center (IFSC) in GIFT City.
6. Kreditbee, a consumer finance startup, is joining a host of other fintech firms in flipping its corporate structure to India as its domicile.
7. Nandan Nilekani and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a working paper titled "Finternet: the financial system for the future".
8. Jio Financial Services entered into a joint venture with Blackrock to set up a wealth management and broking business in India, in addition to its asset management business JV.
9. SBI Bank recommended to RBI that the lender base of wholesale lenders should be capped as it "crimps the bank's ability to conduct due diligence" on wholesale lenders who have more than 50-60 NBFC lender base.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Bureau*, a fraud and identity decisioning startup, launched Money Mule Score to detect potential identity theft during user onboarding.
2. Aditya Birla Capital launched ABCD app, its super app for financial services. It will invest $12mm to grow the platform.

📝 Regulatory Update

1. RBI (central bank): Approved CRED's application to operate as a Payment Aggregator. Released guidelines requiring lenders to issue Key Facts Statement for loans and advanced. Released new guidelines for Payment Aggregators (online and offline) to have increased KYC requirements based on size and scale of merchants onboarded. Released draft regulations for Payment Aggregators - physical POS.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Altum Credo, a housing finance startup, raised $40mm.
2. RupeeRedee, a consumer finance startup, raised $5mm.
3. ClaimBuddy, a health insurance assistance startup, raised $5mm.
4. Ring (fka Kissht), a consumer credit startup, raised $12mm in debt.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Aurionpro Solutions, financial services software company, acquired Arya.AI, an insurance SaaS startup for $16.5mm.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Brankas, a Southeast Asian fintech infrastructure startup, obtained a Payment Service Provider Category 2 License from Indonesia's central bank for account information services.
2. Moomoo, a Singaporean investments platform owned by Futu Holdings of China, claimed to have 1mm users in three years since launch.
3. MAS of Singapore committed SGD 35mm to sustainable finance upskilling initiatives.
4. Nium received approval from the New Zealand regulators to operate as a Financial Services Provider.
5. Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank is in talks with Bank Syariah Indonesia to acquire a minority stake in bank for $1.1bn.
6. Fintech funding in Southeast Asia dropped by 44% QoQ in Q1 2024.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Seedflex, a Malaysian small business revenue based finance startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

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