Fintech Brief — September 25, 2026
Today’s Top Stories
1. SEBI’s board clears a sweeping rulebook refresh — new PMS and settlement regulations, wider FPI and accredited-investor access
Markets regulator SEBI’s board on Thursday approved a broad package of capital-market reforms, headlined by two full regulation rewrites: the SEBI (Portfolio Managers) Regulations, 2026 replacing the 2020 framework, and the SEBI (Settlement Proceedings) Regulations, 2026 replacing the 2018 version. The PMS overhaul widens what discretionary portfolio managers can invest in — including IPOs and primary-market debt issuances — while FPIs get access to physically settled, non-agricultural commodity derivative contracts. The board also widened the accredited-investor pool: individuals with ₹5 crore in securities-market assets (₹20 crore for body corporates) can now qualify alongside the existing income and net-worth tests, with manager-led accreditation valid three years and deemed status for FPIs. Other decisions: REITs and listed InvITs may issue depository receipts overseas, research analysts are relieved of recording some institutional calls, a common advertisement code comes in, and first-time NCD issuers get a listing relaxation. The consumer watch-item is the accredited-investor widening — it quietly decides who can be sold riskier unlisted products, so the guardrails around that gatekeeping deserve scrutiny.
2. NPCI’s MDR reassurance tour: Asbe says volumes won’t crack as October 15 nears
With the 0.4% MDR on UPI person-to-merchant payments above ₹2,000 taking effect October 15, NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe told the SBI Banking & Economics Conclave that the fee is unlikely to materially affect transaction volumes — around 96% of transactions stay under ₹2,000 and therefore zero-MDR — and that the revenue will be reinvested in soundboxes and AI-based payment infrastructure. He also put a number on the system’s pain: UPI transactions cost banks about ₹21,000 crore annually, the bill the new fee is meant to start recovering. Meanwhile NPCI has told NBFCs that UPI loan repayments above ₹2,000 will attract a flat ₹5 fee, putting EMI collections in the capped-fee bucket alongside railways, fuel and telecom. For consumers, the open question remains merchant behaviour after October 15 — whether shops above the exemption line absorb the charge, pass it on, or quietly nudge customers back to cash.
3. Moneyview’s ₹1,092-crore IPO opens to a 1.4x day-one subscription
Digital lender Moneyview’s IPO opened Thursday and was subscribed 1.44 times by 5 pm on day one, with grey-market premium around 42%. The company had raised ₹327.5 crore from anchor investors, allotting 9.63 crore shares at ₹34 — the top of the ₹32–34 band — to 20 funds including SBI, HDFC and ICICI Prudential mutual funds, Goldman Sachs and HDFC Life, with domestic mutual funds taking 72% of the anchor book. The issue — a fresh ₹750 crore plus an offer-for-sale of 10.04 crore shares worth ₹341.6 crore by promoters and investors including Tiger Global, Accel India and Ribbit Capital — values the company at ₹6,000 crore at the upper band. It runs until September 28. The fundamentals on display: 14.03 crore registered users, 48 financial partners and ₹22,520 crore in managed assets as of June 2026, with ₹325 crore of the fresh proceeds earmarked for loan disbursals under default-loss-guarantee arrangements.
4. Cross-border payments week: PayGlocal wins GIFT City approval while PhonePe details its UAE buildout
Cross-border payments got two regulatory boosts in 24 hours. Payments firm PayGlocal has received IFSCA approval to set up a payment service provider in GIFT City, letting its IFSC entity issue accounts including e-money, process cross-border money transfers and do merchant acquisition — part of the steady buildout of GIFT City as India’s springboard for global payment operations. In the UAE, PhonePe CEO for International Payments Ritesh Pai detailed plans to build a unified, full-stack payments ecosystem — local rails, consumer wallets, merchant acquiring and remittances — after last week’s in-principle approval from the UAE central bank for two licences. Domestically, PhonePe is hiring 20,000 people and deploying 50 lakh payment devices for small-merchant rural expansion. The pattern to watch: Indian payment firms are simultaneously exporting rails abroad and deepening device-led acceptance at home — both monetisation stories ahead of PhonePe’s IPO.
Data point: RBI’s August card data shows credit card spends fell 2.8% to ₹2.02 trillion, with online spends down 7%, even as outstanding cards rose to 124.05 million — a small wrinkle in the “digital spend only goes up” narrative worth tracking alongside the UPI MDR transition.
Curated by the CashlessConsumer daily brief agent. All amounts as reported by linked sources.