Asia Pacific
LATEST ARTICLES
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Stock market reform has not only revitalized the country's capital markets but has also permeated the real economy. Countries like Korea are quickly following suit. Interestingly, China also seems to be drawing inspiration.
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Global money is flooding into India to profit from high-performing stocks, a booming economy, and the ease of investing via Gift City, a growing financial hub in Gujarat. Local wealth is flowing the other way, notably to Dubai. It’s a gold mine for private banks, and the process has only just begun.
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As Japan puts an end to the global negative interest rate era, its central bank's QE programme remains in place and may be a model for peers. Investors maintain a bullish outlook on the stock market.
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In a world of higher interest rates, economic uncertainties and data overload, corporate treasurers are turning to cutting-edge tools and strategies to predict and optimize their cash flows.
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The German lender’s decision to put its chips on southeast Asia is paying off handsomely. Under the leadership of Asia CEO Alexander von zur Mühlen, Deutsche Bank has doubled its capital in Vietnam and Indonesia, with more to come, moved a host of global roles to the region, and has seen Asean eclipse its India and China business in terms of growth and absolute numbers.
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Encumbered by an impotent fiscal policy and a sluggish stock market, bank lending could be China’s only route to economic recovery.
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Chinese fintech Ant Group has offered UBS a reported $250 million for Credit Suisse’s China joint venture, outbidding Citadel Securities. It is a timely reminder that despite its current malaise, Asia’s largest economy is still a great long-term place to invest.
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In 2020, Deutsche Bank’s Asia chief, Alexander von zur Mühlen, placed more of his chips on fast-growing southeast Asia. As global firms diversify out of China, his prescience and willingness to deliver on his convictions is starting to pay off.
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In the wake of heavy losses and mis-selling to retail investors, there is an urgent need for an overhaul of risk management in the banking sector.
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He leaves the Australian financial firm after transforming its commodities and global markets division, and despite being widely tipped as likely to succeed current CEO Shemara Wikramanayake.
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Citi’s head of Asia treasury and trade solutions has retired after 40 years at the US bank. He tells Euromoney what he would do if he were a 20-something graduate today, and why it helps to be both a specialist and a jack-of-all-trades in the industry now.
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As Beijing works to underpin the equity market, China's fund houses and investment banks are betting on exchange-traded funds as the next big thing. That reflects a market corseted by regulation, where limited options compel a collective herd mentality.
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While the world’s biggest markets are still preparing for T+1 settlement, talk is growing of the next step – but going any faster would mean a total reworking of how markets function.
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It is not hard to find short-term worries over global markets’ state of readiness for the US’s transition to one-day settlement in late May. But even if the UK, Europe and those Asian markets still using two-day settlement can adapt to the shift in the longer term, they will also face intense pressure to lessen their dislocation from the US cycle by copying its move. Many also fear the ultimate end-game of same-day or even instant settlement.
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The Sino-Swiss corridor, set up to encourage Chinese firms to sell global depositary receipts to international investors in the European state, took off fast in 2022. But a host of challenges, from Chinese regulatory concerns to an apparent lack of global interest, has stalled its progress.
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It has become fashionable to describe private credit as an opaque and fast inflating bubble that could bring crisis to the global financial system. But in Asia even banks and regulators hope it will grow to bridge the yawning financing gap.
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Many factors explain Japan’s renewed allure to global corporate and financial institutions. Inbound FDI is rising, with local stock prices regularly hitting record highs. Is the economy’s long-awaited renaissance a passing phase or here to stay?
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With its economy embattled and investors fleeing in droves, getting good data on China has never been more important. There are some great analysts and research shops out there. But too many China-facing reports suffer from a lack of imagination, groupthink brought on by a fear of irritating Beijing and an over-reliance on state data. That must change.
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Hong Kong-based Chinese investment banks, plagued by the market’s liquidity issues, are looking to China's economic pivot and the renminbi's rise as a fundraising currency to restore their fortunes.
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Restrictions may come at a cost as MSCI considers developed market status.
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At the start of 2023, analysts sized China and liked what they saw: an economy reopening after three years of Covid isolation, and ready once again to roar. Nothing of the sort has happened and corporates and institutional investors are now fleeing the market in droves.
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The commodities firm still needs large banking groups and a range of options when it comes to supporting its operations.
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As the Chinese property crisis deepens, a new round of bank-led rescue efforts is on the horizon. While banks must shoulder part of the blame for the crisis, their options for action are limited.
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Thailand wants to give almost every adult in the country money through a digital wallet. It’s an interesting step towards bringing digital finance to the mainstream.
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The travails of Zhongzhi, a key player in China’s poorly regulated $3 trillion shadow financing market, underline why a future crisis in the country is more likely, not less.
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While the dollar’s international supremacy is unchallenged for now, the wider landscape is shifting. Companies are raising more funding in renminbi and the currency’s use in international payments and settlements is growing.
