India, Aug. 23 -- Every so often, there's a buzzword that grabs the imagination of the startup ecosystem. Circa 2018, it was neobanking. Suddenly dozens of fintech startups - large and small - were building a neobank.

Some raised huge seed rounds - see the case of Jupiter or Epifi. But the post-demonetisation bullishness on neobanking has crumbled. India's neobank dream looks to be over.

Due to RBI rules, neobanks could not replace licensed banks in India, but they expanded the reach of smaller banks by acting as the digital interface and acquisition channel for the banks. Neobanking startups were like co-branded mobile banking apps for actual banks, but the degree of branding depended from startup to startup.

What these startups promi...