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

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

📈 Chart of the week

Source: RBI Annual Report

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. Infibeam Avenues, an Indian payments company, reported 62% YoY revenue growth to INR 1,160cr ($134M) in Q4 2025, driven by increased merchant onboarding, improved take rates, and international expansion.
2. Oxyzo Financial Services, OfBusiness' lending arm, reported INR 1,207cr ($141M) revenue, up 33.6% YoY, and INR 339.1cr (USD 39.6M) net profit, up 16.7% YoY, in FY2024-25.
3. PayPal Payments and Worldline ePayments India received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as cross-border payment aggregators.
4. Groww, an stock investment company valued at $7-8bn, filed confidential papers for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise up to $1bn.
5. super.money, Flipkart's fintech arm, aimed to turn profitable by December 2025, betting big on lending products with 4X growth in monthly disbursal rate.
6. Public sector banks in India reported INR 1.83 lakh crore ($21bn) profits in FY2024-25, a 26% YoY increase, narrowing gap with private banks, driven by lending income, treasury gains and lower provisions.
7. Razorpay, a payments company, completed its domicile shift from the US to India.
8. Reliance General Insurance posted INR 315cr ($37M) net profit, up 12.5% YoY, and INR 12,548cr (1.5bn) gross direct premium, up 7.4% YoY, in FY24-25 after acquisition by IIHL.
9. India's microfinance sector loan portfolio contracted 14% YoY to INR 3.81 lakh crore ($44.5bn) in Q4 FY25, with asset quality challenges persisting.
10. Reliance Jio and BlackRock's 50:50 joint venture received SEBI approval to launch an asset management company.
11. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported e-rupee Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) circulation grew to INR 1,016cr ($117M) as of March 2025, up from INR 234cr ($27M) YoY.
12. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reviewed its liberalised remittance scheme, which saw outflows of INR 26K crore ($3 billion) in FY24-25, as part of efforts to rationalize the facility and promote the rupee internationally.
13. ICICI Bank UK, a subsidiary of India's ICICI Bank, announced launching new branches in UK.
14. Zerodha Capital, the NBFC arm of Zerodha, reported net profit of INR 12.5cr ($1.5M) and revenue of INR 36cr ($4.2M) in fiscal year 2024-25, growing 78% and 112% YoY respectively, as it focuses on scaling its loans against securities product.
15. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandated Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) to exclude default loss guarantees of 5% provided by fintech lending service providers while making provisions for stressed loans effective September 2025.
16. Indian government revamped PM SVANidhi scheme to provide street vendors with INR 30,000 (USD 350) limit credit cards and higher subsidised loans.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Jar, an Indian digital gold investment startup, partnered with BharatPe and Unity Small Finance Bank to launch UPI payments.
2. Dhan launched ScanX, a free real-time tracking product for all company filings in the Indian stock markets.
3. Business Hero, a small business SaaS startup, launched an AI agent on WhatsApp that can sell credit cards, answer queries via text/voice, make AI calls, and check eligibility, lowering customer acquisition costs.
4. DPDzero, an Indian debt collections startup, launched TARA, a multilingual AI voice agent available in over 10 Indian languages, providing 24/7 repayment assistance, EMI reminders, on-call payments and real-time borrower insights.
5. Digio, a digital onboarding startup for the wealth management industry, launched CoTrust to help enterprises comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), enabling data mapping, consent management, and user control over personal data.
6. Mirae Asset Financial Services, an NBFC, partnered with GrayQuest to add school fee financing to its product offerings such as loan against securities and personal loans.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Released draft circular modifying instructions for inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits in banks, seeking public comments by June 6, 2025. Released draft circular on revised Know Your Customer (KYC) instructions, inviting public comments till June 6, 2025. Released its Annual Report for FY24-25, covering the central bank's working and functions.
