Indian banks hit record $43bn profit in FY26; Philippine BSP mandates biometrics to cut bank fraud 59% | TWIF Asia - May 31, 2026

Cashfree Payments grew revenue to ₹ 1,000cr ($100M) in FY26 with 78% YoY GTV growth in Q4 FY26.

NPCI called for a regulatory framework for agentic AI in digital payments while expanding AI-driven UPI and voice-payment use cases.

Non-resident Indian (NRI) deposits fell by ₹ 18K cr ($2B) in March 2026 due to geopolitical tensions in West Asia, with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reporting net withdrawals from NRI accounts.

Currency Cycle Association of cash logistics members sought measures to offset 15-20% operating cost increase from fuel inflation and wage hikes.

Bajaj Finserv allocated ₹2,000cr ($210M) over five years for AI, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies through Finserv Intelligence initiative.

ICICI Bank added 151K credit cards in April 2024, leading India's top five issuers as industry momentum moderated.

Listed commercial banks in India earned consolidated net profit of ₹4.11 lakh crore ($43bn) in FY26, with SBI, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank accounting for 52% of sector profits.

Indian banks reduced fresh deposit rates by 30 basis points to 5.77% in April 2026 while raising lending rates by 10 basis points to 8.50%.

Pine Labs reported ₹700cr ($74M) revenue in Q4 FY26, growing 17% YoY growth and turning profitable with ₹59cr ($6.25M) net profit.

Slice, a small finance banking startup, turned profitable with ₹48.4cr ($5.1M) profit in FY26, achieving 132% YoY revenue growth to ₹1,403cr ($148M).

Kissht, a digital consumer lending startup, reported operating revenue of ₹619cr ($65M) in Q4 FY26, growing 68% YoY, with profit rising 52% YoY.

Oxyzo Financial Services, an SME-focused lending startup, reported ₹1,494cr ($157M) operating revenue and ₹375cr ($40M) profit after tax in FY26, growing 23% YoY.

Indian banking sector experienced 46% YoY surge in fraud losses to ₹48,021cr ($5bn) in FY26, though reported cases halved to 10,114.

Paytm injected ₹ 100cr (EUR 9M) into its Luxembourg-based European subsidiary to expand digital payment services across EU markets.

Zoho launched Zoho Pay, a consumer payments app integrated with Arattai chat platform, competing against Google Pay and PhonePe.

Drip Capital partnered with YES BANK to enhance trade finance access for MSMEs through digital-first solutions.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) planned to launch 3-4 small language models for different use cases.

Razorpay launched a Command Line Interface (CLI) tool enabling developers to manage payments, orders, and refunds from the terminal, with native support for AI coding agents.

Zerodha launched position grouping on Kite app, allowing traders to group positions by underlying instrument or expiry date for clearer P&L tracking.

Shriram General Insurance partnered with Piramal Finance to distribute insurance products across 701 branches spanning 26 states and 13,000 pin codes.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation in digital payments and enable cross-border QR code-based merchant payments.

MobiKwik secured Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in-principle approval for Payment Aggregator-Physical (PA-P) licence to scale offline merchant payments.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) appointed expert committee to assess quantum computing applications and cryptographic threats in finance.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) examined relaxing disclosure requirements for debt-only listed entities and launched bond tokenisation pilot.

National Stock Exchange (NSE) penalised YES Securities and barred it from onboarding new clients for 3 months for transferring regulatory margin penalties to clients, violating Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) norms.

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) directed insurers to tie senior executive compensation to customer outcomes, transparency, and governance standards.

Decentro secured Payment Service Provider (PSP) licence from International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) at GIFT City for cross-border payments.

Flexprice, an usage-based billing startup, raised ₹12.3 cr ($1.3M).

ONO, an agri-finance startup, raised ₹9.1 cr ($1M)

Indus, a New Zealand-based stock broking startup, launched in Australia.

Total card fees paid by Australian merchants grew to $8bn annually, across 1.14tn in card transaction volume. Credit cards still account for 59% of total fees paid, but it is debit where fees are accelerating fastest.

Skyro, a Philippine consumer lending startup, disbursed $257M and doubled loans issued in Philippines in 2025, growing 2.6x YoY.

OpenAI granted Japan's major banks access to GPT-5.5 model for cybersecurity defense.

YouTrip launched YouTrip Family, enabling children aged 7-18 to access multi-currency travel cards under parental supervision across 150+ countries.

Airwallex launched a global billing platform supporting subscriptions, usage-based pricing, and cross-border invoicing across 20+ currencies.

PingPong, a Chinese cross border payments startup, partnered with Visa to launch Card to Account Payment Solution, enabling businesses to pay supplier invoices via commercial card with up to 45 days payment deferral across 170+ countries.

2C2P by Antom partnered with AWS to support millions of daily payments across Southeast Asia, integrating generative AI to reduce merchant integration from days to minutes.

Alipay launched AI Wallet and Token Pay services to facilitate automated transactions for AI agents, processing 300M transactions to date.

Ant International's Alipay+ partnered with PVS, a South American payments company, to launch cross-border QR-based mobile payment services across Latin America, initially covering Chile and Argentina.

Kasikornbank in Thailand partnered with Ant International to launch real-time 24/7 cross-border USD transactions using J.P. Morgan's Kinexys blockchain.

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) flagged risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven growth becoming too concentrated among few companies and sectors.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippine central bank, mandated server-side biometric authentication, following Vietnam's shutdown of 86M ghost accounts reducing fraud 59%.

Vietnam's Ministry of Finance drafted amendments recognising digital and virtual assets as valid loan collaterals for SMEs, targeting National Assembly approval in October 2026.

Neo-X, an Australian fiat to digital asset payments company, received Australian Financial Services Licence approval from the country's securities regulator, ASIC.

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) approved Coda Payments to operate cross-border money transfers, merchant acquisition, and domestic transfers.

First Circle, a Philippines-based SME banking startup, raised $5M to expand loan accessibility.

JS Bank in Pakistan acquired 14.92% stake in TRG Pakistan for PKR 5.12bn ($18M), raising total holding to 29.33%.