Asia Pacific
LATEST ARTICLES
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Three years ago, LTS Ventures was tasked with building a simple microfinance platform for Laos’s army of village banks and savings unions. It took off like a rocket, boosting financial inclusion, cutting fraud. Now the firm is eyeing fresh external funding and expansion across southeast Asia. -
Maharlika Investments Fund looks like it will be a development vehicle that takes Indonesia for inspiration.
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Beijing recently ordered its state banks, including ICBC and Bank of China, to plough $162 billion worth of fresh credit into the country’s troubled property sector. In doing so, they look not proactive but panicky. A negative hit on lenders’ profits is inevitable.
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China is stuck. It has spent three years trying to keep Covid at bay, but now irate citizens have spilled onto the streets, questioning the competency of president Xi Jinping, and calling for an end to restrictions – just as transmission rates spike.
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China Investment Corporation’s annual reviews are always out of date, but they provide clues to what is happening now.
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The purchase of Home Credit’s businesses in the Philippines and Indonesia fits with a trend to seek growth outside Japan.
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In a highly unusual step, Singapore’s sovereign wealth vehicle has spelled out how and why it bought into the FTX story.
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Saving the planet requires shutting down coal plants while also ensuring the livelihood of the people who depend on them. The ADB has a plan.
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HSBC’s outgoing CFO, Ewen Stevenson, has mounted a robust case for the bank’s cost performance in an intriguing call with analysts that also featured an appearance by his replacement, Georges Elhedery. As he prepares to leave the bank, Stevenson defended his legacy by taking on the firm’s arch-critic, Ping An.
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Words fail Euromoney at the mighty event.
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Last week’s financial summit aimed to show investors Hong Kong is open for business. While well attended, it also served as a reminder of how closed off the financial hub has become and how much of its lustre has been lost.
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Market experts fear that continued inflation and poor growth mean that many currencies are vulnerable to the pressure that the UK has seen recently.
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As spreads widen for credit, Macquarie is rushing in.
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The great and the good of global finance gather in Hong Kong this week for a summit that aims to remind the world of the city’s status as an international financial centre.
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Georges Elhedery’s move to the CFO role at HSBC has raised eyebrows among observers seeking to decode it. What does it mean for Elhedery, what happened to incumbent Ewen Stevenson, and what does it say about CEO Noel Quinn?
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Asia’s central banks have fought hard to protect the value of their currencies this year as the dollar has soared. But each of them has a limit to their appetite for that defence.
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China, the US, Australia and Japan are all conducting a curious courtship with Pacific nations, hoping to build trade relationships, climate resilience and security agreements.
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Regulators often rely on giving relief when market participants or products fall between different jurisdictions or certification is unavoidably delayed. But one US regulator is getting fed up with having to do the same thing over and over again, and is calling for rules to be fixed instead of being endlessly patched up.
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In February, HSBC’s head of global private banking China, Jackie Mau, set out ambitious plans for the mainland. He’s proving as good as his word: the UK lender has opened two new, full-service wealth management offices in Hangzhou and Chengdu, with more to follow in 2023 and 2024.
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Kotak Investment Advisors, the special situations arm of Kotak Mahindra, could have $9 billion under management by early next year. It is led by Srini Sriniwasan, who has applied skills learned at Goldman Sachs to develop the business to where it is today.
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For one, it brings power to its digital operations, for the other a much-needed injection of funds. But it doesn’t change a grim operating environment.
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Islamic finance has a choice: continue on its existing path and consolidate its hard-earned gains in market share, or shake the whole thing up. One proposal calls for an end to the fractional-reserve banking system.
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Six seemingly random numbers, when threaded together, demonstrate that some kind of negative watershed event may not be too far off in China.
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Amitabh Chaudhry seeks to elevate Axis from its strong position in India to a premium one. The purchase of Citi’s consumer finance business will help – but only if it can keep Citi’s customers.
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The launch of an SRI-linked sukuk framework this summer is a blueprint for others to follow.
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China’s property sector is in freefall and Covid lockdowns are throttling growth as bad loans pile up at the banks. As president Xi Jinping prepares for an unprecedented third term, a deluge of crises threatens to destroy the country's four-decade economic miracle.
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As European and Chinese banks scale back in Africa to cut costs and redeploy capital to core markets, Middle East lenders are happily jumping in to fill the gap, buying assets and putting more boots on the ground as bilateral trade between the regions increases.
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The recent multi-decade lows experienced by the pound and the yen may have different origins, but they are also a reminder that history has a habit of repeating itself.
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China has in the past felt compelled to accept the terms of IMF programmes in struggling nations without due consideration of its own views.
