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).

Don’t forget to share with fellow fintech friends!

✨ Mumbai Fintech Happy Hour

We're bringing the Fintech Happy Hour presented by Falcon to Mumbai - India's financial capital on 18th May, 2023. Mumbai has always had the best mix of attendees including founders, product builders, banking executives, investors and more. We're excited to bring together the entire ecosystem for a fun evening.

Thanks again to our sponsors: Falcon, Sandbox and QubeHealth.

✨ Delhi NCR Fintech Happy Hour

We're still recovering from an excellent evening with the entire Delhi NCR fintech ecosystem. Thank you, Delhi! You showed up and how!

The Delhi Fintech Happy Hour was only possible thanks to our sponsors: Falcon, Tartan, Sandbox.

🐦🏆 Tweets of the Week

❝

The @GoldmanSachs annual family office report:

- Average 44% allocations in alternatives: real estate and infrastructure, hedge funds, private credit. Expected to maintain or increase next 12 months

- Cash/equivalents 12%, expected to be deployed <12m

- 32% in digital assets— saira.bsky.social (@sairarahman) May 10, 2023

❝

"GEICO's technology needs a lot more work than I thought it did. It has more than 600 legacy systems that DON'T REALLY TALK TO EACH OTHER. That's a MONUMENTAL CHALLENGE"

(Ajit Jain, Berkshire Hathaway's Annual Meeting, May 6/23) pic.twitter.com/XuFFqQoYSx— Daniel Schreiber (@daschreiber) May 7, 2023

❝

I don’t get it.

So it’s a governance token … until we don’t like how tokenholders govern?? https://t.co/FeeAYcDkcW— Alex Svanevik 🐧 (@ASvanevik) May 10, 2023

📈 Chart of the week

"ATM cash withdrawals in India have been flatlining at 60 crore transactions per month. Will digital payments make ATMs redundant?" Source

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

  1. BharatPerebranded Payback, a company it acquired for its loyalty programs, to Zillion.

  2. Paytmreported its annual revenue grew by 61% YoY to INR 7,990cr ($~1bn). The CEO of Paytm also claimed that "Paytm will be at the forefront of the AI revolution".

  3. Juspayreportedly generated INR 113cr ($13.7mm) in annual revenue in FY22 (ended Mar, 2022).

  4. Razorpayinitiated the process to flip its holding company domicile from US to India.

  5. Indian banksapproachedRBI with a proposal for measures to curb online frauds.

  6. Cashereportedly generated INR 248crs in operating revenue in FY22 (ended Mar, 2022) - 2.4x YoY.

🚀 Product Launches

  1. Axis Bank announced that it has launched RuPay credit card integration with UPI.

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. Castler, an escrow automation and management startup, raised $5mm.

  2. Fundly.ai, a pharma supply chain SaaS and fintech startup, raised $3mm.

  3. Lentra, a lending stack startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITIONS:

  1. BetterPlace, a blue collar workplace management startup, acquiredBueno Finance, a blue collar financing startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

  1. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of Switzerlandpartnered to provide co-financing to Vietnamese fintech companies focused on financial inclusion.

  2. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) imposed an additional capital requirement of a total of SGD 1.6bn on DBS Bank for multiple service disruptions.

  3. ANT Group is planning to sell its stake in its digital banking unit in Hong Kong.

  4. Billionaire co-founders of Jollibee, a fast food chain, foundedDragonFi, a stock trading platform in Philippines.

  5. Malaysian and Indonesian central banks launched cross border QR payment integration.

  6. Standard Chartered Bankpartnered withTazapay to launch B2B cross-border payments for eCommerce merchants and marketplaces.

  7. TrueMoney, a Malaysian payments startup, expanded its remittances business to other SEA countries.

  8. Stripepartnered withWhatsApp to launch in-chat payments in Singapore.

  9. DBS is planning to expand its presence in Dubai.

  10. Thai Digital Assets Exchange (TDX) partnered with Real Estate Exponential Co., Ltd. (RealX) and Token X Co., Ltd. (Token X) to offer fractionalized digital asset.

  11. UOB Bank in Singapore completed the acquisition of Citi's consumer business in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and grew its user base from 5mm to 7mm.

  12. Finhay, a Vietnamese stock trading startup, refocused its platform to semi-pro investors.

  13. Kommunal, an Indonesian startup that focuses on serving local rural banks, reportedly grew its small business deposits and loans value y 3.5x YoY to $118mm in Q1 2023

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. QistBazaar, a Pakistani BNPL startup, raised $1.7mm in equity and debt.

  2. Abhi, a Pakistani earned wage access startup, raised $6.8mm in Sukuk Bonds.

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

And of course, our podcast series - Beyond Two Percent and Hey Fintech Friends.

If you’ve made it this far - thanks! As always, you can always reach me at [email protected]. I’d genuinely appreciate any and all feedback. If you liked what you read, please consider sharing or subscribing.

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