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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🧐🏆 Posts of the Week

(Note: Neither TWIF nor I endorse any views in the tweets highlighted above.)

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

1. India's startup ecosystem recorded 984 funding deals during Jan-Oct 2024, growing 5.8% YoY. The total disclosed funding value of these deals jumped by 44.4% YoY to $9.2 billion during the same period.
2. NASSCOM partnered with Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) to enable its member companies to engage with Dubai's fintech and innovation ecosystem and forge partnerships in the sector.
3. India suffered cyber fraud losses amounting to INR 11,333cr ($1.3bn) in the first nine months of 2024, according to data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).
4. UPI-related fraud cases grew 85% YoY in FY24 to 1.3M cases worth INR 1,087cr ($128M).
5. Lendingkart, a small business lending startup, reported 6% YoY drop in profit after tax to INR 174.9cr ($20.7M) in FY24.
6. Reloy, a real estate rewards startup, projects to grow revenue by 40% YoY INR 25cr ($3M) this fiscal year. This growth is fueled by strong housing demand and successful referral sales generation for builders, amounting to Rs 1,450 crore last year.
7. Finkeda, a digital banking corresponding platform, launched Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) and Micro ATM services through partnerships with local merchants.
8. The Indian Government floated a few proposals for the insurance sector, including raising the FDI limit in Indian insurance companies from 74% to 100%, and enabling an insurer to carry on one or more classes of insurance business and activities.
9. The IRDAI is pursuing as many as 10-12 large life and general insurance companies to pursue public listings in the next four to six quarters.
10. Axis Bank reported that the loan book of its IFSC Banking Unit (IBU) at GIFT City doubled to $4bn from $2bn in 2019.
11. Kotak Mahindra Bank received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to acquire Standard Chartered Bank's INR4,100cr ($484M) personal loan portfolio.
12. Aviom India Housing Finance informed its creditors that payments to them could be delayed as the company is facing a cash crunch after it found fraudulent transactions in its ledgers.

🚀 Product Launches

1. DBS India launched an enhanced wealth management offering, providing Indian customers with unified access to cross-border treasury services across Asian markets, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and China.
2. PhonePe's Pincode platform is launching a quick commerce delivery offering.

📝 Regulatory Updates

1. SEBI (securities): Released guidelines for an alternate bourse to act as a fall-back option for investors to trade in case of a system outage on one.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. OneCard, a credit card startup, raised $29M.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

1. KoinP2P, the Indonesian subsidiary of small business lender Koinworks, is undergoing increased supervision from Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (OJK) following reports of payment delays to some lenders.
2. DBS partnered with Japan Finance Corporation (JFC), a government-owned financial institution, to help Japanese SMEs expand into Asia.
3. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Chinese National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) convened in Suzhou, China, to reaffirm their commitment to partner on digital assets, AI and Green Finance supervision.
4. HSBC Bank launched "Smart Transact", a new platform that allows businesses to manage domestic and international payments through a single platform.
5. Mastercard's Multi-Token Network (MTN) was integrated with J.P. Morgan's Kinexys Digital Payments, to launch blockchain-based tools with real-time payment rails.
6. MUFG sold its 25% stake in Home Credit Philippines to Security Bank, MUFG's affiliate.
7. MyData Informatica (MISB) and One Future Solutions (OFS) received licenses to operated as credit reporting agencies approved by the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
8. Local banks and other financial institutions in Hong Kong completed the migration of consumer credit reference services to Credit Data Smart.
9. Adyen partnered with Thomson Medical in Singapore to streamline payment acceptance across its healthcare facilities in Singapore.

💰 Financing Announcements

1. Partior, a Singaporean blockchain-based company for real-time clearing and settlement, raised $80 million.
2. Pi-xcels, a Singaporean NFC-enabled e-receipt technology startup, raised $2.7M.

ACQUISITION

1. Amartha, an Indonesian P2P lending startup, acquired PT Bosowa Multi Finance, a leasing company previously part of the Bosowa Group conglomerate.

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