Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, Principal at EMVC!
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
Said this before, and will say it again. Fintech companies need to over-index on compliance, effective communications and invest heavily in shaping public policy and the ability to "see around the corner".— therealjpk (@therealjpk) January 31, 2024
From the RBI a few days ago, I said the action of shutting down the Payments Bank operations is disproportionate.
More importantly, I do strongly feel that the RBI is not fit as a payments regulator. If you look at the issues we face with payments, both in India and
2/n— Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) February 3, 2024
Took a short vacation this week & came back to see so much happening in the tech startup ecosystem. Enough & more has been written - I hope everyone makes it through this phase and comes out stronger.
For younger companies, or if you are starting out, what are the…— Sanjay Swamy (theswamy) (@TheSwamy) February 2, 2024
Apple card published stats today:
12M users earned $1B in daily cash. Great for a 5 year old card.
Assuming that daily cash is 1.5% of spend, users spent $67B ($5.5k/user/yr).
Best in class cobrand is Delta Amex: 7.5M cards, $250B of spend ($33k/user/yr). pic.twitter.com/TN90fMIjWH— Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi) January 31, 2024
(Note: Neither TWIF nor I endorse any views in the tweets highlighted above.)
📈 Chart of the Week
🇮🇳 India
📰 Market Updates
PB Fintech, the listed parent co. of Paisa Bazaar and Policy Bazaar, reported INR 38crs ($4.6mm) of net profit in Q3 FY24 (ended Dec 2023), it's first reported quarterly profit since listing. Revenue from operations grew 43% to 871cr for the same period.
Paytm's market cap dropped by 36% from $5.8bn to $3.7bn in two days post RBI announced actions against Paytm's payment bank business.
Aadhaar Housing Finance is re-filing its draft IPO prospectus with SEBI to raise INR 5,000-5,500cr ($600-660mm).
Rario, an NFT marketplace, decided not to shut its platform and continue offering it to users.
Bajaj Financereported 29% YoY growth in net interest income to INR7,665cr ($924mm), 22% YoY growth in net profit to INR 3,639cr ($438mm) and 35% YoY growth in AuM to INR 3.10tn ($37.4bn) during Q3 FY24 (ended Dec, 2023).
RBI's Trade Receivables Electronic Discounting System (TReDS)reported processing INR 11,000cr ($1.4bn) in monthly invoices value financed. In 2023, total invoices financed stood at $14bn (+55% YoY).
ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) piloted for personal loans with EasyPay and DMI Finance.
🚀 Product Launches
📝 Regulatory Updates
RBI (central bank):
Announced taking action against Paytm Payments Bank for "persistent non-compliances and continued material supervisory concerns in the bank". The RBI directed Paytm Payments Bank (PPB) as below:
PPB shall not accept any further deposits or credit transactions or wallet top ups in any customer accounts after Feb 29 2024.
PPB shall allow withdrawal or utilization of balances from customer accounts upto their available balances.
PPB shall not provide any other banking services including fund transfers, bill payments or UPI after Feb 29 2024.
Nodal Accounts of One97 Communications (listed HoldCo) and Paytm Payment Services (payment entity) will be terminated no later than Feb 29 2024.
ApprovedZomato and Stripe's application for a payment aggregator license.
💰 Financing Announcements
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🌏 Asia
📰 Market Updates
South Korea's central bank is considering new regulations to make it easier for regional banks to become national commercial banks.
Taiwan's QR payment service launched acceptance in South Korea.
Alipay+, Alipay's consumer cross border payments platform, launched payment acceptance in taxis in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company has been partnering with countries globally to launch acceptance in preparation for Lunar New Year.
Bureau*, an identity decisioning and fraud prevention startup, launched in Philippines and Indonesia.
Mastercard Globalstated that it was able to improve payment fraud detection by 20% with its new AI model.
Bank Saqu, an Indonesian digital bank by Hong Kong's WeLab, reported 300K users within 2 months of launching.
Ryalize, a Singaporean earned wage access infra startup, is launching in Saudi Arabia.
Raqami Islamic Digital Bank received final approvals to launch in Pakistan.
💰 Financing Announcements
(there were no financing announcements this week.)
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