Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, Principal at EMVC!

Hope you had a great start to the year! Wishing you a productive 2024!

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: Nishchay/Twitter

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Paymate partnered with the National Bank of Oman to modernise and launch its B2B payments system.
2. HDFC Bank reported a 62.4% YoY growth in its gross advances for the quarter ended Dec 2023 at $297bn with deposits growing to $267bn, 27.7% YoY growth.
3. Slice* reported INR 847cr ($100mm) in revenue in FY23 (ended Mar 2023), a 200% YoY growth.
4. Fino Payments Bank applied with RBI to convert to a Small Finance Bank.
5. RBI Governor warned Indian financial institutions against relying on AI and algorithms for automated credit disbursal assessment.
6. Total Deposits with banks reached a record $2.4tn as of 29th Dec, 2023. This is 2x the deposits held with banks since Sept, 2016 and +13.2% YoY.
7. Scapia, a cobranded travel credit card startup, slashed credit limits significantly for a section of its users.
8. Digit, a general insurance company, reported INR 5,146cr ($622mm) in revenue in FY23 (ended Mar, 2023).

🚀 Product Launches

1. GetVantage, a revenue based finance startup, launched an INR 250cr ($30mm) SaaS accelerator fund II for revenue based financing.
2. Velocity, a revenue based finance startup, launched an INR 300cr ($36mm) debt fund for B2B SaaS firms.
3. Jio Platforms launched SwiffyLabs, a B2B fintech infra platform for banks and financial institutions.
4. PhonePe, Paytm, SBI and others launched cross border UPI payments between Singapore and India.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Grip, a fixed income products startup, raised $10mm (equity and debt).
2. SalarySe, a credit on UPI startup, raised $5mm.
3. Mylapay, a payments startup, raised $550K.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Boost Bank and Aeon Bank launched their digital banking offerings in Malaysia.
2. Thai Prime Minister launched a $14.5bn digital wallet based stimulus package where 50mm citizens will receive $285 to spend in local communities.
3. Singapore's Money Lock feature is used by 38K account holders to "lock" $2.41bn in funds, inaccessible for digital transfers for protection against cyber fraud.
4. Tokyo's Nikkei index closed above 35,000 for the first time in 34 years.
5. Fintech startups in SEA raised $2bn in funding, -65% YoY from $5.9bn raised in 2022. The number of deals also reduced by 50%, with 142 deals in 2023 compared to 288 in the previous year.
6. According to a survey, 25% of Indonesian users prefer using BNPL as a payment option and 86% of Indonesian users made a form of digital payment.
7. Salmon, a Philippine fintech startup, received approval from the country's central bank to acquire a controlling stake in Rural Bank of Sta. Rosa.
8. Total funding into Indonesian FinTech startups dropped 51% to $765mm in 2023, from $1.6bn in 2022.
9. Ant Group is planning to acquire MultiSafepay, a Dutch payments firm, for $200mm.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Kommunal, an Indonesian banking digitisation startup, raised $5.5mm.

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Bonus (since a lot of you like the Goa picture)! Sending you a postcard from Krabi, Thailand :) Spent my new year's here.

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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