Weekly

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — The End of Free UPI | Week of August 3–9, 2026 Executive Summary On August 6, 2026, the Lok Sabha passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, which amends Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 — the legal provision that has mandated zero Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI and RuPay debit card transactions since January 2020. The Bill does not impose fees immediately. Instead, it replaces the blanket prohibition with a framework that allows the Central Government to notify, by executive order alone, which electronic payment modes remain exempt from MDR charges. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — India’s $41 Billion Forex Firewall | Week of July 27 – August 2, 2026 Executive Summary In eight weeks, the Reserve Bank of India has pulled off what may be the fastest capital mobilisation in Indian central banking history. The concessional forex swap facility announced on June 5, 2026 has attracted $40.82 billion in foreign currency inflows by July 31 — surpassing the entire $26 billion raised under the iconic 2013 FCNR(B) swap window, and doing it in roughly half the time. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — UPI’s Free Lunch Era Nears Its End | Week of July 20–26, 2026 Executive Summary India’s government is actively considering reintroducing a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on UPI transactions for large merchants — the most consequential policy shift in digital payments since zero-MDR was mandated in January 2020. Under the proposal reported by the Economic Times on July 16, merchants with annual turnover of ₹1–1.5 crore would pay 5–7 basis points on UPI transactions exceeding ₹2,000. Person-to-person transfers and payments to small merchants would remain untouched. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — RBI’s Digital Fraud Safety Net | Week of June 29, 2026 Executive Summary India is losing over ₹60 crore every single day to digital fraud. In 2025, 28 lakh cyber fraud complaints were filed with losses totalling ₹22,495 crore — a threefold jump from just two years earlier. Yet historically, fewer than 6% of victims recovered any of their money. The system worked in favour of the fraudster: you lost your money, your bank denied liability, and the police investigation went nowhere. That equation is about to change. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — Meta’s $900M CRED Gambit and the Battle for India’s Payments Soul | Week of June 22–28, 2026 Executive Summary On June 22, 2026, Meta Platforms announced a $900 million (₹8,550 crore) Series H investment in Bengaluru-based fintech CRED, valuing the credit-card management startup at $4.5 billion post-money. Simultaneously, Meta appointed CRED founder Kunal Shah as the new global head of WhatsApp, replacing Will Cathcart after his seven-year tenure. Miten Sampat, CRED’s head of strategy and finance since 2020, was named interim CEO. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — The Agentic Commerce Revolution Arrives on UPI Week of June 15–21, 2026 Executive Summary This was the week agentic commerce stopped being a slide deck and started becoming plumbing. On June 11, Pine Labs launched P3P — the Pine Labs Payment Protocol — India’s first autonomous agentic payment protocol built directly on UPI. The protocol is live in production with Gullak (digital gold savings) as the first integrator, and Vijay Sales running a proof of concept. Within days, Citi and UBS reiterated buy calls on Pine Labs’ stock, pushing shares up 4%.12 ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — The Cross-Border Collision: When Zelle, BofA, and Stablecoins Meet UPI | June 8–14, 2026 Executive Summary Three seemingly independent announcements this week converged on a single theme: India’s Unified Payments Interface is rapidly becoming the endpoint of choice for global payment rails — and the world’s largest financial institutions are racing to plug into it. Zelle, the bank-owned P2P payment network used by over 120 million Americans, announced India as its first international market alongside a proprietary USD-backed stablecoin called ZelleUSD. Bank of America unveiled a real-time cross-border payments solution connecting directly to UPI, alongside the UK’s Faster Payments and Mexico’s SPEI. Meanwhile, at Money20/20 Europe, stablecoins were crowned the defining theme of 2026, with Visa reaching a $4.5 billion annualised run rate for stablecoin settlement and Mastercard expanding on-chain card settlement capabilities. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — India’s Capital Account Blitz | Week of June 1–7, 2026 Executive Summary In the most dramatic week for Indian macroeconomic policy since the 2013 taper-tantrum defence, the Reserve Bank of India and the Union government unveiled an unprecedented, multi-pronged assault on the crumbling rupee. Between June 3 and June 6, a coordinated barrage of measures landed: the government scrapped all capital gains and withholding taxes on foreign investment in government bonds via an ordinance, the RBI announced it would bear the full hedging cost on fresh FCNR(B) deposits, NRI equity investment limits were doubled, the Fully Accessible Route for government securities was expanded to include ultra-long bonds, export realisation timelines were restored, and the central bank continued its aggressive dollar-selling interventions that have consumed an estimated $12 billion in gold reserves over two weeks. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — Cash Withdrawals Surge & RBI Liquidity Challenge | Week of May 10-17, 2026 Executive Summary India’s central bank is confronting an unexpected and potentially significant development: cash withdrawals are surging at rates that threaten to undermine liquidity management, with currency in circulation hitting a record ₹42.3 trillion ($640 million increase in just 15 days). This trend runs counter to the narrative of digital payment dominance and suggests that India’s payment landscape remains more nuanced than commonly portrayed. The RBI’s liquidity surplus—currently averaging around 1% of deposits—faces the risk of rapid erosion as cash withdrawals accelerate, potentially forcing monetary policy recalibrations at a time when the central bank is already grappling with inflationary pressures from elevated oil prices and geopolitical instability. For fintech companies, this trend presents both challenges and opportunities: cash remains a critical fallback payment method for millions of consumers, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas, while digital-first players must adapt to a more complex liquidity environment that blurs the line between cash and digital payment ecosystems. ...

Fintech Weekly Deep Dive — Indian Consumer Lending & IPO Pipeline | Week of April 28–May 1, 2026 Executive Summary Indian online credit solutions provider KreditBee raised $280 million in a Series E funding round co-led by Hornbill Capital and Motilal Oswal, marking one of the largest fintech raises this year and signaling investor confidence in India’s consumer lending market. The Bangalore-based startup plans to use the capital to fuel its initial public offering (IPO) ambitions, becoming the latest Indian fintech to pursue public market exit alongside Acko Insurance’s $2–2.5B IPO target. This development arrives against the backdrop of a booming consumer lending market driven by young demographics, digital payments adoption, and embedded finance integration. With India’s consumer credit market projected to grow at 18% CAGR through 2030, and BNPL adoption surging among urban millennials and gig workers, fintech lenders are positioning themselves for massive scale and public market opportunities. However, the story also reveals tensions in the IPO market, with some consumer-facing platforms recalibrating valuations (Snabbit’s $56M round down from $180M just six months ago) and traditional banks leveraging technology to optimize workforces, creating a complex competitive landscape for digital lenders. ...