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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

📈 Chart of the week

Source: CARE Ratings

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Groww, a stock broker with 13M active clients, increased minimum equity brokerage charges from INR 2 to INR 5 ($0.02 to $0.06) due to tighter SEBI regulations.
2. IndusInd Bank utilised its INR 1,325cr ($155M) contingency provisioning buffer in Q4 FY25 to absorb impact of derivative accounting lapses and microfinance business NPAs of INR 1,885cr ($218M), resulting in net interest margin falling YoY to 2.25%
3. Cognizant opened a techfin centre at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) India.
4. Quickpay, a payment gateway, received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for Payment Aggregator License.
5. State Bank of India (SBI) posted INR 79,580cr ($9.2bn) in net profit in FY25, driven primarily by its 74M user YONO app ecosystem which contributed significantly to retail loan book.
6. Indian banks requested Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow each bank to have a single national calling number in the 1600xx series with incoming call facility to enhance customer security and prevent frauds.
7. MobiKwik, a payments company, reported 34% YoY revenue growth to INR 1,192.5cr ($137.9M) and payments Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) more than doubled YoY to INR 33,100cr ($3.8B) in Q4 FY25.
8. Quid, a financial product marketplace, claimed to have 5M users within one year of launching.
9. Morgan Stanley raised India's GDP growth forecast to 6.2% YoY for FY26 and 6.5% YoY for fiscal year FY27, driven by rising capital expenditure and domestic demand.
10. Juspay, a payment solutions provider, opened a new office in Brazil.
11. AssetPlus, a digital mutual fund platform, grew its Assets Under Management (AUM) to INR 5,000cr ($587M) from INR 100cr ($11.6M) in 2021.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Decentro launched Scanner, a fraud detection suite with OmniScore risk assessment.
2. India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) partnered with Aditya Birla Capital to offer digital loan products through IPPB's network of 165K post offices and 300K postal employees.
3. Zoho partnered with areeba to provide businesses across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with $5M in cloud credits, integrated tools, and regional onboarding support.
4. Super.money partnered with Axis Bank and RuPay to launch a lifetime-free credit card with UPI payments and 3% cashback.
5. Zerodha launched Kite Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling users to connect their trading accounts with AI assistants like Claude for free personalised portfolio analysis and insights.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Approved renaming North East Small Finance Bank to slice Small Finance Bank. Proposed capping Regulated Entities' (RE) investments in Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) at 15% of total lender investments, allowing up to 5% unrestricted and 10% with provisions. Granted in-principle approval to Emirates NBD Bank PJSC to set up a Wholly Owned Subsidiary (WOS) in India.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Stable Money, a wealthtech startup, raised INR 173cr (USD 20M).
2. CloudSEK, an AI-powered cybersecurity startup, raised INR 162 crore ($19M).
3. Data Sutram, an data compliance and fraud detection startup, raised INR 78cr ($9M).
4. PaySprint, a payments processing infrastructure, raised INR 10.4cr ($1.2M).
5. Oxyzo Financial Services, the lending arm of OfBusiness, raised INR 533 crore ($62.4 million) in debt funding.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Temenos launched FCM AI Agent to help banks improve financial crime detection and compliance, reducing false positives to below 2% compared to industry average of 5-8%.
2. EastWest, a Philippine bank with over 3M customers, partnered with Temenos to modernize its core banking systems using Temenos SaaS.
3. Visa launched Commercial Integrated Partners program to enable financial institutions to offer integrated payment services through APIs.
4. Ant International partnered with HSBC Hong Kong to offer Hong Kong's first bank-led, blockchain-based tokenised deposit service supporting real-time Hong Kong and U.S. dollar payments between corporate wallets.
5. Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub published research exploring how central banks could use smart contracts and tokenisation to automate monetary policy implementation in uncertain market conditions.
6. APAC's mobile wallet market featured 60+ active brands dominated by local players like WeChat Pay, Paytm, GoPay, and MoMo, driven by government initiatives and integration with super-apps.
7. Trust Bank, a Singapore-based digital bank, reported revenue of $75M in 2024, growing 148% YoY, while losses narrowed to $72M.
8. Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed the Stablecoins Bill, establishing a licensing framework for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).
9. Bank DKI, an Indonesian bank, prepared for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) amid 14.9% YoY net profit growth to IDR 215.34B ($13M) in Q1 2025 and ongoing governance reforms.
10. Gulf Development, a unit of Gulf Energy, increased its stake in Kasikornbank to 5.23%, becoming the third-largest shareholder in Thailand's second-biggest lender by assets.
11. Thailand's fintech industry grew 83% over the past five years to 177 companies in 2025, driven by adoption of digital financial services, according to the Fintech Thailand Map 2025.
12. 74% of Singaporeans believed AI scams posed a bigger risk compared to 69% globally, with 81-84% concerned about specific AI-driven fraud tactics.
13. Metaplanet, a Japanese investment firm, purchased 1,004 BTC (approx. INR 935cr or $105M), increasing its total holdings to 7,800 BTC.
14. DigiAsia, a publicly traded fintech firm based in Hong Kong, announced plans to allocate up to $100M for a Bitcoin treasury reserve, causing its shares to surge by nearly 100% after the announcement.
15. Islamic finance assets grew 14.9% to $3.9tn in 2024, but the sector faces structural challenges that require digital solutions according to the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) Stability Report 2025.
16. Ant Group's international division, Ant International, generated nearly $3bn revenue in 2024 and posted two consecutive years of adjusted profit, as the company prepares to spin off the unit following a broader reorganisation.
17. StraitsX, a Singaporean blockchain payments platform, launched StraitsX Singapore Dollar (XSGD), the first Singapore dollar stablecoin on the XRP Ledger, regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Airwallex, a global payments fintech based in Australia, raised $200M at $6.2bn.
2. CrediLinq.AI, a Singapore-based embedded finance platform, raised $8.5M.
3. Ringkas, an Indonesian proptech startup, raised $5.1M.
4. F88, a Vietnamese financial services firm, secured a $30M loan facility.

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