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).

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year! Whatever you celebrate, may you have a relaxed end to the year and a super productive new year. See you in 2024!

Note: Will resume regular programming on 13th Jan, 2024.

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

📈 Chart of the Week

Source: X/John Piazza

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. WazirX, a crypto trading platform, saw its trading volume drop 97% in 2023.
2. India's forex reserves increased to $616bn as of 15th Dec 2023, it's highest in 20 months. RBI increased its forex reserves by $37.5bn since April, 2023.
3. Indian Banks reported $5.15bn in unclaimed deposits, a 28% YoY increase.

🚀 Product Launches

1. PayCraft partnered with NSDL Payments Bank to launch a transit card.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Approved Razorpay, Cashfree, Enkash and Google Pay to operate as payment aggregators. Released preliminary framework for self regulatory organisations of Banks and NBFC's. Introduced card-on-file tokenisation through card issuing banks.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Finhaat, a agri-focussed insurance broking system, raised $3mm.
2. Finayo, a B2B EV lending SaaS startup, raised $2mm (equity and debt).
3. Reeudo, a cross border payments platform for higher education, raised an undisclosed amount.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Mastercard partnered with Jakarta's transit system to launch cashless payments for MRT commuters.
2. Bank Mandiri's, an Indonesian bank, new CEO aims to transform the bank's digital apps.
3. Aspire, a Singaporean neo bank, grew its revenue over 2x in FY2022.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Home Credit Indonesia, an Indonesian unsecured credit startup, raised $100mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Sumitomo Life Insurance of Japan acquired 35% of Singlife, a Singaporean insurer for $1.2bn and offered to acquire the entire business for $3.5bn.

🌏 International

Bonus! Sending you a postcard from Goa :)

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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