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

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

📈 Chart of the week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Finternet partnered with Avalanche to launch a $10B tokenisation pilot for agricultural lending in India.
2. Groww added 350K active demat accounts in Jan, 2026, increasing market share to 27.7% and total client base to 12.5M.
3. Samsung Fire, Mirae Asset, and Hyundai Marine explored potential entry into India's insurance market through discussions with local stakeholders.
4. Foreign direct investment into India's banking sector dropped from $900M in FY2023 to $115M in FY2025.
5. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted approval for ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company to acquire up to 9.95% stake in IDFC First Bank.
6. Public Sector Banks increased credit card spending share to 22.2% in Dec 2025, driven by higher card usage and UPI integration.
7. Fi, a neobanking startup, pivoted from B2C neo-banking to B2B technology services and AI.
8. Indian Public Sector Banks (PSBs) projected to reach ₹2 lakh crore ($22bn) profit in FY26.
9. BSE Index Services launched two new Government Securities (G-Sec) indices to enhance debt market benchmarking.
10. India's UPI integrated with PayNet in Malaysia for cross-border digital payments.
11. Juspay expanded in GCC via its new office in Dubai.
12. InCred Wealth crossed INR 1 lakh crore ($11bn) Assets Under Management within six years of launch.
13. EximPe received final Payment Aggregator Cross Border (PA-CB) licence from Reserve Bank of India to process UPI cross-border transactions.
14. Former Premji Invest Partner Bijith Bhaskar is raising ₹1,400cr ($155M) for a new Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) startup.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Zerodha launched microsavings functionality on Coin investment platform.
2. Jio Financial Services launched Fixed Deposit booking across multiple banks on JioFinance app through its partnership with Blostem.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. Reserve Bank of India proposed increasing unsecured asset limit for urban cooperative banks from 10% to 20% of total assets in draft lending norms amendment.
2. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) eased acquisition finance guidelines, allowing higher lending limits and expanded refinancing options for banks effective April 2026.
3. Reserve Bank of India proposed draft amendment directions for responsible business conduct and financial services marketing across multiple banking categories
4. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) launched AI-powered calling campaign to promote digital financial safety tools.
5. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed updated guidelines for Lead Bank Scheme to streamline operational aspects in February 2026.
6. Reserve Bank of India released comprehensive amendment directions for banks' capital market exposure and lending frameworks.
7. PB Fintech, parent company of PolicyBazaar, received Reserve Bank of India (RBI) approval to operate as a payment aggregator license via its subsidiary PB Pay.
8. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed new Kisan Credit Card framework enabling digital currency loans with enhanced digital payment features and borrower protections.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. IDfy, an online identity verification startup, raised ₹476Cr ($52.5M).
2. Olyv, fka Smartcoin, an unsecured lending startup, raised ₹210cr ($23 million).
3. Care.fi, a healthcare revenue management startup, raised $8M in equity and debt.
4. Piramal Finance raised $400M in external commercial borrowing from global and domestic lenders

ACQUISITIONS:

1. Carlyle Group acquired 74% stake in Nido Home Finance for ₹2,100cr ($232M).
2. Areion Group won the bid to acquire Aviom India Housing Finance for ₹936cr ($103M).
3. Rainmatter Investments acquired a majority stake in PensionBox, a digital pension app, for $2M.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Sahara AI and Danal Fintech partnered to develop AI-powered stablecoin payment and settlement systems in South Korea.
2. OCBC enabled direct QR payments across China's major merchant networks.
3. DBS reported a 10% drop in Q4 profit to $1.8bn, attributing the decline to low prevailing interest rates.
4. Pakistan recorded an unexpected fiscal surplus of $1.9bn in 1HFY26, reversing a previous year's deficit through reduced spending and stronger revenues.
5. PayPay, Japan's digital payments company, planned its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Nasdaq at a valuation of $19.6bn in March 2026.
6. Thai authorities seized $420M in assets connected to Cambodia-based online scam operations.
7. World Bank approved $50M project to develop Nepal's digital public infrastructure.
8. DBS Bank launched free online remittance service to Weixin Pay through partnership with TenPay Global.
9. Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) partnered with Proxymity, a digital-native proxy voting company, to enable foreign institutional shareholders to participate more efficiently in shareholder meetings of Taiwanese companies.
10. Feedzai, a RiskOps startup partnered with Neterium, a screening technology startup, to launch a transaction screening product.
11. XPENG partnered with Antom to launch digital payment infrastructure for electric vehicle charging across Southeast Asia.
12. MariBank partnered with TenPay Global to enable direct overseas transfers to Weixin Pay wallets in China, offering competitive exchange rates and waived transfer fees.
13. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) required banks to provide non-facial Singpass verification options for users with medical constraints.
14. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) approved a Digital Retail Bank license for Raqami Islamic Digital Bank, enabling nationwide digital banking operations.
15. Central Banks of South Korea and Malaysia signed a partnership to coordinate efforts against cross-border cybercrime and scam operations in Southeast Asia.
16. Seedflex, a Malaysian ecommerce merchant financing startup, turned profitable and RM 100M ($26M) disbursed to over 10,000 MSMEs.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Endl, a Singaporean stablecoin banking startup, raised $1.5M.

ACQUISITION:

1. Grab, a Singaporean internet company, acquired Stash, a US-based investment platform with over $5bn in assets, for an enterprise value of $425M.

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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