India's fintech exit bonanza! (TWIF 10/15)

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Hello Fintech Friends,

People who think the growth story in fintech is over are just not paying enough attention.

This week, two new fintech companies - Stash and PayU - announced their intentions to go public, likely at $1B+ valuations each, while two Indian fintechs - Slice and CRED - both announced acquisition efforts. Innovation in financial services has a long way to go, and the disparities between the availability of finance in different parts of the world hints at a massive amount of opportunity under the surface of a chilly market.

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

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📖 Read of the Week

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

PayU, an Indian payment gateway (based in the Netherlands and owned by South African conglomerate Prosus), plans to ask for regulatory approval in February for a $500 million IPO in India.
US consumer investing app Stash is preparing for an IPO.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Slice, an Indian credit and debit card provider that issued 400,000 cards per month at its peak and was last valued at $1.5 billion, received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to merge with North East Small Finance Bank after acquiring 10% ownership in the bank.
Meanwhile, CRED, the Bangalore-based credit card rewards app, is in talks to acquire mutual fund and wealth management platform Kuvera, which has an AUM of about $1.4 billion.
Payments and financial technology conglomerate Fiserv will acquire Brazilian electronic funds transfer solution Skytef.
Private equity firm Incline Equity Partners sold off its portfolio company ARMStrong Receivable Management, a provider of commercial accounts receivable management.
Pan-African private equity firm Adenia Partners acquired a majority stake in Enfin, a provider of solar financing solutions in South Africa.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Goldman Sachs finally sold off its embattled consumer lender GreenSky, which it acquired for $1.7 billion, to a consortium led by Sixth Street and KKR for a rumored $500 million.
Antares Capital, a provider of credit to private equity firms, is evaluating an acquisition of its European rival Hayfin.
Citigroup will sell its China consumer wealth unit to HSBC.
Truist Bank is in talks to sell its entire insurance unit to private equity firm Stone Point for $10 billion.
Germany’s Deutsche Bank completed its takeover of Numis, a UK boutique investment bank.

The Fed recently asked a sample of 382 American crypto owners why they own crypto.

Answers are in the screenshot below 👇

The top reasons: price appreciation and curiosity about the tech. Almost no one mentions remittances, payments, or distrust of banks/government. pic.twitter.com/tzXXI93loj
— John Paul Koning (@jp_koning) October 10, 2023

Really enjoyed @500GlobalVC's Rise report, especially this piece on sector sequencing in their "Middle Income Rise 15."

Paying attention to the more complete sequences could yield more lessons than not for African economies.

Our view is [e]commerce > fintech > logistics

You? pic.twitter.com/9A8Gfm79JL
— Stephen Deng 邓广藻 (@mrstephendeng) October 11, 2023

Why I am bullish on Fintech and the room for innovation in finance even though Fintech has had a rough year and a half:

I tried to turn on options in one of my legacy brokerage accounts. Communicated Time to Resolve (TTR): 3-4 days. 14 days later and after 5 phone calls and 2…
— Arpan Shah (@Arpan_Shah_) October 12, 2023