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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Cross-border settlement takes 3–5 days. But with stablecoin rails, settlement takes under a second, at 40–60% lower cost. Alchemy, the platform behind Stripe, Visa, and Robinhood, published a free playbook for banks choosing between stablecoins and deposit tokens: revenue models, compliance strategy, and how JPMorgan, Citi, and HSBC made the decision.
📝 Posts of the week
🇮🇳 India
📰 Market Updates
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) launched a Women in Fintech Accelerator under the GIFT International Fintech Innovation Hub.
Over 1M pending Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) cases worth ₹ 80,000cr ($8.8M) highlights a broken crash victim compensation system, with claims taking 3.6 years average resolution.
India's health insurance sector grew 9% in FY25 with premiums exceeding ₹1.2 lakh crore ($13bn).
Association of Gold Loan Companies (AGLOC) sought deferment of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revised lending guidelines scheduled for April 1, citing geopolitical uncertainty and credit access risks.
Bank of Baroda applied incorrect interest rates to home loans in March, causing borrowers to pay excess Equated Monthly Installments (EMIs) and suffer credit score damage.
India's banking system faced funding strain as credit growth at 14.5% outpaced deposit growth at 11.9%, forcing lenders to rely on Certificates of Deposit (CDs) surging to ₹6.6 lakh crore ($70B).
Sahamati, the account aggregator platform, welcomed five leading financial ecosystem participants including KFin Technologies, HDFC Mutual Fund, NSDL, Protean eGov Technologies, and SBI Mutual Fund as financial data providers.
Digital NBFCs dominated India's personal loan market with 78% volume (₹1.39 lakh crore / $15bn) but 19% value in Q3 FY26.
Perfios, a banking SaaS startup, reported consolidated net profit growth of 46% YoY to INR 104Cr ($11M) in FY25.
🚀 Product Launches
Zepto launched Pay Later offering ₹10,000 ($105) interest-free credit with 15-day repayment.
CRED partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to launch biometric authentication for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions up to INR 5,000 (USD 55).
Zerodha launched redesigned MarketWatch on Kite app supporting 25 watchlists with 250 instruments each, custom grouping, and ready-made watchlists.
Dream Sports launched Dream Street stockbroking platform targeting retail investors, following restructuring after real money gaming ban disrupted revenues in August 2025.
QubeHealth-Pay partnered with Kotak Mahindra Bank to launch a healthcare payment app reducing costs across hospitals and clinics.
📝 Regulatory Updates
India's fintech industry received ₹8,000cr ($850M) in subsidy payments for Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay debit card transactions over four years, below the ₹9,000cr ($950M) budgetary allocation, as growth slowed to 25% in FY26 from 42% in FY25.
Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) board considered easing Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) settlement norms and intermediary regulations.
SEBI proposed allowing mutual fund gifting via prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) capped at INR 10,000 ($105), with INR 50,000 ($530) annual investment limit per investor.
Public sector banks transferred ₹60,518 crores ($6.4bn) in unclaimed deposits to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) fund as of Jan 2026.
Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) partnered with Google to launch verified badges for 600+ registered stock trading apps and deploy artificial intelligence tools to track finfluencers violating regulations.
💰 Financing Announcements
ACQUISITION:
Kotak Mahindra Bank is acquiring Deutsche Bank's India retail business for ₹ 4,500cr ($475M), gaining ₹27,000cr ($2.8bn) in portfolio.
Svatantra Microfin completed the acquisition of Chaitanya India Fin Credit, becoming India's second-largest Non-Banking Financial Company-Microfinance Institution (NBFC-MFI) with ₹22,000cr ($2.4bn) assets under management.
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🌏 Asia
📰 Market Updates
Revolut Singapore remained profitable for second consecutive year in 2025, with subscription revenue growing 75% YoY and domestic transactions surging 30% YoY.
Fiuu, a Malayasian payments startup, processed $13bn (RM 54bn) in total payment volume (TPV) in 2025, growing 33% YoY.
Wakkanai Shinkin Bank, a smaller Japanese bank, ran dry of borrowers amid Japan's shrinking population in Hokkaido.
DBS and Bank of China announced plans to strengthen partnership focusing on fintech, cross-border RMB solutions, and regional connectivity across Asia.
Indonesia's fintech lending (P2P lending) industry outstanding loans from fintech lending grew 25% YoY to IDR 98 trillion as of Jan 2026.
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced licensing fintech companies to provide open banking services in the country.
Ping An Digital Bank rebranded claimed retail deposits of HKD 12bn ($1.5bn).
LankaPay integrated WeChat Pay across 400,000+ merchants in Sri Lanka to facilitate payments for Chinese tourists and boost rural tourism revenue.
Capital Layer, a Taiwanese provider of enterprise on-chain settlement infrastructure, partnered with Stark Technology, Taiwan’s largest domestic system integrator.
Fingular, a Southeast Asian financial marketplace startup, launched Tazee, a new Shariah-first consumer financing product.
MariBank launched Mari Invest Singapore Equity product, enabling customers to invest in Singapore equities from S$1 with no transaction fees.
FOMO Pay launched an AI-powered soundbox in Singapore enabling merchants to accept cards, PayNow, QR payments, e-wallets and stablecoins through one terminal.
Ripple partnered with Unloq to test automated cross-border trade payments using RLUSD stablecoin on Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) BLOOM program.
Bitget Wallet expanded its bank transfer feature into Bangladesh, partnering with bKash, to bridge the gap between digital assets and local payment infrastructure.
Visa launched Enhanced Subscription Manager, enabling card issuers to help customers manage recurring payments through mobile apps.
InDebted, an Australian debt collections startup, launched Release to modernise how organisations recover value from late-stage debt.
Tookitaki, a Singapore-based financial crime prevention startup, expanded to Philippines.
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) published an AI Risk Management Toolkit with 24 financial partners to manage AI risks across traditional, generative, and agentic AI.
💰 Financing Announcements
ACQUISITIONS:
Mastercard explored selling its account-to-account payments unit acquired from Nets for $3.2bn in 2019, expecting lower valuation despite $370M annual revenue.
Mox Bank acquired $1bn personal loan portfolio from parent Standard Chartered to accelerate profitability.
DV8, a Thai media company, acquired Rakkar Digital, a Thai digital asset custody provider, and further investing THB 100M ($3M).
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