This Week in Fintech - Asia | 07th Jan, 2023

Hi fintech friends,

Happy New Year, 2023! Hope you had a great start to the year!

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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).

Don’t forget to share with fellow fintech friends!

📊 Chart of the week

🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. RBI's Financial Stability Report proposed to take a "common approach" to regulating crypto.
2. CRED stopped placing Paytm's logo on its offline QR code acceptance placards at merchant stores.
3. Customer complaints against debit cards and ATM cards have shrunk due to increased use of UPI while complaints for credit cards and other loans has increased.
4. Walmart is likely to face$1bn in taxes for shifting PhonePe's base from Singapore to India.

🚀 Product Launches

1. Unocoin, a cryptocurrency exchange, announced a partnership with Binocs, a cryptocurrency taxation management company.
2. Actyv.AI, a B2B SaaS platform, partnered with Ratnaafin, an NBFC, to launch B2B BNPL product.
3. Open, a small business neobanking startup, partnered with Axis Bank, to launch neo banking for small businesses.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. RBI (central bank): Released the Annual report for Ombudsman Scheme for 2021-2022. Released the list of 6 entities selected to be part of the fourth Sandbox cohort on Prevention and Mitigation of Financial Frauds.

💰 Financing Announcement

1. KreditBee, a consumer credit startup, raised $100mm.
2. InsuranceDekho, an insurance product aggregator startup, raised $36.5mm.
3. SarvaGram, a rural fintech startup, raised $35mm.
4. Fello, a gaming-based savings startup, raised $4mm.
5. Jupiter, a neo banking startup, raised $12mm (debt).
6. Varthana, an education finance startup, raised $7mm (debt).

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. UnionPay, a Shanghai-based card acceptance company, issued more than 200mm cards outside the Chinese mainland.
2. ChiChaPay, a Singaporean crypto startup, launched a digital wallet that processes both fiat and cryptocurrencies.
3. Ant Group received approval from Chinese regulators to raise $1.5bn.
4. Indonesia's financial authority is planning a national crypto exchange in 2023.
5. Aigis, an Indonesia-based B2B insurtech startup, pivoted to provide project management and fintech solutions for the creative industry through a platform called Finnix.
6. Smartpay, a Japanese fintech startup, launched Smartpay Bank Direct, a BNPL product.
7. BitKeep, a Singaporean crypto wallet company, suffered a hack where $8mm in user deposits were stolen.
8. TAG Fintech, a Pakistani payments startup, is planning to enter other markets in Asia and Middle East.

💰 Financing Announcements

(there was no funding announcement this week. Did I miss anything? please let me know.)

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

• US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic.
• Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins.
• Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
• Africa, written by Emeka Ajene.
• China written by Ning Ye.
• Policy written by Mohammad Hamdy.

And of course, our podcast series - Beyond Two Percent and Hey Fintech Friends.

If you’ve made it this far - thanks! As always, you can always reach me at osborne@thisweekinfintech.com. I’d genuinely appreciate any and all feedback. If you liked what you read, please consider sharing or subscribing.

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