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

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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

📈 Chart of the week

Source: Deepak Shenoy

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. PayU, a digital payments company, received final authorisation from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator.
2. United Nations projected India's GDP growth to moderate to 6.3% in 2025, down from 7.1% in 2024, but still among the world's fastest-growing economies, according to its World Economic Situation and Prospects mid-year update.
3. PhonePe, a consumer payments company, faced a multi-hour service outage in May 2025.
4. PB Fintech, the parent company of PolicyBazaar, reported INR 1,508cr ($176M) revenue, growing 38% YoY, and INR 171cr ($20M) profit, growing 185% YoY, in Q4 FY25.
5. IndusInd Bank disclosed INR 674cr ($80M) incorrect interest recording in microfinance loans over three quarters of FY25 and INR 595cr ($70M) unsubstantiated asset-liability mismatch in January 2025.
6. Zaggle reported INR 31.9cr ($4M) net profit, up 67% YoY, and record INR 412cr ($47.6M) revenue, up 51% YoY in Q4 2025.
7. FICCI urged Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to retain existing co-lending rules allowing Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to originate and sell loans to banks, warning proposed changes may constrain INR 8,000cr ($925M) credit and cause NBFC job losses.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Razorpay, a payment gateway startup, launched Hosted Optimizer, an AI-powered payment routing engine to increase transaction success rates by up to 30% while reducing per-transaction costs.
2. J&K Bank partnered with Pine Labs to launch a UPI-linked credit card product.
3. Xflow, a cross-border payments fintech, partnered with Drip Capital, a trade finance provider, to offer international transactions for 9,000+ SMEs, saving up to 20% in fees on Drip's $8bn+ transaction volume.
4. Zaggle, an employee benefits payments company, partnered with Mesh Payments to enable Indian MNCs to manage global expenses across the US, Europe, and Latin America.
5. SBI Card partnered with Apollo Health to launch Apollo SBI Card SELECT, a health and wellness-focused co-branded credit card offering up to 25% value back.
6. Phi Commerce, a fintech company, partnered with DGFT Japan to expand its digital payments business to Japan.
7. CARD91 launched infrastructure empowering banks to offer pre-sanctioned UPI credit lines with interest-free, interest-bearing, or revolving options, MCC-level controls, and interoperability across UPI apps like PhonePe and GPay.
8. Zoho Payments launched in the United States enabling ACH and card payments, recurring transactions in 135+ currencies, and automatic reconciliation.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Scrutinised digital wallets model after users were unable to access money in BluSmart's wallet following fraud allegations, highlighting lack of safeguards in closed-loop wallets.
2. SEBI (securities): Accepted the surrender application of Strata SM REIT in May 2025 after reports of fraud in the news media.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. IKF Finance, a Hyderabad-based non-bank lender, raised INR 1,465cr ($171M).
2. M1xchange, a supply chain finance platform, raised INR 84cr ($10M).

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. Co-opBank Pertama (CBP), a Malaysian cooperative bank, partnered with BPC to implement SmartVista Fraud Management solution, complying with Bank Negara Malaysia's security regulations for digital channels.
2. PayPal launched Complete Payments solution in Singapore, offering SMEs a streamlined way to accept global payments through a single integration.
3. TNG Digital, a Malaysian payments company, expanded access to its TNG eWallet platform to tourists from 9 ASEAN countries, supporting Malaysia's digital tourism goals for Visit Malaysia 2026.
4. Vietnamese banks are expected to increase spending towards digitalisation from $31bn in 2024 to $81bn by 2028.
5. MoMo, Vietnam's payments company, reported first full-year profitability in 2024.
6. Indonesia's credit and charge card payments market grew 7.8% in 2024 to $28bn and is expected to grow at a 10% CAGR from 2025-2029, reaching $39bn by 2029, driven by increased consumer spending and preference for cashless transactions according to GlobalData.
7. Australia's card acquiring market grew 7.5% in 2024 to $713bn but is expected to slow to 5.5% growth in 2025 amid global economic uncertainty according to GlobalData.
8. AUSTRAC expanded its Fintel Alliance initiative after the public-private partnership delivered significant results in tackling financial crime through collaborative intelligence sharing since its establishment in 2017.
9. Franklin Templeton received approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to launch the Franklin OnChain U.S. Dollar Short-Term Money Market Fund, Singapore's first tokenised fund available to retail investors.
10. OCBC, Singapore's second-largest bank, integrated its securities businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia into its Global Markets division effective 1 July 2025.
11. DBS Bank launched a new 'Mobile wallets' security feature in its digibank app to combat rising mobile wallet phishing incidents.
12. Tazapay, a Singaporean cross-border payment infrastructure provider, integrated with Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable AI-native workflows for global commerce, including services like getting balance, FX rates, and creating payment links.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Seedflex, a Singaporean fintech platform, raised $3.2M.
2. Amartha, an Indonesian microfinance startup, raised $55M in a loan facility.

ACQUISITION:

1. GnosisDAO acquired HQ.xyz, a Singaporean multi-chain corporate finance protocol, and rebranded it as Gnosis HQ to expand into tokenized corporate finance

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