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).

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

📈 Chart of the Week

(Source: Morgan Stanley - recommended reading the whole research report)

P/E Multiple change have a bigger impact on shareholder return than net income growth.

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. OnEMI, the parent company of Kissht and Ring, reported annual revenue of INR 1,037cr ($126mm) and net profit of INR 95.5cr ($11.6mm) in FY2023.
2. Paytm plans to add 1.5mm new offline payment acceptance devices over the next 18-24months.
3. Credit card usage dipped 4.2% MoM to $17.3bn in Sept, 2023.
4. Debit card usage at ecommerce platforms dropped by 56% to 51mm transactions in Sept, 2023 compared to 117mm in April, 2022.
5. mPokket, a student lending startup, claimed to have cumulatively disbursed INR 11,000 cr ($1.34bn) in loans.
6. Axis Bank reported net profit of INR 5,964cr ($ 715mm) in the quarter ended Sept, 2023 (+10% YoY).
7. Escrowpay announced approval for a digital escrow payments platform from IFSCA in Gift City. It plans to expand to UAE with integrations to five local banks.
8. OneCard, a credit card issuing startup, reported INR 541cr ($66mm) in revenue in FY23 (ended Mar, 2023).
9. Mobikwik received in-principal approval from RBI to operate as a payment aggregator.
10. Paytm Payments Bank reported will temporarily discontinue international transactions on its debit cards with no clear reason.
11. Over the past five years, there's been a change in leadership at all private banks in India.
12. NPCI released guidelines stating that ecommerce platforms should add a "Pay by any UPI app" button that lists all installed UPI apps without any discrimination, to increase UPI interoperability.

🚀 Product Launches

1. ICICI Bank's Canadian subsidiary launched Money2India, a cross border payments app for users in Canada to send money to India.
2. Zerodha Mutual Fund launched two maiden funds - Nifty LargeMidCap 250 Index Fund and Zerodha ELSS Tax Saver Nifty LargeMidCap 250 Index Fund.
3. Jio launched insurance and lending products via its MyJio app.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Approved the appointment of Ashok Vaswani as CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Added pension funds under Account Aggregator framework as Financial Information Providers. Introduced a framework for compensation to be paid to customers for delayed updation/rectification of credit information. Introduced new guidelines to strengthen customer service rendered by credit bureaus.
2. SEBI (securities): Banned and fined finfluencer Baap of Charts for offering unregistered investment advisory services disguised as educational courses.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Escrowpay, a digital escrow payments startup, raised $4mm.

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

🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Protos Labs, a Singaporean cyber insurance startup, is expanding to Vietnam.
2. AliPay+ integrated with LankaPay for cross border payments between China and Sri Lanka.
3. Cambodia's central bank released its latest Fintech Policy Directive 2023-2028 aiming to improve financial inclusion.
4. MAS, Singapore's central bank instructed Citi Bank and DBS Bank to investigate service disruptions.
5. Singaporean banks reportedly prevented and recovered $42mm in scams till Sept, 2023.
6. OJK, Indonesia's regulator, restricted Akulaku's BNPL product.
7. Airwallex released a report concluding 80% of small businesses seek alternatives to traditional banks for payments.
8. MAS, Singapore's central bank, released a proposal to streamline the regulatory framework for fund managers.
9. Funding Societies, a Southeast Asian small business finance startup, reported $36.6mm (+84% YoY) in revenue for the year ended Dec 2022.
10. Curlec, a Malaysian subsidiary of Indian payments startup Razorpay, received its license in Malaysia to acquire merchants.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. YouTrip, a Singaporean multicurrency travel payments startup, raised $50mm.
2. Triple-A, a Singaporean crypto payments company, raised $10mm.
3. Protos Labs, a Singaporean cyber insurance startup, raised $3mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

1. AEON Financial Service, the Vietnamese financial arm of Japan's AEON group, acquired Post and Telecommunication Finance Company (PTF), the NBFC arm of Vietnam's SeA Bank for $184.6mm.

🌏 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