Slice acquired stake in a Bank, GoPayLater is facing high defaults | 11th March, 2023

Hi fintech friends,
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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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week
I have to say, I did not expect that the first big “fintech” failures of 2023 would be REGULATED BANKS…
— Ryan Falvey (@Ryan_Falvey) March 9, 2023
And no, I dont think SIVB will “fail” but the value of that equity seems to be mostly in the intangibles. Solvency seems fine but the earnings hole is very real.
We have active funds. And passive funds. We have full fee funds. And virtually 0 fee funds. We have regular. And direct. We have large, medium, small AMCs. It’s all there.
— Radhika Gupta (@iRadhikaGupta) March 8, 2023
Can we now move on from debates and focus on expanding the investor base by fulfilling goals?
As per CRIF Highmark, outstanding gold loans at Dec 22 end has soared by 64% to Rs 7 lakh cr.
— Abhishek Murarka 🥧💹 (@abhymurarka) March 7, 2023
This is a strong proxy indicator of rising financial stress in households at the bottom of pyramid.
🇮🇳 India
📰 Market Updates
- Senior executives of global stock investment startups met with India's Ministry of Finance to discuss the impact of the 20% TCS levy on outward remittances under liberalised remittance scheme.
- An overview of Bima Sugam, the UPI for insurance platform being developed by IRDAI (insurance regulator).
🚀 Product Launches
- OfBusiness launched a small business raw material procurement app.
📝 Regulatory Updates
- RBI (central bank): Expressed concerns regarding banks charging high fees on foreign exchange transactions and complete lack of transparency.
- SEBI (securities): Proposed that Mutual Fund houses get membership on stock exchanges, and do trades through their own trading terminals.
💰 Financing Announcements
- GrowFin, an accounts receivable automation startup, raised $7.5mm.
- GrayQuest, an education financing startup, raised $7mm.
- Monnai*, a consumer insights infrastructure startup, raised $6.5mm.
- North East Small Finance Bank, an incumbent small finance bank, raised $3.42mm from Slice*.
ACQUISITION:
- CAMS acquired 55.42% of Think Analytics India.
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🌏 Asia
📰 Market Updates
- SingLife, a Singaporean insurer, partnered with Citi and BlackRock's Aladdin to augment its asset management capabilities.
- KasikornBank, a Thai bank, is doubling down on its Vietnam expansion and expects to grow to $400mm in net income and 8.4mm customers by 2027.
- Findaya, Gojek's lending Indonesian partner for GoPayLater, is seeing TKB90 (days past due 90 days from due date) of 89.4%.
- Singaporean police launched an investigation into Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon.
- ANT Group converted a syndicated credit facility into a $6.5bn sustainability-linked loan last year, the largest of its kind in Asia-Pacific.
- AsiaPay, a Hong Kong based digital payment co., launched Visa Instalments in Hong Kong.
- Endowus, a Singapore-based private wealth startup, launched Endowus Empower to help underrepresented groups with financial advice.
- Babel Finance, a Hong King based crypto co., filed for moratorium with the Singaporean courts and is working on new stablecoin to repay $766mm loss.
- A Payment Attitudes Study by VISA in 2022, revealed that 9 out of 10 Singaporeans prefer using card instead of cash for payments.
- FOMOPay, a Singaporean payments company and major payments institution licensee, announced that it is not part of the Singaporean Clearing House Association.
💰 Financing Announcements
- Trukkr, a Pakistani logistics and fintech startup, raised $6.4mm.
- iLex, a Singaporean marketplace lending company, raised $4.5mm.
🌏 International
Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.
- US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic.
- Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins.
- Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
- Africa, written by Emeka Ajene.
- China written by Ning Ye.
- Policy written by Mohammad Hamdy.
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 osborne@thisweekinfintech.com. I’d genuinely appreciate any and all feedback. If you liked what you read, please consider sharing or subscribing.
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