2. IRDAI (insurance): Urged insurers to prioritise increasing insurance coverage over penetration metrics, as the industry committed over INR 300cr ($35M) to a 3-year awareness campaign.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. CRED raised INR 647cr ($75M) at $3.5bn valuation.
2. Saarathi Finance, a newly licensed NBFC in India, raised INR 475cr ($55M).
3. Shriram Asset Management Company (AMC) raised INR 105cr ($12.3M).
4. Samunnati, an agri finance startup, raised $5M bringing the total Series E funding to INR 381cr ($44M).
5. GyanDhan, an education lending marketplace, raised INR 30cr ($3.5M) valuing the company at $15-20M.
6. Mufin Green Finance, an EV finance company, raised INR 155cr ($18M) in debt.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. PingPong, a Chinese cross-border payment solutions provider, secured licences from central banks in UAE and Malaysia to expand its global presence.
2. Tribe Payments, a UK based payments company, partnered with Finmo, a Singaporean cross border payments company, to deliver integrated payment and treasury services to banking and fintech clients across Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Europe.
3. Visa partnered with ZA Bank in Hong Kong to launch Click to Pay in Hong Kong, enabling cardholders to complete online transactions in seconds without manual card entry.
4. Vietnam's Prime Minister urged development of policies to establish international financial centers in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang by 2030, with a focus on attracting investment, fostering fintech innovation, and ensuring financial stability.
5. Decant Group expanded its wine and spirits investment platform, Decant Index, to Singapore in response to rising regional demand, with over $126M in assets now stored through the platform.
6. Circle Internet Group, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, launched Initial Public Offering (IPO) targeting $624M raise at $6.7bn valuation.
7. Arta Finance, a Singaporean wealth management company, unveiled Shariah-compliant investment portfolios providing accredited investors and institutions access to customisable stock strategies aligned with Islamic finance principles.
8. Aspire, a Singaporean small business banking startup, integrated with Stripe to allow users to accept credit card, digital wallet payments.
9. bolttech, Singapore-based insurtech firm, partnered with AWS to integrate generative AI tools across its global operations.
10. Asian countries including Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong developed stablecoin regulations as average supply reached $225B, growing 41% YoY in May 2025.
11. Plastic Bank, a social fintech firm, collected 8.1bn plastic bottles in 11 years by digitalising the collection process and providing income to poor communities in the Philippines.
12. Hong Kong ramped up efforts to become an international data-trading hub by forging ties with mainland China and Southeast Asia.
13. DigiAsia, a NASDAQ-listed fintech-as-a-service (FaaS) provider in emerging markets, launched a $100M initiative to expand its Bitcoin (BTC) treasury reserves.
14. UnionPay International partnered with CIMB Bank Malaysia to improve payment services in Malaysia.
15. Check Point Software launched automated threat intelligence platform in Singapore, integrating AI/ML-powered security features with local data residency.
16. U.S. Treasury sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based company, and its Chinese administrator Liu Lizhi for providing internet infrastructure to virtual currency investment scams known as "pig butchering".
17. Cambodia's e-commerce market grew at 13% CAGR from 2020-2024, reaching $1.51B in 2024, driven by widespread adoption of KHQR QR code payments and Bakong real-time payment system.
18. Bank Indonesia, Indonesia's central bank, partnered with Japanese QR code payment players to launch Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS) in Japan on Aug. 17, 2023, enabling cross-border payments between the two countries.
19. Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong Rhee urged Korean banks to actively participate in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot program in H2 2023.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Gprnt, a Singapore-based sustainability data platform, raised $4.6M.
2. FilePillar, a Malaysian accounting automation startup, raised $110K.

ACQUISITION:

1. Kakao Pay, one of Korea's leading payments firms, announced plans to acquire SSG Pay and Smile Pay from Shinsegae Group for an estimated KRW 486B ($365M) to strengthen its domestic market position.
2. MUFG Bank, Japan's largest bank, signed agreement to acquire Moneytree, a financial data platform, to launch new digital bank and expand customer base.

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