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).

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

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RBI has another study on cash usage in the economy in its latest bulletin. It assesses cash usage from various lenses but the message in all of them seems to be same — there has been no material dent in cash usage, despite the huge success of digital payments.

Yes, there have… pic.twitter.com/1TczwqYLQE— Ira Dugal (@dugalira) October 22, 2024

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Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion.

I'll explain why, for a company, you probably never heard of 🧵— Yash Agarwal (@yashhsm) October 22, 2024

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Folks, *please* disable international transactions on your card when you are not traveling

Int'l websites do not have 2FA & its a much easier scam resource

My own card was the subject of attempted scam recently. Thankfully was able to block it on time

Also, possibly…— Saranya Gopinath (@Saranyagop) October 23, 2024

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While fintechs are driving and distributing huge number of txns and products, they are suffering as they make less than 1% of profits that banks make. And there is only one reason for that -they aren’t allowed to play. Yet. Fintechs have to be allowed to play in mainstream.— Amrish Rau (@amrishrau) October 21, 2024

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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

  1. Russia's President proposed a unified depository and Clearing system for BRICS countries.

  2. PaytmreceivedNPCI's approval to onboard new users for UPI payments.

  3. Indiansspent $3.2Bn overseas in Aug, 2024 largely towards travel ($2bn) and overseas education.

  4. Groww, a retail investment startup, moved its domicile to India in anticipation of its IPO.

  5. CASA ratio of banks is reducing YoY, impacting a significant source of low cost/no-cost funds for banks.

  6. Bajaj Finservgrew net profit by 8% YoY to INR 2,087cr ($248M) for the quarter ended Sep, 2024.

  7. ICICI Prudential Life Insurancegrew net profit by 3% YoY to INR 252cr ($30M) for the quarter ended Sep, 2024.

  8. PhonePereported net profit of INR 197cr ($23M) in FY24 (ended Mar, 2024).

  9. GoDigit, a general insurance company, grew operating profit (net premiums) by 3.7% YoY to INR 1,891cr ($225M) for the quarter ended Sep, 2024.

  10. Paytmgrew operating revenue by 9% QoQ to INR 1,659.5cr ($197M) in the quarter ended Sep, 2024.

  11. Growwgrew its operating revenue by 2.2x YoY to INR 3,145cr ($374M) in FY24.

  12. PB Fintech, the holding company of Policybazaar, received Certificate of Registration to begin operations as an Account Aggregator.

  13. India's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) imposed a INR 54lacs ($64K) fine on Union Bank for failing to report suspicious transactions reports and not undertaking due diligence under the anti money laundering law.

🚀 Product Launches

  1. Neowise, a Decentro owned company, launched NeoBot and NeoSight - tools for voice debt collections and call analytics.

📝 Regulatory Updates

  1. SEBI (securities): Released a framework for barring partnerships between regulated intermediaries and non-regulated investment advisors. Announced including mutual fund units under the Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations.

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. Even, a healthcare and insurance distribution startup, raised $30M.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

  1. Singapore's BNPL market is expected to triple to $3.7B by 2032, according to a report by ROSHI.

  2. Arta Finance, a Singaporean wealth management startup, partnered withCo-Axis, a Temasek Trust initiative, to launch a partnership to raise $30M for impact investment projects.

  3. Igloo, an Indonesian insurance startup, launched its first direct to consumer insurance products.

  4. Thunespartnered withChina Construction Bank (CCB) to launch cross border payments acceptance products.

  5. Grab Financiallaunched experiments for users to pay with stablecoins and digital assets.

  6. OJK, Indonesia's central bank, revokedInvestree's P2P lending license after allegations of financial fraud surfaced.

  7. EazyPay, an Indonesian payments company, launched its payment acceptance products across Southeast Asia.

  8. Tribe Payments, a European payments startup, launched its operations in Singapore for expansion to Southeast Asia.

  9. Australia's central bank released a three-year initiative to explore the potential of CBDC's.

  10. HSBC has introduced the most extensive restructuring of the bank in over a decade.

  11. OCBC Bank in Singapore launched a new bank account for children and teenagers between 7 and 15 years.

  12. MAS, Singapore's central bank, and IMDA, Infocomm Media Development Authority, partnered and will implement a Shared Responsibility Framework for phishing scams 16th Dec.

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. Tookitaki, a Singaporean financial fraud management SaaS startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

  2. Advance.AI, a Singaporean identity and credit management startup, raised $4M to expand its operations in Philippines.

ACQUISITIONS:

  1. Western UnionacquiredDash, a Singtel owned mobile wallet.

  2. Komainu, a Southeast Asian JV of Nomura and others, acquiredPropine, a digital asset custody provider in Singapore.

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