This Week in Fintech - Asia | 30th Oct, 2021

Indian health insurers are seeing a surge in non-covid claims.

Indian bankssanctioned $1.5bn in loans to 200K borrowers (largely SMB's) as part of the Credit Outreach Program.

IFC Reportclaims that there is a $158bn finance gap for India’s 15mm women MSMEs, 66% don’t have bank account.

Smallcaselaunched partnerships with Groww, HDFC AMC, Axis AMC and others to enable their customers to purchase smallcases.

RazorpaylaunchedTokenHQ, a multi card network tokenisation platform.

Cashfree Paymentslaunched PAN verification for online merchants.

PayUlaunchedPayU Token Hub, a multi card network tokenisation platform.

Groww, a millennial investing startup, raised $251mm at $3bn valuation.

Acko, a direct to consumer insurance startup, raised $225mm at $1.1bn valuation.

Paytm Insurance, insurance arm of Paytm, raised $122mm from SwissRe.

Clear, a SMB tax filing startup, raised $75mm.

Drip Capital, an Indian cross border trade finance startup, raised $40mm.

Zolve*, a neo bank for immigrants, raised $40mm.

Avanti Finance, a technology focused non-bank lender, raised $15mm.

IDfy, a ID verification and onboarding startup, raised $11mm.

Bank Open, an SMB neo bank, raised additional $5mm as part of its $100mm fund raise.

XFlowPay, a SMB cross border payments startup, raised $6mm.

BASIC Home Loan, an affordable home loan startup, raised $3.5mm.

Siply, a micro-savings startup, raised $3.2mm.

Hypto, a fintech infrastructure startup, raised $3mm.

Hyy.pe, an NFT marketplace, raised $2mm.

BankSathi, an agent-driven distribution startup, raised $540K.

Colexion, a celebrity-focused NFT platform, raised additional funding from Polygon.

Kakao Pay, South Korea's largest payments company, listed on the Seoul exchanges to raise $1.3bn at top of range

Bank Jago, Indonesia's first digital bank backed by Gojek, turned profitable in Q3CY2021.

Niumlaunched a global platform for Crypto-as-a-Service.

Payoneer partnered withCoupang to launch payment and commerce services for South Korean and Global merchants.

Prosperna, a Philippine no code commerce startup, launched a free plan for SMB's.

Omise, Thai payments startup, launched operations in Malaysia.

Pakistan's Ministry of Science and Technologyclaimed that Pakistani startups raised $300mm in funding in 2021.

Swiss fintech companies are increasingly opening up offices in Singapore for access to South East Asia.

Partior, a blockchain based settlement and clearing platform, piloted SGD and USD settlements in near real time with participating banks.

Finverse, Hong Kong based open banking startup, wants to be the Plaid for South East Asia.

UOBpartnered with Pine Labs owned Fave to launch rewards program on DigiBank TMRW.

OJK, Indonesia's central bank, released a digital banking blueprint. "The blueprint outlines working principles in five areas—data governance, technology, risk management, collaboration, and institutional arrangements.". Link to Blueprint in Bahasa

NTUC Incomelaunched its micro insurance offering in Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Touch ‘n Go Group, Malaysia's transit payments platform, partnered with Visa for network payments.

DBS Bankbecame the first South East Asian bank to join the Hedera Governing Council.

Velo Labs, a Singaporean cross border payment settlement startup, partnered withInception, a Thai cross border payments startup, to enable sea

Authing, a Chinese authentication and identity startup, raised $23mm.

Privy, an Indonesian digital ID startup, raised $17.5mm.

Investree, an Indonesian SMB lender, raised $10mm.

Finverse, Hong Kong based financial data startup, raised $1.8mm.

Melos Studios, a Taiwan-based music NFT platform, raised strategic funding from Binance.

Validus, a Singaporean P2P SMB lender, acquiredKlearCard, an SMB expense management startup.

PolicyPal, a Singaporean insurance distribution startup, acquiredValueChampion, a financial product content startup.

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