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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).

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Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity, I may be able to help - reach out to osborne@thisweekinfintech.com.

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🦉🏆 Tweets of the Week

Cullen Roche @cullenroche

$35 TRILLION in global market value erased since the beginning of the year. That's 14% of all global wealth. Includes the $1T losses in crypto. For reference - 2008 was a 19% decline.* * Doesn't include non-financial assets such as housing.

Deepak Shenoy @deepakshenoy

Inflation at 7.79% for April 2022, the highest since 2014. A 🧵

radhika @_radhikaraman

Y’all, hear me out…what if we just asked the astrology TikTok girlies to manifest the opposite of a recession?

Krishna Hegde @PositiveGamma

Apparently, stablecoin was an aspiration & not an ironclad guarantee.

📊 Stat of the week

The Global Fintech Index maintained by FPrime Capital is down 75.2% YTD. The index is composed of 60 global, public fintech companies.

🇮🇳 India

📰 Market Updates

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India's IPO was oversubscribed 1.79 times, while QIB portion was the only portion that wasn't fully subscribed.
Apple India stopped accepting debit and credit card payments for app purchases, citing regulatory requirements.
Razorpay claimed to have 8mm registered merchants using the platform and completed an ESOP buyback of $75mm.
Insurejoy.com claimed to have partnered with 30 insurance companies and launched 100 insurance products and aims to do $40mm in insurance premiums by FY23 (70% life insurance).
Perfios, a banking data aggregation and analytics company, was selected as part of VISA's accelerator program.
Brain Armstrong, Coinbase' founder and CEO, claimed that Coinbase has been "shadow ban in the press. They’re applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments which might be going through UPI".
Juspay was the only Indian payments company to join VISA's Ready for BNPL program.

🚀 Product Launches

CRED partnered with Mastercard to offer tokenisation services.
Paycraft, a transit card company, launched it's corporate transit card.
Phi Commerce partnered with Kotak Mahindra Bank to launch omni channel payments at Bangalore airport.
Acko partnered with Bajaj Finance to launch motor insurance in Bajaj's Finance' network.

💰 Financing Announcements

GoKwik, a one-click checkout startup, raised $35mm.
Vivriti Capital, a lender to mid-market companies, raised $30mm.
BharatX, an embedded credit startup, raised $4.5mm.
AssetPlus, a agent-driven wealth product distribution startup, raised $3.6mm.
Multipl, a social trading startup, raised $3mm.
GoldenPi, a bond investing startup, raised $2mm.
EazyRewards, a loyalty and conversational commerce startup, raised $2mm.

ACQUISITION:

CASHe, a digital instant loan startup, acquired Sqrrl, a round up savings startup.

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🌏 Asia

📰 Market Updates

Bangladesh' BRAC Bank launched a Real Time Cash Deposit machine for customers to deposit cash anytime and amounts reflected instantly in their accounts.
CoinHako, a Singaporean crypto company, received full license to offer crypto services.
OCBC Bank, a Singaporean bank, partnered with Metaverse Green Exchange (MVGX) to offer tokenised carbon credits.
BRI, an Indonesian bank, launched BRImo, it's mobile app, as part of the bank's digital banking drive.
Akulaku, an Indonesian fintech company, grew it's annual revenues by 122% $598mm in 2021.
Airwallex partnered with VISA to launch and expense management solution and VISA multicurrency virtual business debit card in Singapore.
SEA Group is in talks with insuretech startups to acquire one for its insurance products as part of its Super App.
YouTrip, a Singaporean neobank, has rolled out a new corporate card with credit facility for small businesses.
Arkos Technologies, a South Korean asset management startup, listed an AI-powered ETF on the NYSE.
Funding Societies, an Singaporean small business finance startup, launched its services in Vietnam, it's fifth country.
OwlTing, a Taiwanese payments startup, partnered with Nium to offer cross border payments within OwlPay.
Investree, an Indonesian lender, is in talks to acquire 18.4% in Bank Amar, a local bank.
Volopay, a Singaporean small business finance startup, plans to deploy $25mm in expanding into India, Indonesia and Philippines.
Triple A, a Singaporean crypto payments startup, was selected as part of VISA's accelerator program.

📝 Regulatory Updates

SEBI (securities): The Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX) was derecognised as an exchange. The Regulator passed a settlement order against an individual who was a registered Research Analyst for offering model portfolios and advisory services.

💰 Financing Announcements

KuCoin, a SEA crypto exchange, raised $150mm.
Opn (rebranded from SYNQA), a Japanese payment and embeded finance startup, raised $120mm.
Qoala, an Indonesian insuretech startup, raised $65mm.
CoverGo, a Singaporean no-code insurance startup, raised $15mm.
Finku, an Indonesian personal finance startup, raised $2.8mm.
Aman, an Indonesian insuretech startup, raised $1.2mm.
Aigis, an Indonesian insuretech startup, raised $1mm.

🌏 International

Please find our global coverage and consider subscribing.

US and Global, written by Nik Milanovic published on Friday’s and Saturday’s.
Europe and UK, written by Michael Jenkins published on Monday’s.
Latin America, written by Christine Chang.
Africa, written by Benjamin Dada.

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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This Week in Fintech

This Week in Fintech - Asia | 14th May, 2022