Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, investor in early stage startups.

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Happy Holi to our Indian readers!

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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📝 Posts of the week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Unity Small Finance Bank planned to enter housing finance business in H2 FY26, targeting affordable housing and micro-loans of ₹2-5 lakhs ($2,200-5,500).
2. IDFC First Bank reported ₹590cr ($65M) discrepancy in Haryana government deposits.
3. HSBC reported INR 13.5K cr ($1.86bn) profit before tax from India in 2025, growing 11% YoY.
4. India's retail loan portfolio grew 18% YoY to ₹163 lakh crore ($1.8tn) in Q3 FY26, driven by gold loans surge of 44%.
5. Indian credit card spending declined MoM to ₹1.99 lakh crore ($22B) in January 2026, though grew 8% YoY.
6. Wint Wealth, a passive investment startup, grew operating revenue 2.6x to ₹44cr ($5M) in FY25 while narrowing losses 60% to ₹8.2cr ($1M).
7. Stable Money, a savings and investment startup, reported operating revenue of ₹4.3cr ($470K) and losses of ₹45cr ($5M) in FY25.

🚀 Product Launches

1. NSE International Exchange (NSE IX) launched Global Access platform enabling Indian investors to trade US-listed stocks with fractional investing under Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS).
2. Sahi, a stockbroking startup, launched Sahi Research, an algorithm-generated stock recommendation and integrated execution feature.
3. Razorpay partnered with Gnani.ai to launch artificial intelligence (AI)-led collections with in-call payment completion.
4. Apple is in talks with with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank to launch Apple Pay in India by mid-2026.
5. India extended Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to Israel during the state visit to expand digital payments cooperation.
6. Jio Financial Services expanded its JioFinance app into a marketplace.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced new equity mutual fund classification rules increasing mandatory equity allocation to 80% for thematic, focus, contra, and value funds.
2. SEBI issued circular on valuation methodology for physical gold and silver in mutual fund schemes.
3. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approved life cycle mutual funds with 5-30 year lifespans and glide path asset allocation strategies.
4. International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) planned to establish special purpose vehicles (SPVs) for insurance-linked securities, expanding risk participation beyond reinsurers.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Xflow, a cross-border B2B payments startup, raised INR 152cr ($16.6M).
2. Prayaan Capital, a small business lending startup, raised ₹110cr ($12M).
3. Freed, a debt restructuring startup, raised ₹ 60cr ($6.6M).

ACQUISITION:

1. BillDesk acquired Worldline's Indian payment operations for ₹646cr ($71M).

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Triple-A partnered with Mastercard to integrate Mastercard Move into its remittance-as-a-service platform, enabling faster international payouts across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
2. Singapore Tourism Board and Ant International renewed multi-year partnership to drive tourism growth through Alipay+ digital payments, with 2025 transactions rising 36% YoY.
3. Bank Indonesia (BI) launched Indonesia Digital Innovation Hub (PIDI) with regulators and industry partners to accelerate digital solutions.
4. Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) partnered with Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to launch NextFin Asia Fund for Southeast Asian fintech startups.
5. Aurionpro Solutions deployed its iCashpro cash management platform at Commercial Bank of Ceylon (CBC) in Sri Lanka, enabling faster payments processing.
6. Lend in Australia partnered with LoanOptions to integrate AI-native loan matching technology into its CRM platform for Australian finance brokers.
7. TerraPay partnered with Raenest to enable faster local currency payouts for over 1M freelancers in India and Philippines, processing $2bn in transactions.
8. CreditorWatch revealed 80% of Australian businesses experienced late payments, with 17% citing profitability threat.
9. WISR, an Australian unsecured personal loan company, achieved significant cash Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) improvement driven by loan book growth.
10. JS Bank in Pakistan reported profit after tax of PKR 7.54bn ($27M), declining 44% YoY in FY2025.
11. Pakistan faced 84% surge in foreign debt interest payments to INR 326.69cr (USD 3.59B) over three years, pressuring government finances.
12. DBS shifted virtual account custodian pricing from flat annual fees to per-account model, raising costs to six figures for large fintech platforms.
13. Vietnam's central bank mandated prior customer notification for artificial intelligence (AI) use in banking operations.
14. Esperanza Securities, a Hong Kong-based fintech firm, received Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) approval to operate tokenised investment services for live entertainment events.
15. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Malaysia's central bank, granted XTransfer conditional approval for electronic money and Money Services Business licenses to operate payment services for SMEs in Malaysia.
16. RedotPay, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments company, is planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise $1B+.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. TruFin, a Singaporean institutional onchain yield management startup, raised an undisclosed amount.

ACQUISITION:

1. Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) approved Abu Dhabi-based Eve Holdings RSC Limited's acquisition of First Women Bank Limited from the Government of Pakistan.

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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