Hi fintech friends, I'm Osborne, Principal at EMVC.
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).
🧐🏆 Posts of the Week
DBS Bank achieved a significant milestone recently when it announced record first-quarter results -- And became a SGD 100 billion valuation bank. that's roughly $75 B USD market cap 🚀
they were our customers in my last startup and I can tell you they move so well. its huge…— Amit Goel (@amitTwitr) May 15, 2024
“The cool thing about payments: it is so vast, and yet we’re all such a tiny little piece compared to cash. We’re all just trying to get people to put away the dirty cocaine-laced dollar bills [and] join the wave of the future.”@mlevchin @Affirm
— via @Kr00ney @moneymoverscnbc pic.twitter.com/ENoiYFivm4— Ron Pragides (@mrp) May 16, 2024
The financial sector needs a one-window KYC approach. The current multiple-regulator, multiple-institution and multiple-times way is just citizen harassment.
The government imposes this burden on us, the government must solve it.
My oped in @htTweetshttps://t.co/m62m8jrzhy pic.twitter.com/z2fNdFmYsU— Monika Halan 🇮🇳 (@monikahalan) May 16, 2024
(Note: Neither TWIF nor I endorse any views in the tweets highlighted above.)
🇮🇳 India
📰 Market Updates
Bankruptcy resolutions rose to 73% in FY24 (ended Mar, 2024) from 64% in FY23. Resolution in this case is the lenders accepting 73% loss of the outstanding loan value of cases registered with the National Company Law Tribunal.
HDFC Bankstated that it spends 6-7% of its total expenses on technology every year - 50% of that on people and the rest on hardware and software.
Infibeam Avenues reported operating revenue of INR 727cr ($87mm) and INR 49cr ($5.9mm) net profit in the quarter ended Mar, 2024.
PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar, reported consolidated revenue of INR 1090cr ($131mm) and net profit of INR 60cr ($7.2mm) for the quarter ended Mar, 2024.
GoDigitcompleted its IPO process to raise $314mm (mix of fresh issue and offer for sale), which was 6.6x oversubscribed.
Zomatosurrendered its payment aggregator license.
India's Finance Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Ministry of Finance, approved the applications of Binance and Kucoin to register them as Virtual Asset Service Providers to trade in India.
RBI's Deputy Governor asked NBFC's to improve the governance and assurance functions to avert potential risks and vulnerabilities.
🚀 Product Launches
AngelOne, a stock broking company, launchedFin One, a financial literacy platform.
LemFi, a Canadian cross border payments startup, launched inward remittance to India for immigrants.
PhonePepartnered withLankaPay to launch UPI acceptance in Sri Lanka.
Pine Labspartnered withEmirates NBD in MENA to launch POS payment acceptance in the region.
Skydo, a cross border payments startup, launched Singapore payment method acceptance for its Indian users.
📝 Regulatory Update
SEBI (securities): Approved a three-year extension for LIC to reduce the government's shareholding in the insurer, to grow the public shareholding to 10%.
💰 Financing Announcements
GoDigit, a general insurance company, raised $141mm in pre-IPO funding.
Fusion Microfinance, an MFI, raised $25mm.
Rupeek, a gold-backed finance startup, raised $6mm.
OTPLess, an authentication and access management startup, raised $3.5mm.
BimaPay, an unsecured loan distribution unit of Hindcon Mercantile Ltd., raised $2mm.
Propelld, an education finance company, raised $25mm in debt.
ACQUISITION
Niyogin Fintech acquiredSuperScan, an AI powered document imaging startup.
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🌏 Asia
📰 Market Updates
Grab's digibank platforms across Singapore and Malaysia reported $479mm in user deposits in the quarter ended Mar, 2024, growing 1,235% YoY and 28% QoQ.
Thailand's regulator called for comments on the capital requirements of companies operating crypto derivatives and exchanges.
Singlifelaunched an insurance product for dementia and mental health issues.
Gan Kim Yong will be the new chairman of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Board of Directors from 15th May, 2024. He was the deputy chairman of MAS and will succeed Lawrence Wong, Singapore's soon to be ex-finance minister.
XREX, a cross border payments company, received MAS approval to operate as a crypto payments company.
Mastercardpartnered withStandard Chartered to pilot a tokenised deposit and tokenised carbon credits flow in Hong Kong.
Deutsche BankjoinedMAS's Project Guardian initiative to explore asset tokentisation applications.
Wiselaunched its service in Philippines with an account and a prepaid card.
Atome, a BNPL company, partnered withTaobao Singapore to launch BNPL payment option for its users in Singapore.
💰 Financing Announcements
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