Hi fintech friends,

Welcome to the weekend of the year! We made it.

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!

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

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🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

  1. SBM Bankannounced a strategic partnership with Zwitch, the banking infrastructure platform of Bank Open.

  2. HDFC Bankpartnered withMintoak, a small business payments startup, to create an ecosystem of payment acceptance for small businesses.

  3. RBIconditionally approvedYES Bank's 9.99% stake sale to Carlyle Group and Advent.

  4. Payment Council of Indialaunched Project Pratima, a common icon library for uniformity and fraud prevention.

🚀 Product Launches

  1. CASHe partnered withHaptik to launch automated instant credit disbursal on WhatsApp.

📝 Regulatory Updates

  1. RBI (central bank): Announced the pilot launch of eRupee - Retail, the retail format of the RBI's digital currency.

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. Kreditbee, a small ticket personal lending startup, raised $80mm.

  2. IndiaGold, a gold-backed financing startup, raised $10mm.

  3. Cypherock, a crypto hardware wallet startup, raised $1mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

  1. CRED acquired CreditVidya, an unsecured loan underwriting SaaS startup.

  2. IppoPay, a payments startup, acquired Roamsoft, a fintech software services startup.

Note: $1 = INR 82

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

  1. Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia (ARBM), a Malaysian subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi Bank, launched a digibank app Rize.

  2. 2C2P partnered withPine Labs to roll out BNPL acceptance across Southeast Asia.

  3. Funding Societies Thailandclaimed to surpass THB 1bn (~$28mm) in lending to small businesses.

  4. Society Pass, a Vietnamese fintech company, partnered withStripe to offer payment settlement services.

  5. Line announced the closure of Bitfront its crypto exchange platform in Japan.

  6. Revolut is further expanding its offering in Japan, Philippines and India.

💰 Financing Announcements

  1. Igloo, a Singapore based insurance startup, raised $27mm.

  2. TipTip, a creator monetisation startup, raised $13mm.

ACQUISITIONS:

  1. Binance acquired SEBC, a Japanese crypto exchange.

  2. Tonik Bank, a Philippine digital bank, acquired TendoPay, a payroll based fintech startup.

🌏 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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