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While the air at the Singapore Fintech Festival was full of grand ideas about GenAI, real innovation was taking place in the weeds of fintech development.
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The great and the good have assembled again for the Global Financial Leaders investment summit in Hong Kong.
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Rakuten needs money – and lots of it – as its mobile telecommunications arm continues to burn cash. But it is running out of things to sell, while its debt profile is miserable.
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While no charges have been laid against the Adani Group, a new Sebi rulebook addresses a key concern that came from the January stock-market controversy.
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Mongolia’s five big lenders have successfully completed their IPOs, doubling the size of the local stock market. But the challenge of attracting more foreign institutional investment remains.
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Singapore’s DBS Bank has spent the past decade transforming itself into one of the world’s best digital banks. But a series of lengthy service outages over the past year has wrongfooted senior management, who have been left to issue apologies and pledge to do better.
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A local asset management company in Liaoning province just bailed out Shengjing Bank – by borrowing the capital it needed from the very same ailing regional lender.
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Singapore’s big-three lenders – UOB, DBS and OCBC – have won Euromoney awards for best SME bank in Asia each year since 2016, two of them taking the global award as well. Why?
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Global banks spent years trying to make China’s vast market work for them, mostly in vain. Today, though, China’s manufacturers are investing in Europe and the US, and turning to Western lenders for advice. The real China opportunity starts here.
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KVS Manian has been overlooked in favour of ex-Barclays man Ashok Vaswani. What does it mean for one of India’s finest banks?
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The Singapore regulator MAS has set guidelines for banks transitioning to net zero. Unusually, it cautions against moving too fast.
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Pressure is growing on Japan’s self-imposed caps on government bond yields. Positive rates must be around the corner, but what will that mean for banks and public debt?
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While foreign investment in China has fallen, supply-chain shift is a different story. Rather than transferring their main production away from China, manufacturers are cultivating deep regional supply chains across Asia and beyond.
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MUFG’s vast balance sheet has the potential to make a considerable difference to Japan’s net-zero ambitions. But the bank won’t be pulling back from polluters, arguing that money needs to flow to where emissions are, not away from them.
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Farmland acquisition for transition agriculture has proved attractive to the climate-focused investment management franchises of large asset managers. Will real-asset investors follow suit?
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The enormous re-listing of Arm Holdings is unrepresentative in many ways, but it still contains a valuable lesson for those coming down the pipe.
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Beneath the Great Game geopolitics of US-Vietnam relations, there are some intriguing possibilities in the detail.
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A debate in Australia arguing for the liquidation of the sovereign wealth fund has relevance to the global fund community.
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For decades, transaction banking was a profitable but largely ignored corner of the banking industry. Then Covid happened. Today, bank chiefs see it as critical to everything they do. Given the challenges ahead – collaborating with fintechs and embedding ESG principles in global supply chains – the revolution under way in this business is unstoppable.
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After years of easy Eurobond access and ramped-up Chinese lending, developing economies are now caught between rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions, making debt restructurings more numerous and more complicated. Despite some progress in inter-creditor talks, many debtor nations face an uncertain financial future.
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HKEx chief executive Nicolas Aguzin opened the group’s latest new office in London on Wednesday. His aim: to get more global firms to IPO in Hong Kong and convince investors to put money to work there. But against the backdrop of China’s economic situation, his team will have its work cut out.
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A handwritten note brings down the curtain on a 38-year journey for bank founder.
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Two new platforms show how India is building on top of its digital foundations.
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China is having a shocker of a year. Growth has stalled, deflation is back and global firms are moving production elsewhere as they de-risk from China to boost supply-chain resiliency. FDI is down sharply and exports are sinking. Just as Brexit reshaped the UK’s relationship with the world, has Covid done the same for China?
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Outbound Chinese M&A deal-flow has slowed to a crawl even as inbound activity remains steady. So focus in the region is moving elsewhere: to rising India, steady-and-lucrative Australia and even Japan, where once-bloated conglomerates are streamlining portfolios under intense pressure from activist shareholders.
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Despite its roots in the region, HSBC’s Asian woes have sometimes seemed endemic. It has been overly dependent on Hong Kong and too often caught in Sino-US crosshairs. But under regional co-CEOs Surendra Rosha and David Liao, the lender has regained its confidence, is more regionally diverse than ever, and is busy posting record profits.
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It is no surprise to find the ACCC blocking ANZ’s takeover of Suncorp. It is eye-catching, though, to see the regulator naming a deal it would prefer to see happen.
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Thirty percent of Singapore sovereign fund’s portfolio is in private equity or real estate. Surely this is as good as it gets for private markets.
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Credit growth is a key driver of stellar earnings from India’s banks as the country completes its recovery from Covid-19, but another driver is digital traction.
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Analysts are looking beyond China for clues as to where the main Asian currencies will go over the remainder of 2023 as they try to second-guess Japan’s monetary policy plans.
