The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | April 5th

By Puja Sharma

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and PhonePe enter a two-year strategic partnership to promote UPI payments for Indian visitors in Singapore. Indian travellers can use the PhonePe app for instant, seamless, and secure payments across 8,000+ merchants in Singapore, enhancing their experience in the island city.

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and PhonePe have entered a two-year MoU. This collaboration builds upon the existing Unified Payments Interface (UPI) linkage between India and Singapore, which allows customers to instantly make cross-border transactions between the two countries directly from their existing Indian bank accounts.

As part of the partnership, STB and PhonePe will invest in joint marketing efforts across India and Singapore, to promote the destination’s vibrant offerings and seamless UPI experiences across key tourism hotspots. This strategic alliance underscores the shared commitment of STB and PhonePe to add value to the overall experience of travellers exploring the vibrant city of Singapore by making it possible for them to use familiar services like UPI payments during their stay.

Deals of the week

• Coro secures $100m to strengthen Cybersecurity for SMEs
• Paypal’s Xoom adds PYUSD as funding option for cross-border money transfers
• Namdev Finvest raises $19m in Pre-Series C funding round
• Australian banking platform Constantinople bags $33m in Series A
• Zand Bank subscribes to Infosys Finacle Corporate Banking Suite hosted on Microsoft Cloud
• Innoviti raises $4.7m in first close of Series E funding round
• Central Bank of India taps Veefin Solutions to begin their Supply Chain Finance operations
• Oman Housing Bank taps Temenos for core banking modernisation in the cloud
• Brim secures $85m in Series C Funding to fuel global expansion

Be on the lookout for

Dubai FinTech is the leading event space in the region helping pioneer FinTech’s future. Aiming to set the global benchmark for the way enterprises and governments approach financial innovation, the event unites FinTech leaders and policymakers to help shape the future of FinTech.

“The Summit aligns with the Dubai Economic Agenda D33’S strategic goal of propelling Dubai into the ranks of the top four global financial hubs by 2033,” said H.H. Sheikh Maktoum Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, First Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

The Dubai FinTech Summit takes place on 6-7 May 2024.