CRED launched Tap to Pay, Brankas launched multibank API's & RBI fined Amazon Pay | 05th Mar 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

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. ICICI Life Insurance launched machine learning models for claims management on its insurance policies.
2. India's unemployment rate rose to 7.45% in February from 7.14% in the previous month.
3. Moody's in a report said that "the asset-weighted average of rated banks' gross NPL ratios dropped to 4 percent as of 30 September 2022 from a peak of 10 percent at the end of March 2018".

🚀 Product Launches

1. CRED launched Tap to Pay for credit card payments from the smart phone.
2. Housing.com partnered with Niro, a lending infrastructure startup, to launch rent payments via credit.

📝 Regulatory Updates

• RBI (central bank): Imposed a fine of $375K on Amazon Pay for non-compliance on RBI's KYC norms.  Cancelled the license of Rhino Finance which operated under various brands linked to the Chinese lending app situation.

💰 Financing Announcements

(there were no funding announcements. Did I miss any?)

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Zecpe, a one-click checkout company, was acquired by Cashfree.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Maybank, a Malaysian bank, partnered with Wedbush Securities to allow US institutional investors to trade in the Asian markets.
2. A report by Visa revealed that 65% of consumers in Vietnam carry lesser physical cash, while 76% have adopted e-wallets.
3. Alchemy Pay, a Singaporean crypto on-ramp and off-ramp payment provider, partnered with Berkah Digital Pembayaran, an Indonesian payment service provider, and received licenses from Bank Indonesia for for remittance and fund transfer services.
4. Tazapay, a Singaporean cross border payments company, partnered with Volt, a UK based payment company, to offer cross border payments for merchants between the two regions.
5. Brankas, an Indonesian fintech infrastructure startup, launched multibank API's for instant account opening on third party apps.
6. UOB completed the acquisition of Citi’s Consumer Banking arm in Vietnam.
7. GoPay opened up its rewards platform GoPay Coins beyond its platform.
8. Lexasure, a Southeast Asian insurance company, is going public via SPAC at a $250mm valuation.
9. Venteny, an Indonesian employee benefits and fintech startup, expanded to Japan.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. DigiFT, a Singaporean decentralized digital asset exchange, raised $10.5mm.
2. Enstack, a Philippine store management and payments startup, raised $3mm.
3. Carro, a Singaporean user-car marketplace, raised an undisclosed amount from strategic partner ZA Tech.
4. F88, a Vietnamese lending company, raised $47mm.

🌏 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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