Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, investor in early stage startups.

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).

Expect a lot of regulatory announcements this month in the run up to India's Global Fintech Fest.

Interact with the rest of our TWIF community on Slack - join now - India and Southeast Asia.

🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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

📈 Chart of the Week

Source: NSE - Indian Capital Markets: Transformative shifts achieved through technology and reforms

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. RBI reportedly approved three bidders i.e. Fairfax Financial, Emirates NBD and Kotak Bank, for the majority stake sale in government owned IDBI Bank.
2. Public sector banks earned INR 2,331cr ($278mn) from users for non-maintenance of average balance requirements in FY24.
3. Banks are dealing with a 7 year backlog of over 200K debt recovery cases with the Debt Recovery Tribunals.
4. A ransomware attack on C-Edge Technologies, a JV between TCS and SBI Bank, hit bank services of 200-300 small cooperative and rural banks.
5. NPCI disconnected and then relaunched all forms of retail payment services offered by C-Edge Technologies after the company faced a ransomware attack.
6. RBI released a report stating that India's real time payments systems account for a 48.5% share of the global real time payments volume.
7. Bybit, the world's second largest crypto exchange, launched Digital Rupee (eRupee) a new payment method for INR users.
8. UPI payments value crossed INR 20tn ($238bn) in the month of July, 2024.
9. SEBI (securities regulator) Chaiperson said the regulator is working on a few initiatives including: introducing ASBA-like (escrow) system for secondary market transactions; reducing the minimum investment amount in mutual funds from INR 500 to INR 250.
10. AngelOne, a stock broking company, infused INR 250cr ($30mn) into AngelOne Wealth, its wealth management arm.
11. ONDC launched Interoperable QR for sellers to generate QR codes for their stores that can be scanned on any ONDC registered buyer apps.

🚀 Product Launches

1. SWIFT International partnered with Axis Bank to launch a pilot for an AI powered fraud management tool for cross border payments.
2. Paytm launched a NFC payment enabled sound box.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank):
   • Issued guidelines for Payment System Operators to build and manage systems for cyber security risks.
   • Released draft framework for additional factor of authentication for payments.
   • Amazon Pay, Adyen, Billdesk and others received RBI approval to operate as cross border payment service providers.
   • Levied a fine of $288K on Visa for using an unauthorised payment transfer method.
   • Released draft guidelines for due diligence to be conducted on Aadhaar Enabled Payment System touchpoint operators.
2. IRDAI (insurance):
   • Approved InsuranceDekho's composite insurance broking license application to operate as a reinsurer and insurance broker.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Clix Capital, a small business finance company, raised $26.3mn.
2. Vayana Network, a supply chain finance startup, raised $20.5mn.
3. Square Insurance, an insurance broking startup, raised $3mn.
4. Vitra, a GenAI startup for translation solutions, raised an undisclosed amount.
5. CogniQuest, a document processing startup, raised an undisclosed amount.
6. BharatPe raised $10mn in debt.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Ping Pong, a Chinese cross border payments company, received a Payment Service Provider license by Bank Indonesia, the country's central bank, to operate as a cross border payments provider.
2. Qashier, a Southeast Asian POS payment provider, launched QashierPay, a soundbox POS acceptance product to prevent payment fraud.
3. GoTo partnered with TikTok's ShopTokopedia to launch a BNPL product.
4. Nium launched a Local Currency account services product for local funding support in 40+ countries.
5. Fingular, a Singaporean neobank, reported that its Malaysian arm turned profitable within 9 months from launch.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Mynt, a Philippine e-wallet company and owner of GCash, raised $393mn at a $5bn valuation.
2. Aleta Planet, a Singaporean cross border payments startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITION:

1. M-DAQ, a Singaporean fintech group, acquired Easy Pay Transfers, a Malaysian B2B payments company.
2. OCBC Singapore completed the acquisition of Bank Commonwealth in Indonesia.

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