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Temasek, as an equity-only sovereign wealth vehicle, had a bad year. A close look at its portfolio positioning helps us understand what it is doing about it.
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For the first time in its 62-year history, the Reserve Bank of Australia has appointed a woman as governor.
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When Credit Suisse is taken over by UBS, it’s likely that the new parent’s appetite for structured private credit will be significantly different to that of the institution it is absorbing. Two banks in particular are waiting for the opportunity that follows.
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Issuance has barely stopped in Indonesia’s IPO market this year. Global investors have bought into the resource-led story with glee – and there are plenty of deals in the pipeline.
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Japan is the first major market to put a regulatory environment around stablecoins into law.
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Kevin Lam is to lead the Malaysian bank, becoming the second person within three years to step down as UOB’s TMRW digital head.
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Indonesia is one of the world’s brighter prospects right now: growth, demographics, infrastructure momentum, inflation under control, more equity raised in the first quarter in Jakarta than New York. Banks are positioning to benefit – while keeping an eye on next year’s elections.
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If Olam Agri’s planned dual-listing IPO goes ahead in June it will have a bit of everything: a Singapore-Saudi listing, geopolitics and sovereign funds jostling to defend their nations against strain in global food security.
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A curious disruptive technology group proudly announced an investment by Temasek. The problem: it wasn’t true.
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How on earth, in this environment, did the bank deliver one of its best-ever quarters in Asia?
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The French bank joins HSBC, DBS and others in setting up a full-service wealth management offering in the stable southeast Asian country, with all transactions booked in nearby Singapore.
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Tech-related bank deals can still get away, but investors call the shots now.
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The chair of Ping An Asset Management has called again for the break-up of HSBC and spin off of its Asia assets. His argument is a strong and valid one; his problem is that none of the bank’s other main shareholders seems to care.
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Australian banks adore residential mortgages. But they are ignoring a cohort of people who are going to run into a lot of trouble with repayments.
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The two bank’s investment banking franchises look enticingly well-matched. But how much business and how many bankers will still be around after the merger?
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With the advent of its strategic alliance with Japan’s Mizuho Financial, Lombard Odier now has wealth management tie-ups in seven Asia countries, with the promise of more to come.
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Twinco Capital facilitates access to sustainable funding by focusing on pre-production finance.
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Private banks that fled India in the 2010s are returning in force. Those that never left are frantically hiring. With a fast-growing economy creating a lot of new wealth across every sector, India is once again the toast of wealth managers.
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Pakistan has been trying to improve financial inclusion for the last 20 years with little success. Are new digital licences the answer?
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It has been over a decade and a half since a Chinese financial institution bought or invested in a Western counterpart. Beijing sees the West’s banking system as incomprehensibly chaotic and messy, and its own – albeit flawed – as a bastion of stability.
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Hong Kong conference moves along. Nothing to see here.
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Inflation has returned to the country for the first time in 30 years. As it does so, there is a new face at the helm of the Bank of Japan. What does it mean for the megabanks?
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Don’t expect a flood of IPOs, but there are still placements across Asia Pacific.
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From small beginnings as the offshoot of a British merchant bank in 1969, Macquarie has become the world’s largest infrastructure asset manager, a powerful investment bank, a global commodities player and several other things besides. It has built all of this through a distinct culture built on risk management, individual empowerment and a capacity for constant reinvention – but it hasn’t always been popular along the way. A new book by Euromoney’s senior editor in Asia Chris Wright and Joyce Moullakis examines the journey.
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The whereabouts of investment banker Bao Fan are unknown just when China wants to attract foreign talent and capital, not deter it.
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A day-by-day account of Adani’s stunning collapse in value.
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A two-week period saw Adani Group attacked by a short seller, abandon a $2.5 billion share offer and lose $100 billion in market value. What next? And what does it mean for Modi’s India?
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The desire among political and financial leaders in Beijing to climb the value chain in development finance is clear. But the challenges now facing a giant Chinese state-run infrastructure contractor at Nigeria’s new deep-water port in Lekki show that this is easier said than done.
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Yet another multi-billion-dollar loss on investments in SoftBank’s Vision Funds speaks to a malaise that is hurting the tech teams of investment banks in Asia.
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A report by a US short-seller hammered the stock of India’s Adani Group companies just as one of them tried to raise $2.5 billion in a follow-on. It was not just Adani under attack here, but Modi’s vision of corporate India.
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While big US banks edge slowly towards exchange-like trading of loans, a group of market veterans have tested a system in Asia and will soon launch in Europe.
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Last year, a connected cluster of village banks in the central province of Henan suffered one of China’s worst financial scandals in years. Beijing’s reaction: to create a new state bank that will take stakes in rural financial and credit institutions with the aim of spotting and weeding out corruption and improving financial governance.
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The southern Chinese city has set out ambitious plans to become one of the world’s top wealth-management centres. With one of China’s largest onshore pools of private wealth, there is everything to play for.